Should You Buy a Steam Deck? My Steam Deck 64GB Review & Impressions

My review and thoughts after playing the hell out of my 64GB Steam Deck for the past few months.

00:00 – Steam Deck
01:06 – Steam Deck Comparisons & Performance
01:59 – Steam Deck Compatible Games
02:51 – Steam Deck Controls and Audio
03:53 – Connecting Steam Deck to TV
04:13 – How Long Does Steam Deck Battery Last?
04:46 – Steam Deck and Nintendo Switch Comparison
05:18 – Steam Deck Recommendation

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I love my Nintendo Switch, and when Valve started selling their own portable devices they sounded too good to be true. 350 quid to run and play the latest PC games. Elden Ring, FF7 Remake, Doom Eternal. And it’s a portable handheld machine too? That’s insane.*That is crazy.* This is an awesome bit of kit for existing PC players who don’t always want to be chained to their desks. I really like that you can play a game on the go, your game saves will automatically upload to steam and download on your PC, so you can continue where you left off at your desk. But this is also a gateway drug to the world of PC gaming for new players. I’ve recently been playing Persona 3 Portable every night in bed and I just can’t put this thing down and I’ve missed out on so much sleep. And to be honest it’s a little difficult going back to the Nintendo Switch, I really need to get on with Fire Emblem but it’s so hard putting this down.

So I picked up the cheapest option for the Steam Deck. For an extra 100 or £200 I could have upgraded to an anti-glare screen, a solid state drive and even more storage space. But I am completely happy with the performance and load times in this cheaper model. It’s got a microSD slot so I invested a little in a memory card and I’ve now got 5 times the space for games. I’m kind of really surprised how well it runs and plays games of the microSD cards. Final Fantasy VII Remake was one of the first games I tested and it plays great and I’m very happy with the loading times. The direct footage I’m showing is the Steam Deck hooked up to a capture card, with all the stats at the top, it’s lower resolution but it is designed for a much smaller screen.

One of the downsides to the Steam Deck is that not every game is compatible. I really wanted to put Dragon Ball FighterZ on this thing and I could have brought this around to friend’s houses to play some matches but the anti-cheat software that would run in the background isn’t working on Steam Decks at the moment. You can combat this by installing the Windows operating system and that was my original plan but to be honest I’m happy that it I can run a huge majority of my games library no problem, so I’m not going to bother faffing on with installing Windows.
Steam does a pretty good job of letting you know how compatible games are with the deck. And if you check out “protondb” there’s a database of all the games with people’s recommendations and work arounds to get some of the incompatible games working. I had to install a little mod to get Final Fantasy XIV working but it’s kind of mind blowing having a MMO world in your hands.

Something that really surprised me are the controls on this thing.
So before I talk about controls, I should say… I was one of the people that picked up the Steam Controller and I was in the controversial camp with that, I just couldn’t gel with the steam controller, because of that I kind of had low expectations with the Steam Deck’s controls going into this. But honestly this feels great, the buttons are solid, the analogue sticks feel premium and the shoulder triggers are great. There’s touch pads and some extra back paddles but they’re completely optional and I don’t really make use of them.
If your arms get tired you can put the deck down and effortlessly connect a Bluetooth controller. To be fair it is quite a bit heavier than a Nintendo Switch so my preferred way to play is with my PS5 controller.
The speakers are worth a mention too, they’re pretty freaking good quality but I’ve also enjoyed connecting my Bluetooth ear phones for when you wanna blast the music like when you’re playing Persona, Final Fantasy, Devil May Cry, or if you just need more privacy.

If you invest in a Steam Dock or an adaptor you can hook up your Steam Deck to a TV or monitor and it becomes a fully functional PC. It’s been brilliant playing on a big TV, and I’ve totally used this to watch Netflix or anime too.
The official Steam Dock is quite expensive, I went with a cheaper alternative on amazon, which does the job.

You’re only gonna get a few hours out of this before you’re out of batteries, the battery life depends entirely on how graphically intense a game is. Buuut… With this button at the bottom right here, you can access this nifty little micro menu.