As good as the touch pads are, I find myself avoiding their use altogether.

However, I found myself preferring the thumb sticks over the tracks pads or gyro. There are track pads under the thumb sticks that emulate mouse controls, and with some sensitivity tweaking I was able to play a first person shooter with them. There are gyro controls, which you can use in some first person shooters to give mouse-like accuracy. The Steam Deck is packed with hardware features-some of which I’ll probably never touch. It could be because of the way its textured, which is ironic, because the slightly textured plastic makes it much easier to get a grip on the system. I’m not sure what it is, but the plastic that Valve uses to manufacture their hardware always felt cheap to me. Ever.īuild-wise, the Steam Deck feels solid-but my initial impressions were that it felt a little cheap. And while the Steam Deck doesn’t have the docking capabilities of the Nintendo Switch-and I find myself constantly wishing you could just drop the Steam Deck into a dock and play on a TV-it’s easily my favorite handheld I’ve ever owned. You can even install Windows on it, emulators and tinker with it in many ways that closed off consoles like the Nintendo Switch doesn’t allow without having to look up guides online-and hoping it works out. However, doing either of these things requires a USB hub or a third party dock (since Steam’s has been delayed)-both of these options can run you a small chunk of change, with JSaux releasing a Steam Deck Dock Alternative for around $50. The Steam Deck is a surprisingly versatile console-it can be used as a desktop computer, and you can even connect it to a TV for a couch-based console experience.

And while early reviews called Steam Deck a little rough around the edges, after applying the latest updates, my Steam Deck experience was great out of the box. I’ve had my Steam Deck for a month now, and I’ve been putting it through its paces. So the Steam Deck is finally getting out to more eager customers, and with Valve announcing increased production, you can place an order and get a Steam Deck later this year-way shorter than the year I waited to get mine.

How good is the steam deck