The Steam Deck's budget price tag is the reason I still rate it nearly two years on

Best $400 I've spent on a console by far. Including my PS4 and 5. Haven't touched my switch, PS5 or any other console since my deck came.

since my deck came
😳
- It came so hard.
The zelda sequel lured me away for a little while and spider man 2 for a lesser extent, but I spend more time on my deck than anything else. Hey that reminds me, I should dust my consoles.
- My friend showed me TotK playing better that it did on a switch… on his Steam deck lawl
Sadly this is not applicable in my country. If you want to get a Steam Deck unfortunately you'll need to shell out more money compared to buying a PS5 or an Xbox Series X.
- Exactly my issue as well. An ROG Ally is cheaper than the cheapest Deck. And both are more expensive that the PS5 and Xbox X

It's pretty much as powerful as the gaming PC I made several years ago and is a decent price. I'd be happy to recommend it to someone even not taking into account how versatile it is

My laptop's SSD died a while back, so I sent it away for repairs (yay, MSI's warranty).

In that brief period without a PC, my Steam Deck was a god send - used it as my main machine for 4 days. Was even able to work on it.

That's such a crazy addition to the value proposition, for me - totally makes it worth it.

Also, being able to play PS5 games in bed via Chiaki is delicious.

I've been using it as my main (and only) machine for the whole year. Work included (dev, illustration, graphic design, cgi)
I mean, that makes sense, because its just running (a slightly restricted) version Linux of under the hood, which I is what I run on my gaming and work pc
- It's an immutable version of stripped Arch, dunno if that counts as 'slightly restricted'. You can disable the read-only mode if you want to and know what you're doing.
- Yeah but it's still a hand held, that kind of power isn't expected.
Chiaki doesn't get enough credit.
How is your latency on Chiaki?
I have pretty decent home wifi and honestly...
It's just not a great experience.
Although tbf I installed it once on a macbook and the experience was not great. Didn't do hardly any finagling to improve latency
- The latency is so low I don't notice it at all. Weird that you're having problems.
  My ps5 is hooked up to the router via an ethernet cable, and I use a 5 Ghz network to play on. Never had any issues and never required any tweaking (played most of Jedi: Survivor with this setup).

Why hasn't anyone else made one to compete that's cheap? Because, Mr.Author...No one else can make their money back by selling software.

The Switch certainly predates the Deck, and they definitely make their money back on software, but being forced solely into the Nintendo ecosystem is off-putting. Only Microsoft is a likely candidate to make a handheld that uses their Game Pass, and I would bet they aren't really needing to push subscriptions at the moment.
- The Switch isn't that expensive to make, the chip, memory, and storage are all budget af.
- Why are you trying to compare a computer to a walled garden Nintendo switch? Hell, you're making my argument for me.
- You say it's off putting as if the Switch doesn't have dozens on dozens on dozens of quality 1st and 2nd party titles. Also, no one is being forced into the Nintendo ecosystem. It's a Nintendo product, and you buy a Nintendo console to play Nintendo games. It's not anti-gamer. That being said, apples and oranges to compare the switch to the deck.
Bingo,I think people forget Valve went out of their way to make their profit margin razor thin, or at a slight loss because they know the benefit of having a device that basically assures a new paying user will be added in their Steam ecosystem. It's based on Nintendo's walled garden philosophy after all, just refined really well on PC.
- It's not a walled garden though, Valve made no attempts to lock anything down. You can install something like Heroic Game Launcher on the Steam Deck and play Epic Game Store or GOG games too.
- Valve also made a really thought out and well designed product, which I think is pretty rare these days. The instant hibernation feature is just one example of why the Steam Deck is so much better than the competition
- It's funny. I thought I would just play through my SO's gargantuan library for a long while, but I'm pretty sure I've spent more on new games than I did on the Steam Deck itself at this point. So, yeah. They made the right call.

Rate it? Rate it what? 5/7?

Yeah I was confused by the wording of the title.
- "I rate it" is a pretty common phrase used to mean "I rate this thing positively", isn't it?
Is that a perfect 5/7?
That's a neat score.
With or without rice?

Does the title mean this person likes it?

I think so, but the wording is confusing to me.
- I read it as "The budget price tag is why I still care enough to rate it"

Basically its a repeat of the OG Gameboy story

Unrelated, but LowSpecGamer on YouTube has some great videos about the Gameboy's story and they are great. I recommend them to everyone
- Great channel, I've seen his doc vids
  Very glad he rediscovered his passion with those vids
  And yeah if you don't know what I'm talking about go check out his gameboy vid if interested, tldr the cheaper and more energy efficient tech in the gameboy is why it sold this good even though there are way more impressive products in the market

Probably putting windows on any device adds an another 100€ to the price tag. With Linux, you save money 🤷

Linux also runs better on lower spec machines due to its better resource management. Reason a lot of people started using Linux back in the day so they didn’t need to spend 10-15k on a Sun Spac box and could use a 1-3k desktop
They pay nothing like that.
You wouldn't really want it on the Steam Deck though.

My only real gripe is that the SSDs aren't being refreshed as component prices drop. There's no reason for the entry level not to be 256 now, with 512 mid range and 1TB top end. Retail - and I presume wholesale - prices on the parts have dropped by half or more since the deck was launched. There may be contractual issues involved, but - for Valve - it would make sense to make these machines as self-contained as possible. Yes, you can by a SD card, but at this point you probably shouldn't have to. And, lets face it, 64GB on a gaming device is pretty limiting. Just start slotting in larger drives as the inventory breaks the previous price floor and inventory is cleared.

Looks like they heard you.
https://www.steamdeck.com/en/
Entry model at $400 now comes with 256 GB SSD storage.
- Well I'll be damned. TBH, I didn't even know about the refresh - I enjoy mine enough that I'm not really in the market. Also, I snagged a TB ssd for $50 last month and installed it so, aside from the OLED I'm happy where I am. Besides, I'm such a casual I just can't get bent about that last 5% of black.

I just wish it ran Hunt showdown, its my only gripe about it, otherwise I love it.

Then bug the game developer about it.
- The game runs and is supported with its anti cheat for a while now but I assume the performance isn't great.
Good news! It does! My desktop was out of commission for a while due to a hardware issue, and I used my Steam Deck exclusively as my PC during that time. Hunt ran fine, with anti-cheat working, and I even racked up some kills and wins (with mouse and keyboard and a monitor ofc and at 720p). The handheld experience would be rough but obviously playing Hunt against PC players with a controller would be nearly impossible in 3 star and up.
- Wait...it works?! HOLY CRAP! you just made my day! Thank you!
It runs fine on Linux, is it a performance issue?

Guys, would it be wise to buy a Deck now (almost end of 2023)? Since rumors about Deck 2 has surfaced. I'm afraid the Deck 1 will reach end-of-life soon.

I don't know if you saw it, but they just announced an OLED Steam Deck earlier today.
Should have the same motherboard/specs based on leaks, just a much better screen.
I'd probably wait and see how much it will sell for, and I'd they discount the non-oled decks.
- LOL, I literally wrote that comment and went to sleep. Just to woke up the next morning to see the internet exploding with news about the refreshed Deck :)))
  Definitely gonna get a 512GB OLED now. If I hold off till Christmas, I may even be able to get the 1TB. The SSD upgrade is overpriced but the anti-glare should be nice.
Being that it’s Linux, it shouldn’t have an end of life even if they stop selling it
Your disadvantage would be hardware
This aged well 😄👌...
Just kidding. Steam just blow my mind with the new model announcement.

Still a very expensive paper weight, I think I've used mine about 6 times so far.....

I'm not sure what you expected the Steam Deck to do?
- Play games for him, without his input.
- It does what I "expected it to do" I think it comes down to the fact that I thought I would use it more but I find it uncomfortable to use.
  In general I don't get on so well with handhelds, I just hoped that this one would be the change in that, I loved the vita and used that all the time but every other handheld I've ever owned I never really used bar the aforementioned vita and the neo geo pocket colour way back when.
- Id say they're probably someone that never had a handheld, because lately I've been using it more than my desktop lol
This sounds like a "you" problem.
- Did I say it wasn't?
So sell it. They're pretty easy to sell used.
Then sell it. 🤦