Steam Deck Handheld Gaming PC Debuts as Valve makes PC gaming portable like a Nintendo Switch OLED

The Steam Deck has a form factor similar to that of a slightly larger Nintendo Switch but with the capabilities of a full gaming PC.

It runs a modified version of Valve’s SteamOS, complete with a new console-like interface for easy navigation of both the Steam store and your Steam library, but it also provides access to an unrestricted computer desktop where any third-party applications can be installed (including non-Steam games or launchers).

The Steam Deck has a 7-inch, 1280x800 resolution, 60hz LCD screen, a custom AMD APU featuring a 4-core, 8-thread CPU paired with 8 RDNA 2 compute units for the GPU, and 16 GBs of LPDDR5 RAM.

the Steam Deck has bluetooth support for any device you could connect to a regular PC (including headphones like Apple AirPods). It can also be “docked” and hooked up to an external display, as well as a mouse and keyboard if you want to use it as a more traditional PC. While Valve will be selling an official dock separately, any third-party USB-C adapter should work just as well – and those who simply want an experience closer to that of a regular handheld or console can ignore the more computer-y aspects entirely.

Steam Deck will be available in three different models – importantly, however, the only major difference between them will be storage size and speed, with their graphical capabilities otherwise identical.

The base version will cost $399 and have 64 GB of storage, followed by a $529 model with 256 GB, and finally a $649 version that has 512 GB and an anti-glare etched glass screen treatment. The latter two Steam Decks will also have faster NVMe SSDs, and all three will allow you to install and play games off of a Micro SD card to expand storage capacity further.