Historically we have both Nintendo and Palm to thank for the handheld computer/gaming market/space. Both companies introduced very inexpensive hardware into a mostly non-existent market.
What followed is typical for technology markets. While Sony and others jumped in with their own much more costly offerings in the game space, Microsoft with most of the 'PC' type OEM's jumped into the 'personal data assistant' (PDA) space with increasingly overblown and over priced offerings.
Then the 'smart phone' market matured enough to mostly blow up BOTH the handheld gaming and PDA markets.
IMHO: here we simply have history repeating itself.
Valve opens a market with handheld 'PC like' gaming experience with 1000's of content that had never been played on a handheld before that includes a fairly low cost entry point and other hardware OEM's follow on with more powerful and much more costly devices.
While every gamer may have different priorities in my mind: cost, battery life and user experience (be it the quality of the visuals, weight of the device or how the controls feel) and exactly what games you can play all factor in to a gamers purchasing decision. (along with 'fill in the blank')
I've considered getting a SteamDeck or other handheld PC gaming rig however have to consider the dust that collects on all my Nintendo devices with the understanding that maybe I don't really enjoy 'handheld gaming' after all.

:)

I always looked at it like the Steam Deck is meant to lure console gamers into the PC space in as easy and comfortable a way as possible. While every other handheld PC is coming from more of a PC gamer standpoint. And most PC gamers have a PC and don't really need a handheld, so those will of course remain niche. Down the road though, those roped in by the Steam Deck might eventually decide to 'graduate' to more beefier rig and might be willing to buy a more expensive and powerful alternative. But the Deck will probably remain most people's entry point into PC gaming that come from a more strictly traditional console background. I play AAA games on my PS5, or Xbox if it's Starfield, but use my Deck for more BB or indie style games like Project Zomboid, which is in many ways is the perfect Steam Deck game.

Quote from: YUKI93 on September 14, 2023, 13:54:54Despite Steam Deck's popularity, there's no getting away from the fact that Linux is still miles behind Windows when it comes to gaming. That is what draws me to ROG Ally and Legion Go as I can install and play any desktop games without much problem.

There's also no getting around that in user experience windows tablet is miles behind steamOS

For me, I will not exchange my deck for anything out there now. As the deck for me their controller is the best pair with 2 touchpads which can add more buttons to press and also it helps to aim in fps games. If there's controller like deck and more power specs, maybe I'll switch.

Ps. Lenovo there is from what I heard, but lets see.

Referb not reference
 Lol

I don't think "killing" the steam deck is the point.  I had a GPD Caanoo and my latest handheld is last year's aok zoe a1 I got as a reference for a great price.
The more players in the market, the better the segment is going to become due to competition.  Some people like the "just works" thing while at the other end, others like me may appreciate a super powerful tablet that does all the stuff a midrange desktop can do... plus the game controls.
In addition to gaming, I also do portable music production and it's great to not worry about skipping audio because your laptop is trying to save power.  It's also great for bringing a PC on the go - vacations, trips, etc.  Plug that baby into the hotel tv and there is your desktop.  I could go on but, more options, more better.

Despite Steam Deck's popularity, there's no getting away from the fact that Linux is still miles behind Windows when it comes to gaming. That is what draws me to ROG Ally and Legion Go as I can install and play any desktop games without much problem.

Quote from: NatT96Z on September 12, 2023, 08:13:15The Steam Deck is the safest option thus far, customer support, community mods and build quality keep it above the other options. When I refer to build quality, I have heard awful stories on people shoveling $1000+ on other hardware and having the mlst incosistant quality issues. GPD ruled the streets for a moment, but I never trusted it, I felt like people only bought it for its novelty and not quality.Matter a fact I will predict low sales will cause ALOT of these companies to no longer supporting very expensive handhelds chasing this trend. I doubt we will see AyaNeo or even ASUS supporting there hardware longterm like Valve

I'd generally agree with you there, but let's not forget Valves previous foray into SteamOS a decade ago, where they announced it, partnered with OEMs to create various Steam Machines, then the whole thing was basically dead a year later.

This is Valve we're talking about, remember - dropping projects like it's nothing isn't something they're unfamiliar with, hah hl3.

Quote from: Gallo123 on September 12, 2023, 16:52:07Handheld PC gaming is just a waste of money and time. There might be a small demographic that enjoys it but  what type of gamer would dedicate PC gaming to only on handheld where they don't have a PC already.

I can't see myself wasting the PC gaming experience by downgrading and forcing low FPS.It's an environment where nothing is better and you are just asking for compatibility issues due to the form factor.

 Whilst console handhelds are not particularly powerful, money is invested in unique games and experiences, I would accept the compromise but PC gaming doesn't offer this.

I have a fairly strong gaming setup at home. And when I'm home, I use it. But I have more free time on the road than at home, so the steam deck is the perfect stash in the car gaming option.

I have more games on epic than steam, and valve never even bothered to sell steam deck in my country officially. Asus rog ally is the better option.

I the price is a key factor for the Steam deck. It provides a great entry level PC gaming platform for a lot less than most entry level PCs.

When you look at most of the competition, they add in hardware upgrades but the price rises too. This pushes them in to a price bracket where in the PC space they're competing against much more powerful hardware.

The Steam deck is great for either an entry level PC gaming system or something you'd be happy to throw in a bag while traveling. I think its competitors price themselves out of both of these categories.

Handheld PC gaming is just a waste of money and time. There might be a small demographic that enjoys it but  what type of gamer would dedicate PC gaming to only on handheld where they don't have a PC already.

I can't see myself wasting the PC gaming experience by downgrading and forcing low FPS.It's an environment where nothing is better and you are just asking for compatibility issues due to the form factor.

 Whilst console handhelds are not particularly powerful, money is invested in unique games and experiences, I would accept the compromise but PC gaming doesn't offer this.

there's also the issue of consistency in performance on steam deck versus all competitors.  the 1% and 0.1% lows on steam deck aren't even bad, they're incredible and consistent for a low power apu.  every competitor on the other hand, drops to single digit frame rates at times, and thus has wildly inconsistent performance.

Quote from: Dan6 on September 12, 2023, 11:33:35

Quote from: D.Lovecraft on September 12, 2023, 10:38:22While better devices missing just some mythical "point", deck missing everything else: smooth fullHD display, powerful hardware, wide-compatible OS... For any sane person the choice is obvious.

I would disagree with you. I'm quite sure you didn't try Deck and made your decision just looking at specs. Why you need a FHD 8" in games? FHD only kills battery faster, helps to marketing team to sell device and that's all it's needed for..

Powerful hardware is only a meter of time when Valve updates it.

As for Windows - yes, on paper it looks better, it's compatible with all or most games out of the box, BUT
anything I cared - runs on SteamOS and overall experience is better, it's more polished, more console-like - just download and play, pause at any point of time and resume whenever you want. I suggest you try first before making a decision looking only at specs. That's why most people who tried RoG Ally are returning to Deck.

Also I'm quite sure Valve's support will last longer than Asus's or Lenovo's, after which users will be left with raw windows experience.

I had the Deck and it just wasn't upto scratch. SteamOS just isn't ready for prime time. Most games don't work on it. Even the ones "deck approved" (like Hogwarts Legacy) run abysmally on Deck. The Asus Rog is lightyears ahead on resolution, game compatibility and performance fronts.

Uhm, maybe it doesn't need to have one cuz it kinda sucks? Maybe it killed itself? They all are. The only decent portables are the switch and the ones Sony made when they were making them. x86 just doesn't work. Until some company starts work on releasing arm ports of games, or a fast emulation compatibility layer like fex, or pc game companies themselves start releasing native arm binaries of their games - They shouldn't even bother making yet another handheld.

I just don't want to download 150gb sized games on a portable device. I don't be forced to upgrade to 2TB which is expensive on smaller form factor storage just to be able more a few games. I don't want to spend several hundreds on a device which in 2 years won't even have the battery capacity to give you an hour of gameplay. I also do not want a large device which weighs as much as a brick, gets hot or has annoying fans.

I'll most likely wait it out and get a switch 2 whenever that is released. Not because I like Nintendo games or modern gaming in general but because knowing it's a Nintendo console it'll get hacked almost instantly, just like all their other consoles. And when it does you'll have a cheap device, with decent build quality, battery life, fairly potent SoC with solid nvidia gpu driver support (required for some emus) and be capable booting into multiple OS's (windows on arm, linux, etc).

Considering there's already an rpcs3 port to apple silicon, it shouldn't be too difficult to have some linux arm or windows on arm native builds soon. But if the performance isn't good enough, no big deal for me as the original switch had quite a few game ports from ps3 era and yuzu should work fairly well.