All We Currently Know About the Steam Deck

Recurring readers may recall that back in late May, I wrote about a rumor regarding the possibility that Valve might be working on a handheld console intended to run Steam games. That rumor went on to speculate that if Valve played their cards right, they could have such a device hit the market by the end of 2021. Well, Valve has now officially made it clear that those rumors were true, and I have been rendered absolutely overjoyed by this news.

The one thing the rumor in question (understandably) didn’t get quite correct was the name of Valve’s potential upcoming handheld device. It was initially speculated that this console would be known as the “Steam Pal.” However, as you gleaned from this article’s title, Valve has come forward and proclaimed that it’ll actually be called the “Steam Deck.”

I am here today to provide you with a roundup of everything that is currently known about this device. Let’s waste no further time and dive right into it before more news breaks and this article is almost instantaneously rendered obsolete. First and foremost, let’s discuss pricing.

There are three different versions of the Steam Deck, all of which are currently available for reservation. The base model (which costs $399 USD) comes equipped with 64 gigabytes of eMMC storage. From my understanding, this type of storage is akin to having a built-in microSD card in terms of things like capacity and speed. I’ll come back to why that idea is relevant in a bit.

The second model of the Steam Deck features, instead of the aforementioned 64GB of eMMC storage, a 256GB NVMe solid state drive as its primary storage solution. Clocking in at an asking price of $529 USD, this model can boast significantly faster read and write speeds thanks to that upgraded drive, not to mention the obvious upgrade to capacity over the base model. It apparently also comes with an exclusive Steam Community bundle for your Steam profile, though I have no idea what that contains at present.

Finally, there’s the third and most expensive model of the Steam Deck. This one comes packed with a 512GB NVMe solid state drive for storage, as well as what Valve calls “premium anti-glare etched glass.” This model will set you back $649 USD, and it also comes with a few extra goodies that are only available to those who purchase this specific variant. Namely, Valve states that you’ll gain access to an exclusive virtual keyboard theme and what may be that same aforementioned Steam Community profile bundle.

The $649 model also comes with a somehow-different model of carrying case. I should mention that all three models come with a carrying case by default to help you protect and safely transport your device. However, exactly what makes this model’s version of that so “exclusive” hasn’t yet been revealed. While we’re on the topic of each model’s inbuilt storage capacity, one thing I consider to be a major bonus is the fact that all three versions of the Steam Deck have an available microSD card slot which serves to provide expandable storage.

The primary reason why I consider that such a huge plus takes my own personal situation into consideration. If you’re like me, you may not be able to afford one of the models that have higher capacities of built-in storage. However, you might also happen to have an extra 256GB or 512GB microSD card lying around. This would mean that the Steam Deck provides an excellent opportunity to put such cards to good use.

If you purchase one of the models of the Steam Deck with an SSD for storage, but you find that neither 256GB nor 512GB of space is quite enough for you, you might be wondering if any upgrades can be made by the end user to increase those amounts of capacity. PC Gamer reports that since the SSD is socketed in place rather than soldered directly to the Steam Deck’s motherboard, you could theoretically upgrade it if you really wanted to and knew exactly what you were doing.

However, if you were to attempt that, it’s likely that you would end up voiding the device’s warranty in the process. To quote Valve directly on the Steam Deck’s page on the main Steam Store, “all models use socketed 2230 m.2 modules (not intended for end-user replacement).” At least that means we know it’s possible in theory, but I’m certainly not a brave enough soul to attempt an upgrade by myself whenever I eventually manage to get my hands on a Steam Deck.

I mentioned earlier that you can reserve your very own Steam Deck right now. In exchange for a five-dollar deposit you’ll need to put down when submitting your reservation, you’ll be put on a list and subsequently notified by Valve via email when you can complete the rest of the purchase. That initial $5 fee will be applied to the total cost of your Steam Deck when you proceed with buying it, so that money most assuredly won’t go to waste.

However, the main caveat I’ve seen when reserving a Steam Deck is that, assuming you weren’t one of the lucky first few to get your name on that list right as reservations went live the morning of July 16th, you may well end up waiting quite a while to get your shiny new device in hand. The Steam Deck’s official page on the Steam Store reports that the base and 256GB models are now expected to be available in Q2 2022, with the 512GB model expected to be available in Q3 2022 instead.

Having said that, if you managed to slog through all the server issues on Steam’s end (or bypass them entirely) and get your reservation confirmed early enough, your device may be among the first to ship out. Valve expects the first slew of reservations will begin shipping sometime in December 2021. That’s what confirms the aforementioned rumor’s speculation that Valve’s handheld console could reach at least some purchasers by the end of this year.

If you’re curious as to how many Steam Deck models have already been reserved since July 16th, Pavel Djundik, one of the masterminds behind Steam Database, shared some figures to that effect on Twitter. Granted, those numbers were only viewable in specific circumstances due to a bug that Valve has since fixed, so we probably won’t be seeing any updated counts anytime soon unless Valve personally announces them.

According to Mr. Djundik’s Tweets, though, a combined total of about 83 thousand orders had already been placed for the 256GB and 512GB models of Steam Deck in the U.S. and Canada alone by the time that bug was fixed. My gut tells me that’s why order shipping estimates have already been pushed back so far into next year.

I think that’s quite enough rambling about storage and the reservation process. Aside from those solid state drives, what kind of hardware is actually in these things? Well, for starters, it’s worth noting that storage capacity and that “premium anti-glare etched glass” I mentioned earlier are the only differences between all three Steam Deck models. Beyond that, powering all of them is a custom APU provided by AMD. It’s a four-core/eight-thread chip with a core clock speed of between 2.4 and 3.5 gigahertz.

The GPU portion of that chip packs eight compute units and clock speeds of between 1.0 and 1.6 GHz. All three models of Steam Deck also feature sixteen gigabytes of LPDDR5 system memory running in quad-channel. For a display, the Steam Deck features a seven-inch LCD touchscreen with a native resolution of 1280 x 800. All three models come equipped with Wi-Fi and Bluetooth connectivity, as well as a USB Type-C port.

Each Steam Deck contains a 40 Watt-hour battery, whose per-charge lifespan will vary widely depending on your activity. Valve estimates that the battery will last between two and eight hours on a single charge, though again, that depends on how heavy your current workload is. The specific example Valve provided to IGN stated, “You can play Portal 2 for four hours on this thing. If you limit it to 30fps, you’re going to be playing for 5-6 hours.”

I don’t think I need to tell you folks that Portal 2 is a ten-year-old game at the time of writing. I must confess that being able to play that at what’s basically 720p/60 frames per second for four hours (or even less) on a Steam Deck’s inbuilt battery doesn’t exactly sound hugely promising to me. Even so, I look forward to eventually being proven wrong by this device’s capabilities.

Going back to the hardware and whatnot that I mentioned earlier, I must admit that I know very little about what any of that actually means. In all honesty, I just sort of parroted it into this article because I can’t quite wrap my head around what something like a “compute unit” is and what having eight of them means for the Steam Deck’s gaming performance. If you’d like a more thorough breakdown of what powers the Steam Deck, I would recommend checking out the video from Gamers Nexus which I’ve included below.

There are two more things I consider important to mention about the Steam Deck at this point in time. Of those, the aspect that will take slightly less time to explain is the fact that Valve plans to release a dock for the device. There’s no word on when this dock will actually release or how much it’ll cost at present. However, Valve has revealed (albeit somewhat vaguely) that the dock will allow users to “prop up” their Steam Deck “while connecting to external displays, wired networking, USB peripherals, and power.”

The final detail about the Steam Deck that I want to briefly discuss is Valve’s philosophy when it comes to this new handheld console. Valve’s representatives have made it abundantly clear since the device’s initial announcement that they don’t see the Steam Deck as a proprietary piece of hardware which shuts users out from doing anything except playing their Steam libraries on it.

Rather, Valve sees the Steam Deck as a much more versatile handheld PC. They’ve stated that you can install other game storefronts and libraries on your device, which includes Steam’s direct competitor, the Epic Games Store. Heck, they’ve even confirmed that if you wanted to, you could remove the inbuilt installation of Valve’s own Linux-based SteamOS and run Microsoft Windows on your Steam Deck. I’m sure there are several tech YouTube channels out there who are chomping at the bit to give that a try.

To conclude, I’d like to reiterate something I said at the beginning of this article. I am ecstatic about the news that Valve is entering the handheld gaming PC market, and I’m even more tantalized by the prospect of eventually getting my hands on my very own Steam Deck. I certainly don’t have the cash to drop on one right now, though. Hopefully they’ll be more readily available once I’ve saved up enough to click that fateful “purchase” button.