Steam deck is a handheld game console launched by valve. The most well-known image of the latter is the man with a strange valve in his eyes at the beginning of the game. Because it has launched well-known works such as half life, it is affectionately called “V society” by players.

Last year, V club announced to make hardware and launch its own game console steam deck. Recently, foreign media theverge got this product. After they use, their evaluation is: unfinished products.

The following is the full text of theverge’s evaluation, compiled by Sina digital. (all pictures in this article are from theverge)

These two things are true:

First of all, I had more fun on steam deck than any handheld I’ve tested over the years.

Second, steam deck is in a mess. It is characterized by haste, incompleteness, defects and instability. If valve sells the game console at best buy or Gamestop, people will return it in droves.

The game is not priced at $400 on valve’s palm, of course. The manufacturer who developed “half life” and “portal” directly promoted it to the fans of steam (valve’s game platform), which pioneered the idea of selling a “preemptive experience” version before the game was really completed. Remember when valve asked unknown developers to sell a tattered and flawed game called Jedi survival and escape during the preemptive experience? As a result, it changed the world. These tests turned out to be interesting - so much so that Jedi survival, its Shanzhai version and its inspired games (including fortress night, call of duty and apex hero) finally ranked among the world’s most popular games.

Steam deck is a product (similar to the above) with unique form. In fact, it is a Linux computer and looks like a Nintendo switch, but it can play windows games and is worth more. Like Jedi survival, I played for 452 hours. Despite the bugs, I didn’t play enough.

So… Welcome to experience this game console first. Although there are many bugs.

Let me first take a look at the picture of steam deck, which is similar to the shape of Nintendo switch. Imagine yourself magically playing in a huge PC game library. These games “work normally” without being bothered by the setting or operation mode.

This is one of the reasons why steam deck exists. Compared with ordinary PC, it is more adjusted and streamlined, but there is no key part of the game experience. For me, the magic of steam deck is that it makes PC games truly portable for the first time in history.

What does that mean? Last year, I borrowed one of the most advanced Aya Neo handheld game consoles at that time, and managed to play goddess 4 on this more than 800 dollar windows machine. But for me, its performance is not like a PC game at all. I can hardly use its joystick and touch screen to operate. I don’t have enough performance to run games with low requirements such as “star pioneer” and “Temple of heroes”. I can’t accurately control shooting or click the side key. I have no intention except for the lowest image quality setting. (there is no way to suspend the system quickly and reliably without losing progress)

Steam deck overturned all this. Pricing from only $400, with AMD rdna2 graphics card, immediately surpassed all portable game consoles on the market. And it has enough power for me to play control and biochemical crisis 2 remake with a fluency of 60 frames per second. Older or less demanding games can easily run at their highest settings, such as Max Payne 3 or the edge of the mirror.

If the game you’re playing really doesn’t need the best picture quality - such as Miami on fire or niederhogg - you can limit the frame rate, GPU clock speed, and even processor power to extend the battery life of steam deck. In just three clicks, the admirable open source mangohud overlay tool can provide you with instant feedback on frame rate, clock speed and frame time, even including power consumption speed and battery life.

Well, you might ask, all the games I just mentioned support game consoles - what about the customary mouse and keyboard operations for decades? Steam deck allows you to customize a series of dazzling control schemes, making the mouse and keyboard party feel at home. It offers the joystick, trigger and click button of the whole traditional game console, almost all of which feel great - as well as four shoulder keys and customizable steam controller, which is more accurate in this case called “touchpad”. You can click, slide, flick and “rotate” the virtual trackball; Press their pressure sensitive surfaces; Even set their edges and click to constantly move or rotate your character… Each of the more than 20 programmable controls of steam deck can issue multiple different commands according to the way and time you press. Macro combinations can be built using other keys and one key turbo mode, which is, as I said, dazzling - valve has little explanation for how it works.

If you’re thinking, “well, isn’t this steam controller?” (the handle made by V club before can be customized) I’m not surprised at all. It can be said that it has amazing accuracy, and steam deck makes it play the best role. Fancy touch pads are no longer obstacles. You can now aim accurately without relying on them: just put your thumb on the rocker to activate the gyroscope, so you can easily tilt the steam deck to aim at the target. Although it may take hours