Hey, I’m thinking of upgrading from my old work laptop (which isn’t really built for gaming at all, but is great for productivity), and I was eyeing either an OLED steam deck or a more powerful laptop that I could bring with me and use on campus away from my home setup. I plan on using linux for either machine, but I was wondering if any of the Steam Deck’s secret sauce or price to performance puts it ahead compared to a Framework or Gaming laptop.

Also, if anyone has experience using a steam deck as a workstation/portable work setup, I would love your input on if it’s a good idea to replace a laptop with a steam deck entirely.

  • Truscape@lemmy.blahaj.zoneOPEnglish
    2·
    12 days ago

    That’s really enlightening! I won’t be using it as my main gaming device per se - I’ll just be moving into the dorms on campus away from home and won’t be able to access my desktop gaming setup at all during the semester.

    I’m an engineering student, and I’ve had familiarity with schoolwork on Linux (albeit with some growing pains >_<). Sounds like I can get by with just a spare monitor + KBM setup in the dorm room with a Steam Deck as my main device in my backpack and a station in my room. Awesome!

    It’ll be a nice change of pace from the heavy HP laptop I used to lug around for my job XD

    • supersquirrel@sopuli.xyzEnglish
      2·
      12 days ago

      Yeah then I think it is a no-brainer thing for you to get the Steam Deck, the only situation I see someone like you being truly disappointed in your Steam Deck is if they REALLLLY wanted to play more graphically intensive games and the Steam Deck just couldn’t quite cut it. If you already own a gaming computer worst comes to worst you sit there and think “damn, I will have to play this once I get my hands on my desktop gaming rig again!” and move onto another game in your library.

      Another note in the Steam Deck’s favor for gaming, the suspend feature where if you press the power button the Steam Deck instantly sleeps is incredibly useful for jumping in and out of games. Even if you don’t hit pause the way the Steam Deck runs games the environment the game is running in is paused when you press the power button… so you can jump in and out of games really easy that weren’t necessarily designed to be rapidly started and stopped.

      I would recommend getting a dock so you can use a keyboard and mouse sitting at a desk with a larger monitor when needed. Bonus points you can use the steam deck dock for splitscreen local gaming hangouts with friends, normal ass bluetooth gamepads usually work fine connecting to the Steam Deck (xbox controllers are great) and with the dock you can bring a backpack with everything you need to set up awesome indie splitscreen gaming sessions. It is a blast and the Steam Deck is underappreciated in this realm especially given how many good indie local splitscreen games there are out there.