Full Steam Deck reviews will not appear until February 25, when the embargo will subside and sales of a portable PC will begin. However, some media representatives have already received the device and published preliminary impressions of it based on games approved by Valve.
Management
Using Steam Deck is generally convenient, but owners of large brushes will find it easier than others. This is a payment for the flexibility of control settings, which allows you to comfortably play games of any genre.
Click and stick feel compared to the best console controllers.
Vibration (both when pressing the touchpad and in general) is one of the few drawbacks of the gadget at the moment. However, Valve promises to improve tactile feedback at the software level.
Heat
The Steam Deck doesn’t get particularly hot even during long gaming sessions on AAA entertainment like Control – The average temperature of the device is approximately equal to normal body temperature.
At the same time, the heating is distributed unevenly: it is least on the sides (about 25 ℃), and the highest is closer to the middle of the screen (about 45 to 62 ℃).
Noise level
In the same Control on low settings the gadget does not make much noise – the sound level approaches 40 decibels, which is comparable to the volume of a relatively quiet conversation.
Working hours
Officially stated from 2 to 8 hours of battery life. In fact, we get this:
Ghostrunner (medium settings, without blur, limit up to 30 fps) – 3 hours 21 minutes.
Devil May Cry 5 (High settings, V-sync) – 2 hours.
Dead Cells (with vertical sync) – 5.9 hours.
Image broadcast (apparently Remote Play) – 6 o’clock.
4K video – 3 hours.
Game loading times
Games run equally quickly from both SSD and microSD cards (for example, Control), however, the loading time of levels on different media is slightly different (for example, Ghostrunner).
Screen
The display is not as bright as the Nintendo Switch OLED.
Pretty deep black.
The anti-reflective coating on the 512 GB model does an excellent job with direct light.
Steam Deck is great for playing in a dimly lit room.
Performance
Control (low settings) – a little less than 60 fps.
Devil May Cry 5 (medium settings, FXAA+TAA) – about 85 fps.
Ghostrunner (medium settings, DirectX 11, no blur) – 75-80 fps.
Dead Cells – about 160 fps.
Forza Horizon 5 (low settings) – 60 fps.