Steam Deck review: Expect an experimental gaming experience

digitaltrends.com:

Valve’s Steam Deck is an exercise in expectation setting. If you’re buying one hoping it’ll be the be-all and end-all of video game devices, you’re going to be disappointed. It’s not going to replace your PC or Nintendo Switch, nor does Valve intend for it to. And if you’re imagining a future where you’ll be able to download any new release and seamlessly take it on the go, keep dreaming.

While it’s undoubtedly an impressive portable gaming device, it’s important to remember that the Steam Deck is very much an experimental one, too. It’s another attempt to give players unlimited freedom in a sea of competing ideas that range from gaming tablets to cloud services to conceptual home servers. Valve does what it does best here (no, not develop video games) to create a powerful piece of hardware, but the Steam Deck is an alternate vision of the future, not an inherently better one.

When the Steam Deck is functioning at peak performance, it’s a revelatory device that feels like it could completely disrupt the gaming hardware cycle as we know it. At the same time, it’s very apparent that this is a first draft that leaves plenty of room for improvement. Between questionable design choices, inconsistent software compatibility, and a weak battery that dampens its ultimate selling point, the Steam Deck is more of a spark than a full-blown revolution.

Before diving into all the impressive specs, it’s important to get something very basic out of the way: Holding a Steam Deck is akin to lifting a cat by its armpits.

The first thing you’ll notice when you unbox the device is that it’s a giant. Let’s use the Nintendo Switch OLED for comparison. The Steam Deck is just over two inches longer than that device, coming in at 11.7 inches.