Official Steam Deck Front Page Presentation on Steam.

[NoaLag]

Summary

 Steam just put their Steam Deck on the front page of their app. It shows the design in details and features. There are 3 price tiers:
     - For 420€ you get the Steam Deck itself along with a carrying case and 64GB of eMMC storage.
     - For 550€ you get a bigger and faster storage 256GB NVMe SSD, an exclusive steam community profile bundle and the carrying case.
     - For 680€ you get a 512GB NVMe SSD, an anti-glare etched glass, an "exclusive" carrying case which has yet to be revealed, the same steam community profile bundle and an exclusive virtual keyboard theme.

It doesn't look like the APU changes with the tiers so raw performance should be similar on all three models, the impact of the different storage solutions has yet to be evaluated.
As for the games, your entire steam library will be available to play as long as it supports controller input. Speaking of controllers, let's just hope it doesn't drift this time...

There will be a dock available that props up the device and adds additional inputs like a headphone jack, HDMI and DP ports, 1 USB 3.1 and 2 USB 2.0 ports.

 

Orders can already be made for a small 4€ fee and are expected to be shipped starting december 2021 to january 2022. The specific dates are unclear still.

 

Quotes

Quote

We partnered with AMD to create Steam Deck's custom APU, optimized for handheld gaming. It is a Zen 2 + RDNA 2 powerhouse, delivering more than enough performance to run the latest AAA games in a very efficient power envelope.

 

My thoughts

 Personally I'm not a fan of the front design, although it looks very comfortable compared to the switch, the size bezels is distracting in my opinion.

 From the back we can see an intake shroud and 4 extra buttons labeled R4, R5, L4 and L5 meant to be pressed with your pinky and ring fingers. I've always like controllers with extra buttons like these so it's nice seeing them implemented in   this product.

 

 For storage I think the sweet spot for me will be the mid option for 550€ with 256GB as 64GB just seems small, a base model with 128GB of storage for the same price wouldn't have been unreasonable imo.
 You also can't see any sort of stand built into the Deck so it's a bit disappointing but I'm sure we'll quickly see third party options better than anything Valve could've come up with as we're used to with the DIY market.

 Can't wait to play Celeste on it. x) 

 

 In conclusion, it's a device I can't wait to test even if I think the price is a bit high. The display bezels are disappointing imo but I have yet to see it in person so maybe my opinion will change then.

Sources

https://store.steampowered.com/steamdeck

[WolframaticAlpha]

11 minutes ago, NoaLag said:

the price is a bit high.

Valve isn't sony or microsoft. They need to make money off the hardware. Research and development costs serious cash. It is quite cheap, when you compare it to stuff like the Aya neo, gpd win max etc. 

 

It's like linus said on the wan show. I would love for it to be cheaper, but the price isn't unreasonable.

[Doobeedoo]

I do wonder if they could've gone with 1080p 120Hz display. Curious to see performance though.

[NoaLag]

1 hour ago, huilun02 said:

Is the 64GB eMMC present on all models? Can the lowest model take an aftermarket NVME drive?

Hard to believe they are making three different models if only one model has eMMC and only one model has special glass screen. This is not efficient for production

I believe it's only the lowest tier model that has eMMC memory. The other 2 have  NVMe storage

[elfensky]

2 hours ago, huilun02 said:

Is the 64GB eMMC present on all models? Can the lowest model take an aftermarket NVME drive?

Hard to believe they are making three different models if only one model has eMMC and only one model has special glass screen. This is not efficient for production

the bigger question is whether the eMMC model has an empty NVMe slot you could fill yourself.

Also, I thought there already was a post on the Steam Deck?

[d0mini]

15 minutes ago, elfensky said:

the bigger question is whether the eMMC model has an empty NVMe slot you could fill yourself.

Also, I thought there already was a post on the Steam Deck?

[elfensky]

11 minutes ago, d0mini said:

snip

Hmm, so you can replace the eMMC module with an NVMe drive in the future. That makes it a much better proposition.

[CerealExperimentsLain]

17 minutes ago, d0mini said:

This is interesting.  I wonder what they mean by 'Not Intended For End User Replacement' does this just mean 'Some disassembly required'?

For example, I have a laptop but to replace the battery or HDD, there's no 'plate' to pop off to do it, you have to disassemble the entire bottom of it.  But if you're careful, know what you're doing, and look up a disassembly guide so you don't miss any screws, you can get it open.  I've swapped the HDD for an SSD and after 3 years I replaced the battery.  That said that's def not an 'end user' job.  Only the RAM offers a small plate you remove with one screw to pop in another DIMM.  That's user replacable.

[Spotty]

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