The Steam Deck is on sale for the first time ever | Hacker News Reader

The Steam Deck is on sale for the first time ever

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33 pointsnigamanth18 comments

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Steamdeck is a great handheld mini pc. I bought it a few months ago and did also use it to learn more about Linux.

I've even set up dualboot on my desktop with Linux and am using it primarily now.

For new owners I recommend cryobytes scripts for a bit of performance+

https://github.com/CryoByte33/steam-deck-utilities

Also the whole emulation suite is great.

https://www.emudeck.com/

One of the best gaming buys I have ever made. Hardly ever turn on Switch and PS5, gaming for me is about 80 % on Steam Deck these days. And thanks to it having full desktop mode with KDE Plasma I even use it for other work. So congrats Valve on some very impressive product!

For those who own a Steam Deck. If I get the 64GB one, will I regret not getting one of the larger storage options?

Since it has a microSD card slot, I figured I could just get a 512GB microSD that would be cheaper than paying for the either of the larger storage sizes

The internal SSD is easily upgraded. And cheap, given the latest NVMe drive prices.

https://www.ifixit.com/Guide/Steam+Deck+SSD+Replacement/1489...

I have the 512 GiB version and didn't need to use microSD yet, so can't say what would bother me if I had to. Currently after about 10 months of using Steam Deck I have 70 GiB of space left on SSD. I would say if slower speed, lower reliability/endurance of microSD does not bother you when you run out of space on microSD there will be nothing to regret, and if it starts bothering you you can always replace the existing SSD with a bigger one yourself, considering how DIY friendly and open Steam Deck is.

All tests I have seen have concluded that loading times from SD are ~identical with the 512GB SSD. Furthermore, SD card endurance is typically ridiculously high with write cycles at somewhere around hundreds of thousands.

I think with 64GB you're going to have a rough time, even with a large microSD depending a bit what you plan to do with.

The shader cache alone will fill it up quickly depending on what games you'll play.

I'll recommend to update the internal drive if you're going with the 64GB version.

64GB reporting in, and yes, the shader cache bites.

Unless you're planning to immediately replace the SSD yourself, I recommend going with the 256G version.

The 64G version uses an eMMC drive, which might as well be a microSD card itself.

That said, I use the 256G NVMe version with a few microSD cards and it's been an amazing experience. Games have slightly longer loading times when played from microSD but that's almost completely irrelevant because of how well the deck handles resume from suspend/sleep.

Thanks for the info. I think I will probably go with the 256G version.

"Games have slightly longer loading times when played from microSD"

Is this noticeable on all games? My plan would be to put smaller indie games on the microSD and keep the main internal drive for bigger AAA (or similar) games.

This is what I did, 64GB device + 512GB SD card. It has worked great, but I'm also far from the heaviest Deck users.

I have the 64gb version + a 256gb sd card and I'm satisfied

If sales have declined maybe they could sell it in some more regions?

I expect Australia will never see them, or at least not until they are technologically obselete.

Im already scrounging my pennies for some flavour of Aya.

It's been imported since the beginning. The markup isn't even big

Via Kogan and Kogan affilliates. So good luck getting any support if there's an issue.

If there is ever a V2 I’ll probably get it. Then they will iron out all the major bugs and issues and hopefully make it lighter

Storage aside, is the anti glare screen on the 512 GB model worth it?

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