[The Verge] Valve’s huge Steam Deck update is now ready for everyone, including rival AMD handhelds

Topher said:
Kind of shocked we haven't seen more info on Go 1 at this point really. It is supposed to be out on Sunday
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Yeah, doesn't fill me with confidence, lol, but it's close enough to original Go so it would be hard for Lenovo to completely screw it up.
 
If I'm not mistaken, apps like xbox and epic...gog and all that don't work on that OS correct? If that's the case then I see no point. I have a Legion Go and works fine for most practically all my games and emulation, so I don't think this will benefit me.
 
RavageX said:
If I'm not mistaken, apps like xbox and epic...gog and all that don't work on that OS correct? If that's the case then I see no point. I have a Legion Go and works fine for most practically all my games and emulation, so I don't think this will benefit me.
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Xbox, no. GOG, Epic, etc, yes. There are apps like Heroic launcher that will help with that.

If you want Xbox games or game pass, stick with Windows
 
Topher said:
I'm going to just type out my thoughts here about which handhelds I'm looking at.

Here are my options:

1) Stick with the current Legion Go. Bought it the other day, open box for $700. Big screen but 16GB and no VRR. I don't care about the detachable controls.

2) Rog Ally X. Best buy has an open box for $735. 24GB and VRR, but only 7" screen.

3) Lenovo Legion Go S, Z1 Extreme with SteamOS. Comes out Sunday for $830. 32GB. 8" screen with VRR. Expensive, but checks all the boxes.

What do you guys think?



Bazzite is pretty awesome.
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Wait until September. If the holiday devices don't tickle your fancy you will find the Legion Go S Z1 Extreme for open box/cheaper at that time and you can use the Legion Go you have now until then.
 
Dammn. If MS is going to make a move into providing some sort of gaming centric version of their OS, they better do it quick. They are about to lose some ground to SteamOS if they can't make windows a better place to play.
 
kikkis said:
I don't know what people really see in steam os. It's like windows where you get everything from windows store with 30% premium
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1. A linux tailored to gaming is a fundamental change to your computer. Sometimes it's fun just to change things.

2. It may be worse at some things, but it's also better at some things. Mileage will vary.

3. It really works in the sense that it pushes your interaction with a pc towards something more console-like. This is not the same as change for it's own sake. It's also not about just the big picture mode. It's a lot of little things about how the system is tailored for steam. Depending on your usage, this style of os can be attractive.
 
ReasonBeing said:
Dammn. If MS is going to make a move into providing some sort of gaming centric version of their OS, they better do it quick. They are about to lose some ground to SteamOS if they can't make windows a better place to play.
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If Valve can get SteamOS preinstalled in select (i.e. anything that doesn't have an Nvidia GPU) Intel and AMD laptops, then we will see a noticeable uptick in Linux marketshare. The biggest barrier is the average person not bothering to DIY installing SteamOS or any other Linux distro. Even then, we have seen Linux marketshare increase in both gaming and general use which suggests SteamOS has good userbase growth potential..
 
Topher said:
I'm going to just type out my thoughts here about which handhelds I'm looking at.

Here are my options:

1) Stick with the current Legion Go. Bought it the other day, open box for $700. Big screen but 16GB and no VRR. I don't care about the detachable controls.

2) Rog Ally X. Best buy has an open box for $735. 24GB and VRR, but only 7" screen.

3) Lenovo Legion Go S, Z1 Extreme with SteamOS. Comes out Sunday for $830. 32GB. 8" screen with VRR. Expensive, but checks all the boxes.

What do you guys think?



Bazzite is pretty awesome.
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$700 Open Box for the Legion Go is crazy high. You can find it new for $550 or so.

It's only a few months until the Z2 Extreme handhelds show up. May be best to wait for that?
 
You can turn on your Steam Deck LCD from across the room with a Bluetooth controller, a feature previously exclusive to the OLED model, which comes in handy when you're docked to a TV.
Speaking of leaving it docked, you can now set a Battery Charge Limit to 80 percent for longevity's sake if your handheld is always plugged in[...]
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This is huge
 
Ozriel said:
$700 Open Box for the Legion Go is crazy high. You can find it new for $550 or so.

It's only a few months until the Z2 Extreme handhelds show up. May be best to wait for that?
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Doubt we will see prices that low again since all the tariff stuff. I'm expecting Z2E to be over $1000. As I said to StereoVsn StereoVsn , I'm really more concerned with ram for future games than processing.

Either way, I'm likely returning the Legion Go. I don't like the speakers and I'm constantly having to adjust down from the absurdly high resolution. 1200p should really be max for a handheld, imo. Hopefully the Go S is a landscape panel. Portrait can be problematic.
 
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Topher said:
Doubt we will see prices that low again since all the tariff stuff. I'm expecting Z2E to be over $1000. As I said to StereoVsn StereoVsn , I'm really more concerned with ram for future games than processing.

Either way, I'm likely returning the Legion Go. I don't like the speakers and I'm constantly having to adjust down from the absurdly high resolution. 1200p should really be max for a handheld, imo. Hopefully the Go S is a landscape panel. Portrait can be problematic.
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I think there were some previews of Go S, but I haven't paid attention. Once it releases there are usually a few YouTubers who review these fairly in depth so we should have more info!

Edit: What's even dumber is that judging by the laptop versions of the new AMD chipset (HX AI or whatnot), performance uptake vs previous one is not particularly amazing if at all present.

So it's really a crapshoot if going for that new chipset in a handheld will even increase scores all that much and it is still not RDNA 4 on GPU so no FSR 4.
 
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Topher said:
I'm going to just type out my thoughts here about which handhelds I'm looking at.

Here are my options:

1) Stick with the current Legion Go. Bought it the other day, open box for $700. Big screen but 16GB and no VRR. I don't care about the detachable controls.

2) Rog Ally X. Best buy has an open box for $735. 24GB and VRR, but only 7" screen.

3) Lenovo Legion Go S, Z1 Extreme with SteamOS. Comes out Sunday for $830. 32GB. 8" screen with VRR. Expensive, but checks all the boxes.

What do you guys think?



Bazzite is pretty awesome.
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Which is the most powerful?
 
StereoVsn said:
You could get LCD one used for pretty low price. Can always upgrade storage yourself. Performance is generally same as OLED.
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Yep, got my Steam Deck LCD last August on Facebook Marketplace

Deck
Controller
Case
256gb micro sd (upgraded later)
Dock

$220

Steal of the century for sure
 
Happy Lets Go GIF by NHL


fing awesome. looking forward to desktop ISO and the future of the Steam ecosystem
 
IFireflyl said:
I am rooting for SteamOS to seriously take off, even outside of the handheld space. Anything to get Linux to be more "average joe"-friendly.
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Has Valve announced any plans or even updates on what they are doing with the MP situation in a lot of games? Until they fix that situation I just don't know how much they can really grow.
 
RavageX said:
If I'm not mistaken, apps like xbox and epic...gog and all that don't work on that OS correct? If that's the case then I see no point. I have a Legion Go and works fine for most practically all my games and emulation, so I don't think this will benefit me.
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You can install windows on your steam deck.
 
Topher said:
Ah…I'm looking at 1TB pricing. Go is, unfortunately, more expensive to upgrade due to its SSD size
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1tB 2230 should be around $70-80. Unless it has even less popular format.

Issue with Go though is 16GB of RAM and that can't be upgraded… unless you are really really good with your soldering iron! 😉
 
StereoVsn said:
1tB 2230 should be around $70-80. Unless it has even less popular format.

Issue with Go though is 16GB of RAM and that can't be upgraded… unless you are really really good with your soldering iron! 😉
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Go uses 2242 which was about $95 when I checked.
 
kikkis said:
I don't know what people really see in steam os. It's like windows where you get everything from windows store with 30% premium
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Pretty obvious reasons, for any of these handhelds SteamOS + any of the other gaming Linux distros offer objectively better battery life on the same games, and less power draw when put into sleep.

RavageX said:
If I'm not mistaken, apps like xbox and epic...gog and all that don't work on that OS correct? If that's the case then I see no point. I have a Legion Go and works fine for most practically all my games and emulation, so I don't think this will benefit me.
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GoG, Epic, Amazon, Battle.net, Ubisoft, EA Origin games do all work on SteamOS or any other Linux distro at this point, and you can have them automatically add as non-steam games to the UI front-end the Steam Deck uses to boot the games easily with gamepad controls. They'll all use Proton to run just like Steam games.

Only Xbox app + Game Pass don't work because of their UWP format tied to the framework and services in Windows.
 
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Crayon said:
See post 82 above.
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I mean options are good. Id just rather run ALL my pc games ive bought over the last 15 years, plus any weird windows stuff i wanna run. With my Iniu 65w mini powerbank i get 4-7 hours gaming on the go with my ROG allly which is plenty. Side note ive just picked up a used pair of xreal air oled glasses and these things are a gamechanger.
 
I grabbed a steamdeck a few days ago and am on the fence about returning it. I was streaming cyberpunk from my desktop as a test and despite the incredible oled image quality, the experience paled in comparison to my run of the mill 27" monitor.
It seemed a lot harder to appreciate the finer details and landscapes on the smaller form factor. While I love the idea of being able to play anything with me on the go, the reality of it fell a little short. Has anyone else experienced something similar?
Feeling like these types of games don't translate as well to the smaller screen, and unfortunately for me, that's exactly the type of game I enjoy the most.
As another example, I watched the Gta6 trailer on the steamdeck as well, and once again, I didn't have any of that overwhelming 'wow' feeling I did when watching it virtually anywhere else.
 
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buenoblue said:
I mean options are good. Id just rather run ALL my pc games ive bought over the last 15 years, plus any weird windows stuff i wanna run. With my Iniu 65w mini powerbank i get 4-7 hours gaming on the go with my ROG allly which is plenty. Side note ive just picked up a used pair of xreal air oled glasses and these things are a gamechanger.
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Then for you, windows is the right tool for the job. There's a lot of linux users who have a dual boot or a win vm and they pull it out when they need it. Or ones who also keep a mac for work. The thing to remember is that there are situations where someone would call linux the right tool for the job. Look at all the deck owners who love linux on their deck, but would rather have windows on their desktop or laptop. Likely for the reasons you state.
 
It's not letting me turn on the lcd steam deck with the Xbox one controller anyone know why?

I don't even see an option for it in settings
 
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RavageX said:
If I'm not mistaken, apps like xbox and epic...gog and all that don't work on that OS correct? If that's the case then I see no point. I have a Legion Go and works fine for most practically all my games and emulation, so I don't think this will benefit me.
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Epic works idk about Xbox, I never have a reason to use Microsoft store
 
Buggy Loop said:
I hope a desktop version releases this year. I would dual boot and likely be most of the time on steam OS to be honest. If gaming could move to linux I would throw windows under the bus.
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I've been running Bazzite on my desktop PC for 6 months now. As long as you don't play games that still require kernel-level anticheat (eg Valorant) everything works fine, just as good as Windows and sometimes even better performance. Games I've played on it (no particular order):

  • Doom The Dark Ages
  • AC Shadows
  • KCD2
  • Dune Awakening (beta weekend)
  • LOTRO
  • Oblivion Remaster
  • Ninja Gaiden II Black
  • Avowed
  • Six Days in Fallujah
  • MK1
  • Tekken 8
  • Path of Exile 2
 
phant0m said:
I've been running Bazzite on my desktop PC for 6 months now. As long as you don't play games that still require kernel-level anticheat (eg Valorant) everything works fine, just as good as Windows and sometimes even better performance. Games I've played on it (no particular order):

  • Doom The Dark Ages
  • AC Shadows
  • KCD2
  • Dune Awakening (beta weekend)
  • LOTRO
  • Oblivion Remaster
  • Ninja Gaiden II Black
  • Avowed
  • Six Days in Fallujah
  • MK1
  • Tekken 8
  • Path of Exile 2
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Yah i've been using proto since day one. It was maybe a 30% success rate when it came out, but now, it's great. The last couple issues I had with bugs or games not running, I looked up and seem to be same problem on windows.

I used to check for compatibility on protondb before buying but I don't even bother anymore.
 
Crayon said:
Yah i've been using proto since day one. It was maybe a 30% success rate when it came out, but now, it's great. The last couple issues I had with bugs or games not running, I looked up and seem to be same problem on windows.

I used to check for compatibility on protondb before buying but I don't even bother anymore.
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It's crazy how they have got almost all windows software working on Steam os, thinking about how much work that took, but now they don't have to rely on windows for anything anymore if they don't want to

I haven't used windows anymore in 3 years, they need to get nvidia GPU's working at full speed though still
 
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BlueManifest said:
It's crazy how they have got almost all windows software working on Steam os, thinking about how much work that took, but now they don't have to rely on windows for anything anymore if they don't want to

I haven't used windows anymore in 3 years, they need to get nvidia GPU's working at full speed though still
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Me and Wife are around our ten years since switching full-time! Still windows at work but honesty it's fine for that while administrated by IT. At home though, we used to keep vm's for the occasional need. But since a particular pc build and fresh install, I've been "meaning to get around to" setting up those vm's for like 5 years now.

A few months back I went to mod bg3, and you don't have the same options for mod tools on linux. Annoying, but it's still possible. Just set up your folders the old fashioned way. The edge cases are like that where you have to spend some extra time looking up and carrying out an alternative but once you know, you know and it's a more and more rare occurrence.

It sure is nice to see your os get BETTER over time lol.
 
Calverz said:
Imagine buying a windows handheld to then just put steamOS on. Absolutely pointless. Just buy a steam deck if you want steamOS.
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People were installing SteamOS on Windows handhelds before via Bazzite - it showed both better FPS AND better battery life. This being native means the results are most likely even better. The fact Microsoft doesn't have a lite version of Windows for handhelds tells you how clueless they are, and new "Xbox handhelds" will not change anything.
 
Do Valve have to support specific handhelds once the release is final? Will we at some point be able to install this on less popular handhelds like the Zotac Zone and MSI Claw without having to check for compatibility first?
 
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