Earlier in the year, I gave away most of my photographic equipment and my Windows laptop computer. I bought a more recent MacBook Air because I needed a computer that wasn't 10 years old and one that was powerful. The Omen by HP was good enough but not exactly powerful.
I've been wanting to play certain games since then. I have 99 games in my Steam library and quite a few outside of it. Some games now have macOS versions, so that's good but the FPS games have no equivalents, and with my mid-2012 MacBook Pro on Catalina, my old games just don't work there or on the 2020 MacBook Air.
I considered another Windows laptop computer. There are some deals, but when you get the storage to 1 TB and the RAM to 16 GB, the price is well over US$1000. Plus, when I considered the effects of fixing Windows from the various patches' problems, I didn't really want to deal with Windows again.
I considered a Nintendo Switch. They're awesome for playing Nintendo games. My GameCube and Wii are gone. I have a Mario game on the iPhone and a couple of other Nintendo-related games. I don't play often. Why spend so much money on a machine I might not use much?
I looked at various Windows handheld machines. The main problem is the same problem with Android--you don't know if there will be updates. Razer just put out an Android-based handheld, Edge, and it looks great, but tell me what happened to the Razer phones?
So, one night, I decided to just decide and I bought the top-of-the-line Steam Deck. 512 GB of storage, but with a microSD slot, plus 16 GB of RAM, 1280x800 resolution display. 1920x1080 would be better.
SteamOS and KDE Desktop are there for Linux mode. I didn't find Ubuntu to be a good daily operating system for me. I could use it, but it always needed me to do extra things. I hope that it's usable and I can play other games, but who knows? If GOG works on SteamOS, I'd be pleased.
In any case, I'm guessing that only around 20% of my game library will be functional. Valve games will work supposedly. I wish that they would migrate Source to 64-bit, so that Valve would support the latest macOS versions. It's not as though Apple is pushing them to ARM. They've had years to update to 64-bit applications.
Hopefully, games will work and be enjoyable. At 1.5 pounds, it's supposedly heavy. Anyone who has tried to use a Windows laptop computer in tablet mode shouldn't have a problem. 5 pounds and a 14 inch display is not easy to handle, no matter how many fingers you can use on the display.
I'm hoping for the best after spending slightly more than US$700 with tax.
So, it arrived after FedEx led me to believe that it wasn't arriving when it was scheduled. It went from "out for delivery" to "pending" in a matter of minutes after 5 P.M. local time. 30 minutes later, it had been delivered. I don't do unboxing videos, so the three photos will have to suffice.
First Impressions
It's big compared to the early handheld from Epyx/Atari or from Sega. It's a bit heavy at times. The anti-glare display is great. It has touch capabilities, so you can operate games and the operating system in a number of ways. It takes what the Steam Controller had and amplifies the capabilities.
There is a cleaning cloth that arrived with the unit, as well as the charger. Instructions are minimal.
I have around 30 games in my Steam library that are "great" with Steam Deck. I have installed over 10 of them. Most operate well, but Ni no Kuni Remastered has some audio glitches.
Some of the "great" games are games I have never tried, so it's good that Steam Deck is showing me what works well. There are a lot of games that need adjustments in the next category. I was pleased to see the Unreal Tournament 2004 is one of those. Apparently, keyboard interaction is manual, so the player must invoke the keyboard, rather than it being displayed automatically.
It's odd that not all of the Valve games hit the "great" category. There are two games attached to Half-Life that I'd like to play but they don't fall into the "great" category: Black Mesa, Half-Life 2 Update, and also, Portal Stories: Mel. Portal Stories: Mel falls into the untested category, so anything could happen, including that it could work perfectly.
Most everything is good, but the connection to Wi-Fi seems a bit dodgy. I'm not really worried. This is the best Linux-based machine I've ever had. It's based on Debian with KDE Desktop although I haven't tried that. I had hoped to play some games I have from GOG Galaxy, but there is not a Linux version. However, there may be a way to make it run on Debian.
It's only been two days. I have much to learn and do.
