Blows my mind that none of these competing devices include touchpads. I swear half the games I play use the touchpads, whether it’s FPS-style games or something like Rimworld or Gunpoint.
On the flip side, I’ve never used the touchpads in a game outside of Aperture Desk Job.
Same, I keep running my fingers over then to get the rumble I’m missing, but otherwise have not used them at all
Same. Wish SD didn’t have them and I could save myself a few bucks and get a more compact form factor.
I don’t think the touch pads are adding much to the form factor. All the other handhelds just have blank spaces where a touchpad could fit.
No, none of that is correct. There’s nowhere you could fit a usable touchpad on those devices.
I think what would be cool is if you’re able to remove the sticks (especially the right one) and replace them with the touchpads without any hassle. Like a modular unit. And if the stick drifts, then just get a new one and pluck it back in.
That’s a pretty competitive machine. Unfortunately no Linux support is a deal breaker for me.
Spec-wise yes but I can assure you there is nothing near the polishment or the software support of the Deck. There is a reason why SD is so popular.
Valve is really missing out by not making SteamOS available to these OEMs. Or vise versa the OEMs not contacting Valve. Not sure which one it is. But everyone is losing (except Epic/GoG etc.)
I swear I’ll be dead before they figure out why they haven’t managed to take on the SteamDecks success. Put SteamOS on it. Put trackpads on it. What really separates this from the other devices? Slightly different hardware?
I just really like the track pads on the SD. They’re too useful to not have.
The thing that the Deck does better than any other handheld is having both sticks, d-pad and buttons aligned in a row, that makes any combination of them comfortable to use, weird that nobody copies that.
Because that only “works” because of how chonky the steam deck is.
The issue isn’t even really the positioning. The issue is that you tend to hold a switch (or a gameboy or a wing-less PSP/Vita) with a “pinch” grip. so you actually have very little range of motion with your thumb because you need it to stabilize the handheld itself.
Whereas the steam deck is kind of heavy and bulky. so rather than pinch grip it, you tend to hold it more like a closed book (if that makes sense. Which means the deck is mostly supported by your stretched out fingers and your thumb more or less moves freely.
For another handheld to do that you would either need it to be a lot wider (less portable), heavier (no point), or have built in wings (which is what most of us bought for our Vita) which similarly kills the portability.
For what its worth, checking out a friend’s GPD when I was still considering it a few years back had the same benefits.
Battery life is probably gonna be real bad. Dave2D said the lowest cTDP the APU can do is 15W, up to 30W at the highest. That would drain the battery in no time.
Also have you seen the cooling system? 4 heatpipes and two fans, this is designed to draw loads of power. In my opinion misses the point of the formfactor.
No real competitor to the deck.
