Review: The Steam Deck OLED is a Perfect Antidote for that PC Gaming Backlog
Last month, Valve surprised gamers across the world with the announcement and quick release of the Steam Deck OLED. This promised to see the popular handheld gaming PC receive a few minor tweaks. On top of the few upgrades that Valve shared such as the screen and the improved Wi-Fi 6E card, some gamers noticed other improvements such as better performance due to faster RAM and more. I was extremely fortunate enough to receive a Steam Deck OLED from Valve and you can find my thoughts below.
The timing for the Steam Deck OLED was extremely coincidental. The weekend before I had been talking to a friend about how I wanted a Steam Deck to help me tackle my backlog of games, but was waiting for the potential incremental update that Valve had hinted at already (as well as my wallet to not be hurting so much). Then, less than a week later they announced the Steam Deck OLED! Now for my caveat: as previously mentioned, I never had a Steam Deck before the OLED and so this review will not be a comparison or how the team upgraded their handheld.
I’ve been playing with the Steam Deck OLED for the past 3-ish weeks as of this writing and it has been absolutely fantastic. I’ve knocked two games off my backlog already! The screen is stunning. The OS runs smoothly and the interface is easy to navigate. The community is thriving and helpful if you need it. And of course, it runs many of your favorite games well (varies from game to game). The games I spent the most time with during this period for testing include 9 Years of Shadows, Baldur’s Gate III, Death’s Door, and God of War (2018) and serve as the basis for my performance review.
The four games listed above cover a range of game genres and performance needs. 9 Years of Shadows requires very little power and, as expected, performed extremely well with high framerates and no stutters or performance drops. Death’s Door is a step up and also performs perfectly. God of War is a giant step up but still performs admirably well. I did have to set many of the graphics options to low, but then it typically hovers around 45 frames per second. Finally, Baldur’s Gate III is possibly the most demanding of the four and runs the worst. It is still playable and performance will vary depending on your settings but I was at about 30-35 frames per second with some dips down into the 20s. Baldur’s Gate III is the most extensive in terms of setting adjustments so you might fare better than I. That said, I did feel like it was also the hardest to make look decent and not like a pile of crap.
The Steam Deck OLED is paradise for fans of older games and less demanding titles (particularly 2D titles). However, it can still run plenty of more demanding games as long as you are willing to sacrifice visuals and/or performance. This isn’t everything though. I remember hearing that Steam Deck users were finding that the Steam Deck would get hot and I’m happy to report that I have not had any problems with heat. The current cooling system appears to be working great. In addition, battery life varies with games as you would expect, but you can still get a few hours in the less demanding titles or about 1-2 hours in the more demanding ones. One thing you can do to help is adjust the refresh rate of the screen which is very easy to access and use.
Another great feature that the Steam Deck OLED has is what appears to be a RivaTuner overlay built in. You can adjust how much detail you want to check your FPS, CPU usage, GPU usage, power draw, and more. This can help you as you tweak game settings to find your ideal balance between visuals and performance if necessary. It also estimates how much longer the battery will last on its current charge. Speaking of, it charges quickly. I have not explicitly tested charging speed, but I have found that it only takes a couple of hours to completely charge.
A surprise for me was how I did not hate the trackpads. Ever since the Steam Deck was first revealed, I was skeptical of the trackpads. They seemed like a silly choice. However, my time with the device has proven that I have egg on my face. The trackpads feel nice, especially with the haptic feedback, and in certain situations are very useful. Particularly when trying to access non-Steam games.
As fantastic as the Steam Deck OLED is, there are some things that I personally am not fond of. First, because of the trackpads, the D-pad and four primary buttons are pushed to the extremes. That said, it did not take long for me to accustom myself to the layout. The other design feature that I would change if I had the power to do so, is the sheer size. Don’t get me wrong, I like how big the screen is. I know that the size helps enable hardware necessary for the level of gaming that Valve is aiming for physically as well as thermally. It just feels massive in the hands. However, the shape of the hand grips do make the Steam Deck comfortable to hold.
The final thing that has to be discussed is game selection. First, you’re locked into games on Steam unless you do some tweaking. That said, the community is very helpful and makes it really easy to add other game launchers like Epic Games and Ubisoft Connect to expand that. The catch with those is that they don’t have the Deck Verified badge to help you understand which games will work and which won’t. For instance, even if you have Destiny 2 on Epic Games, you can’t really play it because SteamOS is built on Linux which Bungie is worried is not secure. However, I’m sure if you look around you can find out which games work and which don’t. It is important to note that not all Steam games will run on the Steam Deck either, it’s just easier to tell which ones will and which won’t thanks to the Deck Verified badge.
It is extremely hard for me to not love the Steam Deck OLED. It starts at $549 for the 512GB model and costs $100 more ($649 total) for the 1TB version. If your budget allows you to buy one, I would highly recommend it. It genuinely has me rethinking how I look at gaming computers going forward. For only $550, you can get a decently powerful gaming device that’s very portable and more powerful than a laptop for the same price. Heck, if your computer is still working well but struggles with gaming it might be better for some people to just get a Steam Deck instead of buying a brand new computer. I have found the Steam Deck to be the perfect way for me to address my ever growing backlog of PC games and I highly recommend it if you can make it work.
