The Nintendo Switch does win out easily on battery life between consoles (two to eight hours for the Steam Deck against four to nine hours for the Switch), with the Steam Deck likely utilizing even more battery due to more demanding game content. There isn't a lot of wasted space on the Steam Deck's face though, considering the sticks, directional pad, buttons, and touchpad, so the bulkiness comes as a necessary evil. The Steam Deck is about two inches wider and half an inch taller than the Nintendo Switch, and almost twice as heavy. They both sport a seven-inch touchscreen, but the Steam Deck will come in as the larger of the two consoles. In terms of size and design, the Steam Deck and the Nintendo Switch (OLED Model) are indeed remarkably similar. Since it was announced, the Steam Deck has drawn inevitable comparisons to the Nintendo Switch (OLED Model). RELATED: Former Valve Developer Shows Off Early Half-Life Prototypes Steam Deck Price Comparison It's also worth noting that there are no performance differences between any of the price points instead the price reflects faster and larger storage between models, as well as an anti-glare etched glass screen at the highest point. Still, in actual application, the Steam Deck should outperform the PlayStation 4 or Xbox One slightly, owing to the fact that it runs at a lower 720p resolution. For ease of comparison, the Steam Deck's capabilities sit about in line with the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. As such, when considering the price points of the $399/64 GB model, $529/256 GB model, and $649/512 GB model set by Valve, it's important to consider its capabilities beyond the SteamOS, since fans will inevitably take it there.Īs far as specs, the Steam Deck boasts 4 cores of AMD's Zen 2 microarchitecture, and AMD's RDNA 2 GPU for a combined APU power that sits at around 1.6 teraflops.

While the console is intended to play games from the Steam library, the Steam Deck could theoretically be re-fashioned by savvy gamers to do just about anything a normal gaming PC can do. While the Steam Deck looks and operates in a similar fashion to other handheld consoles like the Nintendo Switch, early impressions suggest that the system is much more comparable to a portable gaming PC. Valve has just announced its new handheld gaming console, called the Steam Deck.

Will the stream deck be worth it