Happy to answer! Don’t worry I don’t bite haha.

Its draws for me were:

• Portability: Carry it wherever you want. Game on the couch or on the go.
• Price: Starts at 400 USD.
• Performance: It has decent performance.
• Ease of use: It’s plug and play like a console. Don’t have to mess around with settings if you don’t want to.
• Dockable: Use any USB C dock to connect it to your monitor/TV and play games on a larger screen.
• Linux PC: Switch to Desktop Mode and it’s now a regular computer.
• Not restricted to Steam: If you have a game library on other service such as GOG or Epic, you can use a third-party launcher like Heroic.
• Repairability: Valve’s been good about providing spare parts. You can upgrade storage on your own.
• Comes with a nice carry case.

Drawbacks that I found:

• Certain games aren’t supported on Linux - especially many multiplayer games with anti-cheat.
• It’s heavy: My fingers fatigue far quicker as compared to a Nintendo Switch. Haven’t tried other handhelds so I can’t provide a comparison with them.

I was pleasantly surprised by Teardown’s campaign. Didn’t expect it to be that good. Completed the story in the base game and had a lot of fun.

Ran well on the Steam Deck.

Yep. Connect using Bluetooth or via a USB dongle/dock.

They’ve been trying to phase out the 64 GB and 512 GB Steam Decks for a while now. Surprised they still have so many in stock.

Indeed, but you miss out on the etched glass if you’re into that.

✅ am lazy
✅ am couch potato

Felt like a great fit.

It’s been my username for 10 years online and I plan on sticking with it. I do go by LCP nowadays though as it’s shorter.

Java is quite popular online due to all the mods and the videos people upload to YouTube using those mods, but I believe in terms of number of users, Bedrock outscores it quite a bit. The barrier to entry is lower – $7 on iOS/Android and most people have phones.

Looks like they heard you.

https://www.steamdeck.com/en/

Entry model at $400 now comes with 256 GB SSD storage.

“Only” 12 years here.

I don’t doubt there’s a market for this, I just wish for $200 it had more use cases than just “PS5 controller with a screen”. I have a Steam Deck with Chiaki4deck installed for this and while it does cost 2x, it’s a proper gaming machine and a computer.

I wonder what the internals are, and if it’s moddable.

games that are streamed through PlayStation Plus Premium’s cloud streaming, are not supported.

Would have been cool if they figured out a way to stream those games directly to the Portal.

EDIT: Looks like it runs Android, with Google’s services removed. https://androiddev.social/@MishaalRahman/110939834517107216. Wasn’t aware that there were leaks that confirmed this.

The article doesn’t take into consideration that you can get Halo Infinite multiplayer from the Microsoft Store as well. While there’s no way to tell how many people are on it since MS Store numbers aren’t public, I’d imagine it being somewhat significant as Halo Infinite campaign is on PC Game Pass.