this post was submitted on 10 Jun 2024
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Steam Deck
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A place to discuss and support all things Steam Deck.
Replacement for r/steamdeck_linux.
As Lemmy doesn't have flairs yet, you can use these prefixes to indicate what type of post you have made, eg:
[Flair] My post title
The following is a list of suggested flairs:
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[News] - News about the deck.
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[Meta] - Discussion about this community.
Some more Steam Deck specific flairs:
[Boot Screen] - Custom boot screens/videos.
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- Follow the rules of Sopuli
- Posts must be related to the Steam Deck in an obvious way.
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"if only we had a way to like, take a desktop pc and make it, like, not tethered to a power outlet. and made the mouse and keyboard a part of the case. and added a screen and speakers too. too bad we have no idea how to do that." -Microsoft, as they shove the 10,000 laptops off of the desk. "guess we will have to do it ourselves."
(yeah yeah a laptop "isn't a handheld" but you get the stupidity all the same, surely. MS abandoned their platform just to make a different, more constrained platform, and charge people for multi-player. and they want to act like they couldn't do that 25 years ago for free. fuck off MS.)
To be fair, gaming laptops kinda suck (at least they did when I owned one). I would probably recommend a steam deck + a desktop over a gaming laptop.
Same. Every gaming laptop i have ever had the displeasure of using has been absolute garbage.
The steam deck on the other hand? Pure kino.
What's the difference? Afaict most of the problems with gaming laptops (e.g. the form factor introducing restrictions on power and cooling capacity) are independent of the specific os and hardware. How does the steam deck solve them better?
Gaming laptops are both too big to be portable, and yet subpar for a desktop experience. I feel like they're an inconvenient compromise between something focused on being a portable gaming experience and a desktop computer, and they fail to meet either need well.
I am one of those that fell for the falacy of "gaming laptops" because I have to travel a lot for work, and need my dose of gaming to stay sane. As such, I usually played on console when at home, work on a non-gaming PC, and tried to game on a laptop while away.
I found that, while I was able to somewhat play a bit while on the ground, those laptops are huge power suckers. This lead to any flight over 2 hours leaving me at the expense of the airline's ad-ridden and ridiculously limited "entertainment" (those that provide it and IF they provided it). Never mind how freaking hot they get and how heavy that shot is (21 pounds with the power brick).
The deck has saved my life. I can carry a powerful laptop that will give me 8+ hours of battery for my in-flight media consumption and watch whatever the he'll I want without being exposed to ads and the pilot interrupting my enjoyment, and I can play anything available offline on my deck at any point.
Unfortunately I still have a "gaming" system76 laptop that is only 2 years old, this is my second (and last) "gaming" laptop. My next travel companion will not have, nor need, dedicated GPU, because the deck covers that itch.
I have only positive experience with them. The only downside is it gets hot like hell, but other than that it works spectacularly.
My experience with them is they're too large to be portable in any sort of convenient way, have terrible battery life, struggle to compete with desktops for performance (without spending a huge amount on the laptop), frequently have overheating issues (especially as they age), and lack the upgrade freedom of a desktop requiring you to buy a brand new laptop every few years.
My personal experience is based on an $1850 Asus gaming laptop I had 10 years ago though, so maybe things have changed since then or other brands are better.