Steam Deck hand-held Gaming system

Jul 19, 2021
Jack Wallen
A Linux and KDE-powered portable gaming platform is set to be released by Valve.

More than just a hand-held gaming system, the Steam Deck is a Linux-powered system, with a KDE interface, that can be docked and used as a regular PC. Steam Deck uses Proton as a compatibility layer to play Windows games on Linux, but users are free to replace it.

The device specs include an AMD 4-core Zen 2 CPU, an 8-core RDNA 2 graphics unit, 16 GB of memory, a 7-inch 1280x800-resolution touchscreen. As far as game control, Steam Deck includes several trackpads, thumbsticks, buttons, and triggers. A 40Wh battery is said to allow anywhere from two to eight hours of use. The device is charged via a single USB-C port that doubles as the means to connect the Steam Deck to external monitors and docks.

Steam Deck has three price points, based on different storage options: A base level of 64GB eMMC using PCIe Gen 2, a second-tier model with 256GB NVMe SSD using PCIe Gen 3, and a 512GB “high-speed” NVMe SDD that also uses PCIe Gen 3. The costs of the units (respectively) are $400, $530, and $650.

Valve plans on shipping the units in the US, Canada, EU, and the UK in December 2021.