You could, but what makes Steam Deck special is that it’s SteamOS is built specifically for that hardware, enabling functions you wouldn’t normally see in gaming PC hardware.
At least one of the main features is seamless suspend/resume. Not sure what the state of that is on Windows but I’ve seen a lot of people mention that SD feature specifically.
Small nitpick. I’m not sure why you don’t like the idea of the vendor having stuff installed on hardware they make, to ensure it functions optimally. Like, on a primary compute device, sure, be picky about the OS. But this is a game platform. Nobody gives a shit that Nintendo makes their own OS for their hardware, why does anyone care how the Steam Deck does it’s thing?
Fair enough! I mean, that would be really nice tbh. Also it makes me realize that consoles only exist for DRM, which is sucky. Granted, I stopped buying consoles almost a decade ago, so I never stopped to think about it.
The difference is that if the device comes with Steam OS, then it’s ready to go out of the box and you’re assured the hardware has good Linux support.
If it’s originally a Windows device then you may have to jump through additional hoops to get everything working. Also you’ll have to deal with allowing other OS’s in the BIOS if it’s locked.
Also you’ve paid Microsoft for a license you won’t use.
The flip side is that there’s work to make a native Steam OS build for 3rd party portable devices:
I used the steam deck as a daily driver between laptops. It was good enough to the point that if I had a decent mobile monitor, I would consider it exclusively for a travel rig.
I’ve got an external monitor and my full keyboard and mouse with a dock and my steam deck. I can set up anywhere with a desk and game, program, whatever. I’ve found very little that it can’t handle.
I’m using this portable monitor but it is kind of finicky, and I worry it’ll break easily. It’s the biggest one I could find at a reasonable price, and happens to fit my backpack.
I’ve used it with my 3440x1440 freesync monitor at home, and it works as well, but like anything, whether you can game at that resolution is very dependant on the specific game and settings you use.
I’ll add, because the deck doesn’t have thunderbolt, plan on using HDMI instead of type c.
It’s possible you can find a type c (non-thunderbolt) dock that supports powering and driving a monitor over type c along with the deck, but I wasn’t able to find one.
I am looking specifically for a single device for travelling with. But the built in controllers of the Steamdeck are just a little too goofy for me to give it much serious consideration.
Outside of the better gpu, the one advantage the other devices have is emulation. Steamdeck sits on the edge of performance for some of the harder to emulate devices heavy titles (PS3, Switch). The ones using Ryzen 3/4 would trivially handle emulation better than the Steamdecks CPU, which uses Ryzen 1+ (part of the reason why its low cost)
Wouldn’t it be rather simple to install Linux on them though?
You could, but what makes Steam Deck special is that it’s SteamOS is built specifically for that hardware, enabling functions you wouldn’t normally see in gaming PC hardware.
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At least one of the main features is seamless suspend/resume. Not sure what the state of that is on Windows but I’ve seen a lot of people mention that SD feature specifically.
There’s also the global framerate limiter. Pretty sure that’s impossible to do on Windows.
The AMD driver can cap your game framerate globally, 90Hz instead of 144Hz saves a lot of power but is still much smoother than 60Hz
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Small nitpick. I’m not sure why you don’t like the idea of the vendor having stuff installed on hardware they make, to ensure it functions optimally. Like, on a primary compute device, sure, be picky about the OS. But this is a game platform. Nobody gives a shit that Nintendo makes their own OS for their hardware, why does anyone care how the Steam Deck does it’s thing?
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Fair enough! I mean, that would be really nice tbh. Also it makes me realize that consoles only exist for DRM, which is sucky. Granted, I stopped buying consoles almost a decade ago, so I never stopped to think about it.
The difference is that if the device comes with Steam OS, then it’s ready to go out of the box and you’re assured the hardware has good Linux support.
If it’s originally a Windows device then you may have to jump through additional hoops to get everything working. Also you’ll have to deal with allowing other OS’s in the BIOS if it’s locked.
Also you’ve paid Microsoft for a license you won’t use.
The flip side is that there’s work to make a native Steam OS build for 3rd party portable devices:
https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2023/06/the-linux-coders-turning-the-rog-ally-and-other-handhelds-into-steam-deck-clones/
and
https://chimeraos.org/
I suppose. But then why not steam deck?
If you like the hardware of one of the others more. I think the Legion Go looks pretty sweet. Wonder if it could make a good daily driver even.
I used the steam deck as a daily driver between laptops. It was good enough to the point that if I had a decent mobile monitor, I would consider it exclusively for a travel rig.
I’ve got an external monitor and my full keyboard and mouse with a dock and my steam deck. I can set up anywhere with a desk and game, program, whatever. I’ve found very little that it can’t handle.
What monitor are you using? Can the dock drive it?
I’m using this portable monitor but it is kind of finicky, and I worry it’ll break easily. It’s the biggest one I could find at a reasonable price, and happens to fit my backpack.
I’ve used it with my 3440x1440 freesync monitor at home, and it works as well, but like anything, whether you can game at that resolution is very dependant on the specific game and settings you use.
I’ll add, because the deck doesn’t have thunderbolt, plan on using HDMI instead of type c. It’s possible you can find a type c (non-thunderbolt) dock that supports powering and driving a monitor over type c along with the deck, but I wasn’t able to find one.
I am looking specifically for a single device for travelling with. But the built in controllers of the Steamdeck are just a little too goofy for me to give it much serious consideration.
A tablet form-factor Steamdeck? I’d be sold.
You might think that. But consider that there will likely be fully functional keyboards via those same controllers.
I used mine for travel in business. it performed fine. It was nice to not have have a separate key board (although I did keep one with me).
I doubt I’m going to write much code on a controller I’m afraid.
Thats your business and your use case may differ. My use case is wearing leather jackets with shoulder pads while standing outside isolated telephone booths..
I really think if they keyboard was sufficient it would actually be kindof fun to program this way.
Outside of the better gpu, the one advantage the other devices have is emulation. Steamdeck sits on the edge of performance for some of the harder to emulate devices heavy titles (PS3, Switch). The ones using Ryzen 3/4 would trivially handle emulation better than the Steamdecks CPU, which uses Ryzen 1+ (part of the reason why its low cost)