Some things that are of interest to me are…
- a screen protector
- some kind of sleeve or a really slim case.
- maaaaybe the dock (my friend is telling me to get one)
i have a dock and a steam controller, and it’s performing nicely as a pc attached to the tv as well as a gaming console/handheld
a steam controller
Do you mean one of those old ones with the two touch circles that kind of make it look like an owl’s face? That’s awesome.
I actually have an 8BitDo Pro 2 that I was thinking I’d use if I wanted to play docked. I also kept an old PS4 controller around for some reason.
yeah one of the old ones. i never noticed the owl face but uh yeah it does look like that and now i cant unsee it. it’s pretty good for desktop navigation, and i think it’s a shame they don’t make them anymore
i’d say a usb hub, so you can easily connect kb and mouse if you want to get into desktop mode.
the one i have has usb3 in and out for power passthrough.
a couple of normal usbs , hdmi output, and ethernet port.for me i also use that hub to add in usb storage (mostly if i want movies when travelling or something)
i use the ethernet port for large downloads - my wifi is a bit lame.
i’m thinking about a 3d printed stand for it (that i can clip the hub into) - but i might just make one out of scrap wood because it’s nicer than shitty plastic.
The Deckmate has a nice injected plastic mold which sounds like exactly what you’re looking for.
A dock is really nice, the one by Valve isn’t exactly necessary, I bought one for 40€ on Amazon and it works perfectly.
None are necessary. Buy what you need, not what other people say you should get.
For 9/10 people Steam Deck is a complete package.
I think the only thing you need to consider with Steam Deck is little things like installing Proton-GE for greater game compatibility. SteamGridDB Decky plugin for non-steam games so they have all the nice artwork etc.
I will say though, I upgraded my 64GB eMMC Steam Deck to a 1TB SSD a few months ago and this OLED Steam Deck is super goddamn tempting.
I would look at it as “maybe consider later”, but the limited edition look is sexy. I’m not going to actually do it (I basically locked that in by buying a PS5 today) any time soon, even though I didn’t regret the upgrade with the switch at all, but it’s definitely a tempting upgrade.
Fun fact, you can set-up remote play with the PS5 on your Steam Deck. Got it set-up here. Occasionally use it.
I tried with ps4. I can’t tolerate the latency.
God damn is the controller an even bigger upgrade than I expected, though. The precision vibration is way better than the switch and the triggers are legit as hell stacked with it. Astro’s playroom shows it off really well.
To get lower input latency ensure your PS5 is connected via a network cable, then the only wireless hop is via the Steamdeck. Gets to be pretty reasonable input latency then, best with 60fps games.
PS5 remote play is actually the primary reason I started looking at larger handhelds. I have been using a Retroid Pocket 3+, but the tiny 720p screen is starting to hurt my eyes at night. I had looked at the steam deck already, but I wanted something with a more ideal screen. The timing of the OLED couldn’t have been more perfect for me.
maaaaybe the dock (my friend is telling me to get one)
Unless you have something to replace its functionality with already, just get the dock. You are probably going to want to plug in a mouse and keyboard and monitor eventually; it’s a full x86-64 linux computer with a desktop mode in addition to being a hand-held gaming console.
Personally, I usually use it more like a traditional gaming console (with my old xbox360 wireless controller plugged into the dock and hooked up to my monitor) – that I can pick up and take with me occasionally – but have written code on it and installed mods/patches that have to be copied into specific parts of a game’s folder and such. Just being able to use it like a regular computer is nice.
I thought the case it came with was fine personally, but I’ve only traveled with it a little bit.
If you aren’t sure about a dock, you should at least look at getting an inexpensive usb hub. I found that and a 3d-printed stand was good enough for propping it up to use with kb/m on occasion.
Other than that, for me at least, installing Anydesk made things much easier to set things up in desktop mode and transfer files from my desktop pc.
This is the first I’ve heard of Anydesk. Does that basically mean I can operate the steam deck in desktop mode from my actual computer? If so, that would be amazingly handy! (I’m particularly glad they have a version for Mac.)
Yeah, it just allows you to open a remote session from your desktop to your Steam Deck (or mobile or any other device you want to use AnyDesk with).
Hey I’ve just installed AnyDesk on the Steam Deck and my Mac. It’s consistently disconnecting after exactly 1m. Is that normal behavior for a free tier user?
I didn’t have any connection issues when I used it. This might help:
https://support.anydesk.com/knowledge/disconnecting-sessions
for me dock and skins to protect. The screen skin is just a film but the body type protector is a rubbery type stuff but mine came with an adapter so it would work fine with the steam dock. My steam dock has an annoying issue with the power where it sometimes just does not work so if I had to do again I would get a third party dock. The worst part of the issue is that its just not quite bad enough to go through the hassle of doing a return but just annoying enough to come across it regularly to remind me to be annoyed about it.
About the dock, I would add that if you want to do emulation stuff, a dock with kb/mouse makes it a lot easier. Can you do it with the trackpad and on screen keyboard, yes. Will you hate yourself for trying after 5 minutes, also yes. 😂 Maybe it was just me, I found doing anything other than basic settings changes nearly impossible without kb/mouse.
If possible, I’d like to install some kind of Remote Desktop app on the deck so I can just do all that stuff from a window on my primary computer.
If it’s just file management (which for emulators, it is) I would just use FileZilla. It’s a basically GUI for SSH but I like it.
Steam Link works really well to remote into desktop mode. You just need to install the Steam Link client on your PC or phone.
