So I’ve been looking at upgrading my PC and it looks like I can get a better “micro” pc than my current (ancient) desktop for significantly less money than a full blown gaming rig. An example of such a rig is this.
I don’t have high gaming requirements - I play mostly old games, I think the newest games I play are from 5+ years ago.
What reasons are there for not buying one of these (over a comparable “proper” desktop)?
What’s the benefit of that Vs this? I don’t care for portability and I like the option to at least crack this open and expand a few bits (if I need to).
If you don’t want portability, and do want expandability, then I don’t think Steam Deck is a good choice for you.
Much as it is a brilliant devicel it’s also a wee bit old now. And anyone who wants the anti-cheat games is still stuffed.
I disagree with any others saying it is openable and repairable. It’s better than modern slimline laptops - which is not saying much. I don’t think it’s as accessible asa Mini PC - and frankly if you want to upgrade, go desktop. If you can get a used old case with a decent PSU - then buy the rest of the guts - you’ll end up with something way better - and you’ll be able to make sure you can fully power your GPU and CPU for the things you want to do with it. And far easier to cool it properly and avoid throttling if you’re really pulling a load of watts into it. This probably does matter if you want to game at high resolutions with high frame rates for modern games. If you don’t mind dropping to lower resolutions or <=60FPS, or turning off some fancy GFX features, then the mini PC would be fine. Of course with a desktop you can adapt the components a bit to your budget, and maybe swap in cheap second hand stuff as a stop gap until you upgrade a component.
Fair warning - the rest of this post is pro-linux bullshit . . .
For steamdeck - the only reason i could think that remains is if you had a desperate need to get out from under microsoft’s thumb - and didn’t want to go for a full DIY linux install - then SteamOS is excellent in both gaming and desktop mode. It really shows how user friendly linux can be if you pay full time devs to maintain a distribution with a specific customer group and specific hardware in mind. And IMHO ( I only use MS at work so maybe I’m a bad source) it actually shows up how fucking awful windows is. SteamDEck really is just turn it on and get on with what you want to do , no bother; games console level usability. I think even computer-illiterate people would find desktop mode pretty easy to get on with.
But it’s only half-arsed “proper linux”, and half-arsed independence from big tech, as you’re just substituting Valve as the ones who you rely on to curate your OS for you. And if ever Steam gets bought out you might have to move to something else. So it doesn’t have the independence of full open source; though it’s a lot closer to that than MS.
It’s also quite a lot of money to pay for an old device just to try a different OS. To do that I’d get a cheap real PC and experiment - a used miniPC from 5-10 years ago with some of the retro gaming linux distros are a fun and cheaper way to do that.
… end of pro linux bullshit
A lot of those mini PCs don’t really have enough graphics power, even for older games. I have one and unless it’s something really low powered like Stardew or something, the experience is not great.
The Deck is designed for gaming, and it can double as a desktop PC.
Steam deck is very repair friendly. I swapped my SOs SSD for a 2tb and it was very easy to work with. For the price, it’s extremely hard to beat. You can get a 30 dollar dock, and you’re off to the races.