Steam Deck's Battery Can Deplete In 90 Minutes If FPS Is Not Capped

gamerant.com:

The Steam Deck is set to release on February 25, meaning that more and more information has begun to surface about the handheld gaming PC. Some reviewers who received the Steam Deck early have noted that the device's battery life could drain quicker than Valve's claimed 2 hour minimum.

The YouTube channel GamersNexus tested the Steam Deck with multiple different games with various settings enabled. When running Devil May Cry 5 with an uncapped framerate, Vsync disabled, and the brightness set to 50%, the Steam Deck was only able to last for 87 minutes. When running Devil May Cry 5 with Vsync enabled, slightly lower settings, and the framerate capped at 60 FPS, the Steam Deck was able to last an extra 30 minutes, making Valve's claimed minimum of 2 hours.

Steam Deck Is Officially Launching On February 25

Another YouTuber, The Phawx, subjected the Steam Deck to multiple battery life stress tests. The Phawx tested the device's battery with Control by turning Vsync off and changing the game's graphical settings to low. This allowed the device to achieve 90 FPS but caused the battery to only last for around 90 minutes. The YouTuber noted that there would be no reason to achieve 90 FPS in-game when the device only has a 60Hz display.

A recent video showed the Steam Deck running Cyberpunk 2077 at a stable framerate. While this is certainly impressive, it will be interesting to see how long the device's battery life will last when tasked with running the exceptionally hardware-intensive title. Those who received the device early have stated that users will get the most out of the Steam Deck's battery life by playing older and less graphically intensive titles.

Another surprising detail that those who received the device early have