Pretty cool stuff. There are some fan made order calculators that say that my order should be coming mid April, so I'm a little optimistic I'll be getting it soon.
I do have to say that I'm irrationally triggered by that Harada video. That little shit annoys me when it comes to tekken stuff such as his refusal to do anything regarding the game's net code or load times.
@Dixieland Buckaroo you haven't told us anything about your Deck experience yet
Had it for about a week now. Got the 512.
Shipping was fine, slow but got here in one piece. In my country, it looks like Valve used a third party logistics center from whom I've received several devices in the past, such as Android phones. Box wasn't as gaudy/obvious as the week 1 boxes, but it was clearly labeled as a 512gb steam deck on the shipping label. Still, no other issues for me on that front.
First bootup takes you through some basic setup. In terms of Linux, this is the easiest setup I've had. That said... As an early adopter, I got this screen after a few updates:
Supposedly the bios won't have that kind of update again, but it was a bit nerve-wracking. Also supposedly later devices will come with a less scary bios.
After that, it was literally filling the thing up with games. You'll forgive me if I don't show any logged in screenshots. I've been on steam for well over a decade now, so I chose a wide variety of titles to fiddle with. I should note, I don't play shooters much these days, tend more toward weird shit or narrative driven titles.
It's run a lot of the old stuff I threw at it, which is amazing because these are usually Windows games. I even managed to play Simpsons Hit and Run (pc with nocd), but the install was a task. There are guides on how to do this stuff, but not much from Valve, so this will be better I'm guessing as the community develops.
In terms of running steam games, it's super simple. You can search your catalog by level of deck compatibility and, for the most part, shit just installs and runs. I've had a couple of crashes but nothing outside the norm on windows. Titles ranged from Portal to Cyberpunk, along with some ports like Katamari and Final Fantasy. For emu, only tried some RetroArch so far with games I had laying around, but ran up to PS2 fine.
Battery life varies, A LOT. It really depends on the game or app. In some instances, I was easily over 4 hours. Playing Cyberpunk was a lot less.
The device feels good, it's hefty but well balanced. The joysticks are much better than the switch, but not up to a $200 controller, likewise for the buttons. The backside buttons are a little oddly placed for my hands, but the rest are we good. I don't like the feel of the Steam button and its mirrored counterpart, but I don't use them too often. The antiglare screen is really nice, but I wish it was hd (or 1920x1200 at 16:10).
As a greybeard, the thing that blows my mind is how well the "sleep" mode works. That's always been a Linux kiss of death, heck even Windows sometimes has issues. This thing, no problem. Tap power, screen to black. Tap again, you're back into it in seconds. I know, on a console that should be no big deal, but this is a weird hybrid.
Above said, there are some issues. This version of steam has weird understanding of back/history/home, LTT touched on this better than I can. Sometimes the popup for text input doesn't work, and you have to reboot to fix it. (It's active but not visible?) The main few screens are a bit of a mess, but it may just be me being used to old steam's interface.
The ugly is the Linux experience. You have to do a light reboot to switch to desktop mode- think switching users. There's basically no pop-up keyboard, so the cludge solution right now is holding steam+x brings up the street OSK. Which works like half the time, and doesn't work at all if you shut down the steam app. If you want to do much in this space, get a dock (official ones not available yet), or Bluetooth keyboard and mouse. Absolutely needed right now for desktop mode. I've seen varied reports about desktop mode and emu or app performance, but I haven't seen a measurable difference. Once you're past that, there a just a few oddities. The way the os is set up, they only official support flatpacks, as OS updates may wipe programs installed via other means. People are trying to find workarounds, but we'll see how things move.
So am I glad to beta test hardware/software for Valve? Yeah. It feels good, I'm already invested in the steam ecosystem, and being able to play while chilling with my partner, wherever, is killer. If this thing hits critical mass, it is going to transform the PC gaming space by making it accessible, especially in these days of $2k+ graphics cards. It's fun to tinker with. The hardware feels great. The software still needs a lot of polish. It is a sweet emu device, if that's your kick. If you have a decent sized steam library, you'll find yourself playing titles you haven't touched in years. The only real thing I'd change today is adding a hd screen, but that's probably limited by processer/gpu/battery considerations as much as total unit cost. Expect that for deck2.