should I get the new steam deck oled or a computer?

[Gingerifix]

so i don't really know what place I should put this post here but I wanted advice from the pcmr and the steam deck people.

 

I wanted a pc for the longest time and bought a pc with my roommate for 800 dollars on best buy.

 

it was a good investment but since I mostly game on the playstation 5 and my roommate uses the computer more than i do I gave up my sharing privileges to them. 

 

I also got an old pc that I sold off because I didn't need it as it was old tech that I wasn't using.

 

but I have thought about getting a pc or a steam deck for a while and I have looked at Newegg, pc part picker and Amazon to find a good pc that is the same price as the steam deck. because I mostly want to use it for gaming, streaming, writing and a bit of programming with ue5. There is also game launchers I would like to use on my pc like epic and Xbox game pass that is not on the steam deck.

 

but I think in a few years (hopefully) steam deck would be a good option as they might have better windows configuration and I can do most of the stuff minus programming and streaming very easily. Also  I have tried to find a pc or laptop in cad pricing that can be like the steam deck but I haven't found any luck and I'm afraid most of the pricing of pc parts do not equate performance like the steam deck oled because I'm sort of new at buying pcs and really new at building them. 

 

 

 

if anyone has any advice for a pc n00b like me please help.

 

tl;dr : I wanted advice if I should get a steam deck or a pc/laptop for the same price.

 

[Helpful Tech Witch]

2 minutes ago, Schnoz said:

Steam Deck has no official Windows support.

what?

https://help.steampowered.com/en/faqs/view/6121-ECCD-D643-BAA8

 

This seems like official support to me.

[Helpful Tech Witch]

3 minutes ago, Schnoz said:

Oh, I wasn't aware of that. Thanks for letting me know!

its been out for quite a while, since march of 2022, so over a year and a half.

[CyberneticTitan]

19 minutes ago, Helpful Tech Witch said:

what?

https://help.steampowered.com/en/faqs/view/6121-ECCD-D643-BAA8

 

This seems like official support to me.

Doesn't the page say:

 

Quote

We are providing these resources as is and are unfortunately unable to offer 'Windows on Deck' support. If you get stuck and need a way back to the default Steam Deck OS, please follow these recovery instructions.

 

They're just giving you the bare minimum, which is better than nothing, but it is certainly not "official support" like what one might call Asus "officially supporting" Windows on the ROG Ally. The APU drivers are 8 months old too.

 

To the OP I think you're better off buying or building your own gaming PC using second hand parts.

[Helpful Tech Witch]

Just now, CyberneticTitan said:

Doesn't the page say:

 

 

They're just giving you the bare minimum, which is better than nothing, but it is certainly not "official support" like what one might call Asus "officially supporting" Windows on the ROG Ally. The APU drivers are 8 months old too.

Releasing official drivers is supporting it. Just because they dont offer active support for users who do it, they still have actively done development work for it, making a bios that supports windows 11 (which it didnt used to) and making the drivers at all. 
A company doesn't have to offer troubleshooting support for something to support it, its like saying CPU's dont support xmp/docp, just because you wouldnt get any help from amd/motherboards for it.
 

[CyberneticTitan]

8 minutes ago, Helpful Tech Witch said:

Releasing official drivers is supporting it. Just because they dont offer active support for users who do it, they still have actively done development work for it, making a bios that supports windows 11 (which it didnt used to) and making the drivers at all. 
A company doesn't have to offer troubleshooting support for something to support it, its like saying CPU's dont support xmp/docp, just because you wouldnt get any help from amd/motherboards for it.
 

By this same logic the steam deck "officially supports" the Deck HD because Valve has done the development work to support MIPI displays, having a chassis that allows swappable displays, and providing a software stack that allows SteamOS to be rendered at 1200p. They don't provide support for it, but that doesn't seem like a requirement according to your definition.

 

If you truly believe that Valve "officially supports" Windows on the steam deck in the same way they "officially support" SteamOS, then I have nothing else to say.

[Ja Krispie]

8 minutes ago, Helpful Tech Witch said:

Releasing official drivers is supporting it. Just because they dont offer active support for users who do it, they still have actively done development work for it, making a bios that supports windows 11 (which it didnt used to) and making the drivers at all. 
A company doesn't have to offer troubleshooting support for something to support it, its like saying CPU's dont support xmp/docp, just because you wouldnt get any help from amd/motherboards for it.
 

A big part of supporting something is offering troubleshooting support for something you're offering. Throwing up some aged drivers "as-is" isn't official support. It's them saying if it works, it works. If it doesn't, well sucks to suck then.

[Helpful Tech Witch]

1 minute ago, CyberneticTitan said:

f you truly believe that Valve "officially supports" Windows on the steam deck in the same way they "officially support" SteamOS, then I have nothing else to say.

Please point me to where i said this.

Theres a lot of range between supporting something and offering support for something. 
it also doesnt change the fact that i was repying to someone implying there was no driver support at all, which isnt true. 

[rikitikitavi]

4 hours ago, Gingerifix said:

I mostly want to use it for gaming, streaming, writing and a bit of programming with ue5. There is also game launchers I would like to use on my pc like epic and Xbox game pass that is not on the steam deck.

Steam Deck supports other game launchers, and there MIGHT be a way to use game pass (google).

I don't have high expectations of Windows performance, so consider a possibility that you might be stuck with SteamOS due to performance.

I believe UE5 is available for Linux distributions (SteamOS is one of them), but you should check it.

There is no 100% guarantee that the game you want to play can run on SteamDeck (currently).

 

If you are planning to do any work - you have to get a dongle/dock (for example, Steam Deck Dock, or any cheaper alternative), keyboard/mouse and a monitor. Don't be weird - working on a tiny screen with a tiny bluetooth keyboard might look fun, but it is a torment and a waste of your time.

 

No clue about streaming on SteamDeck. FYI you can stream on Linux distributions.

 

4 hours ago, Gingerifix said:

I wanted advice if I should get a steam deck or a pc/laptop for the same price.

So, if we assume top tier CA$800 SteamDeck, then you can get a desktop (not sure if any monitor/peripherals will be included) or a laptop that is discounted from ~CA$1K. It will be a budget build, maybe with a discrete graphics like ~ GTX 1650. It should be good enough for 3D game development.

 

Otherwise, you should go used market, and look for a better deal.

 

In either case do not expect miracles, there are plenty of trade offs. Don't forget extra $ that will go into peripherals for a Steam Deck, probably a desktop, maybe a laptop (if built-in is crap).

[Gingerifix]

26 minutes ago, rikitikitavi said:

Steam Deck supports other game launchers, and there MIGHT be a way to use game pass (google).

I don't have high expectations of Windows performance, so consider possibility that you might be stuck with SteamOS for performance.

I believe UE5 is available for Linux distributions, but you should check it.

There is no 100% guarantee that the game you want to play can run on SteamDeck (currently).

 

If you are planning to do any work - you have to get a dongle/dock (for example, Steam Deck Dock, or any cheaper alternative), keyboard/mouse and a monitor. Don't be weird - working on a tiny screen with a tiny bluetooth keyboard might look fun, but it is a torment and a waste of your time.

 

No clue about streaming on SteamDeck.

 

So, if we assume top tier CA$800 SteamDeck, then you can get a desktop (not sure if any monitor/peripherals will be included) or a laptop that is discounted from ~CA$1K. It will be a budget build, maybe with a discrete graphics like ~ GTX 1650. It should be good enough for 3D game development.

 

Otherwise, you should go used market, and look for a better deal.

 

In either case do not expect miracles, there are plenty of trade offs. Don't forget extra $ that will go into peripherals for a Steam Deck, probably a desktop, maybe a laptop (if built-in is crap).

I do feel like no matter what it's a tradeoff if I pick the steam deck it is cheaper but may not support what I want to do with streaming and programming. also I play fortnite and I want to play on that as well and I personally know I'm  not going to do  work arounds if there is no way to download the epic launcher.

 

but the price though is what gets me for pc because getting a relatively good pc is expensive. 

 

but thank you for the reply it really got me thinking on what to purchase. 

 

 

[rikitikitavi]

14 minutes ago, Gingerifix said:

I do feel like no matter what it's a tradeoff if I pick the steam deck it is cheaper but may not support what I want to do with streaming and programming. also I play fortnite and I want to play on that as well and I personally know I'm  not going to do  work arounds if there is no way to download the epic launcher.

 

but the price though is what gets me for pc because getting a relatively good pc is expensive. 

 

but thank you for the reply it really got me thinking on what to purchase. 

 

 

Speaking as someone who "daily-s" a SteamDeck, a laptop, and a desktop. The defacto device for me is my laptop, and if it was more powerful/capable, I would consider having only a laptop and nothing else for work and pleasure.

 

If you are a student or live a 'portable' lifestyle, I would highly consider a laptop with a good battery life.

In such case, I would highly suggest used M1 MacBook Air - it will be the best device for your case. Yes it can run Fortnite, and yes you can program on it, including UE5. Check that the battery is in good condition though.

 

Otherwise, M2 Mac Mini. Brand new ones are within your budget (CA$800), and you may apply for an educational discount (if applicable).

It is a cheap, tiny and mighty thing, even at the base config of M2 8GB/256GB. For extra storage purchase external drives - dirt cheap these days.

[wasab]

Qualcomm is bringing a new arm chip that's gonna destroy apple m2. You should wait for laptops with these. 

[HorseBattery]

3 hours ago, wasab said:

Qualcomm is bringing a new arm chip that's gonna destroy apple m2. You should wait for laptops with these.

Only if you are ok with using the Arm version of Windows 11.

Drivers, APIs besides DirectX 12 and general backwards compatibility are all going to be a problem on the new platform.