It's also noticeably heavier, weighing in at 669g as opposed to 440g for the original Switch.

The Steam Deck is massive by comparison, with the entire device coming in wider, taller, and thicker than Nintendo's counterpart. It starts with the Steam Deck's design, which will catch you by surprise if you're transitioning from a Nintendo Switch. Now Playing: Steam Deck Video Review Physical attention to detail With its AMD Zen 2 and RDNA 2 APU, it's head-and-shoulders above the Intel XE and Radeon Vega-powered portable gaming devices that made it to market first, creating a situation where you shouldn't really be looking at an alternative if you can get your hands on a Steam Deck.īy clicking 'enter', you agree to GameSpot's While that alone is impressive, it's in how well the Steam Deck performs that it becomes clear that it doesn't have much competition at all.

Better yet, it comes in at a reasonable price, starting at $400 and reaching only $650 for its highest-tier model-essentially half the price of its closest competitors. With cutting-edge hardware, thoughtfully designed ergonomics, a satisfying controller layout, and a software layer that simplifies PC gaming, the Steam Deck makes it a breeze to link to your Steam account and get started with your library on the go. However, Valve's Steam Deck addresses both pitfalls entirely.

While there are great devices out there now, such as the Aya Neo Pro, they're still limited by the capabilities of mobile hardware while also costing a lot more than its performance suggests. There's been an explosion of similarly compact PC devices attempting to mimic the success of the Nintendo Switch by letting you take your PC games library with you anywhere, with some mixed results. Instead, they're now capable of letting you take console-quality experiences on the go.

No longer are handhelds relegated to good hardware trapped by inherently technologically limited games. Ever since the launch of the Nintendo Switch in 2017, the perception of what a handheld gaming device can be has changed.

How good is the steam deck