If you're lucky enough to track down a Steam Deck, chances are you've already experienced the sweaty palm syndrome with this handheld console — just as our very own Jess Conditt did in her review. Worse yet, the machine is prone to throttling or even crashing due to overheating, to the point where modders came up with their own creative solutions. For the rest of us who don't want to void the warranty, though, Hong Kong-based Unitek is now offering the Cooler Dock Pro for Steam Deck. This is essentially Valve's official dock boosted with a thermoelectric cooler on the back, if you don't mind paying the extra $30.
Much like the official dock, Unitek's version cushions your Steam Deck — or any portable device, for that matter — with a strip of soft silicone, and there's a short USB-C cable dangling from the back for connecting to the console. The thermoelectric cooler, RGB-lit fan and metallic contact plate are all housed within a hinged module, which allows for minor tilt angle adjustment while supporting the Steam Deck.
The Cooler Dock Pro comes with a set of ports similar to those on Valve's dock, but with some placed at the front instead — the latter include two USB-A and one USB-C (up to 10Gbps), accompanied with two RGB lights. On the back, you get a USB-C PD socket (up to 100W passthrough), HDMI 2.1 and DisplayPort 1.4 and Gigabit LAN. It's worth noting that this dock supports Multi-Stream Transport i.e. daisy-chaining multiple monitors in the console's Linux desktop mode. If you're using just one video output, you'll get up to 8K at 60Hz or 4K at 120Hz; but if you're using both ports, then it's either dual 4K at 60Hz, or 8K at 30Hz on one and 1080p at 60Hz on the other.
Unitek has added one extra USB-C port on the
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