Makes sense! And it does track with my own observations of new indie games being more likely to at least court the Deck platform. Do you have an article with those numbers? I’d like to share it with a small developer that might be interested in this knowledge.
On the other hand, it’s a lowest common denominator they can target. “It runs well on the Deck! We’ve done our job.” and the fact that it sold a lot means it’s a market that it’s probably worth the investment (can’t imagine it’s that much) in making a game work. After all any optimization for the Deck also translates into similarly modest hardware being able to run the game…
Not that I complain! Completely gave up on Windows a few months ago lol
To err is human, I’m not against a company messing up… it’s how they ignored the problem when notified it existed, and then only once it became newsworthy they decided to fix it. That’s not an attitude towards customers that I want to support.
But yes, good power banks. I think they are not as good value as they were years ago (and that’s why I do have tried the other brands mentioned) but regardless of price, I’d expect their power banks and cables to be high quality.
Yes! On Reddit I tried to explain several times that the Deck’s battery was 5200mah but not at 3.7 volts, and as such a badass 25000mah Anker would NOT charge it “at least 4 times” but probably 2.
It’s not a big deal tbh, but this is a thing people use on long flights, spreading misunderstandings can get people stuck mid flight without entertainment.
Brands: right now I would look at iniu first, Baseus and then maybe Ugreen but last time it wasn’t an epic offering. Anker IS a good brand, but after the fiasco with their eufy camera security, I avoid all their products. In fairness however if you’re not going to boycott them, a power bank or charge cable is not going to be a security risk….
Funny, juuuust when they limit the service to 100 hours monthly.
Boosteroid has Linux apps, too. Maybe not too elegant for the Deck…
AFTER it went viral, not when they got notified that there was a problem. Fuckups are to be expected, we’re all human… it’s how they’re handled that matters.
It does show up as nice and charged, but (in my instance) it’s very much not. As I mentioned it might be my specific setup. My theory is that something I plugged in keeps drawing power even after the Deck is off, but when the Deck is off, the charger doesn’t send power… so it uses up the battery.
In a day it won’t really show up, that’s not enough time in my experience. Also key here is that the Deck needs to be off: if it’s on then everything works as intended.
Yeah, it’s not a sudden thing: I believe it takes a few days just to have a noticeable impact. It’s just that my Deck lives on the dock for most of the time XD
What I’m describing is really nasty, as you think the battery is let’s say at 95% and you unplug it to be used as ha handheld. It’s updating a few games and you turn around, do something else… then check back on the updates and the Deck is off because it ran out of battery in a couple of minutes. I don’t think it’s good for the battery to be drained that much
As I mention always whenever this topic comes up, it might be my specific setup but don’t leave it off and plugged into a dock for long periods of time: it seems to discharge the battery and not realizing it’s happened. In my experience as long as you unplug it after shutting it off, there’s no downside.
What happens if you leave it plugged in for half an hour or more? After that, can you unplug it? Because at least for me, the dock can drain the battery (slowly) over time when the Deck is off, all the while the battery thinks it’s full. I would try keeping it on and plugged for a while, then unplug while it’s on.
And it’s a Linux thing, so you can do it with your desktop too!
They’re cute, thematically accurate, and the dynamic nature of them including the alternate version is really really cool.
Microsoft is doing a banging job, two years ago I had only a little bit of Steam Deck in there against Windows. And just mid October I put Linux on the gaming computer…
It takes days to actually drain the battery a significant amount, you’re not going to notice it during the honeymoon phase :P
I noticed it because my Deck lives most of the time on the dock.
A thing about the official dock, maybe it’s just my setup BUT: it drains the battery. It doesn’t look like it, but if it’s off or suspended, the Deck loses charge while connected to the dock, then you grab it to use it (and the battery is like 97%!) but within 5 minutes it’s completely dead. Again, it might be just my setup, but now I unplug the Deck from the dock once it’s off.
The main thing IMO is to get some hands on time with it. Figure what you want, what you like, and most importantly what you would like to see improved… and go from there. See if you prefer to use it as a console, or if you want more of a gaming computer and use regularly the desktop. Maybe you’ll want a dock and how you want it will depend on your needs. You get my point :D
Anyway for the laptop see if you like https://nobaraproject.org/download-nobara/ specifically the Nvidia one so it has the drivers pre installed. I use it “everywhere”
Lower your expectations, like… drastically. First, this is what I used for my test (quite fun even if clunky, can recommend) and as you can tell, not exactly pushing any boundaries graphic wise. Then I installed SteamVR (obviously!) and https://github.com/alvr-org/alvr to use my Quest 2. In ALVR I set the resolution to the minimum and 60 hz. Once everything was working, I went inside to SteamVR settings and… dragged the resolution to the minimum. Text was still legible in game, everything was very pixelated but usable, and the FPS kept around 60. Do note that it’s enough to give some people motion sickness, not me fortunately, but you really want to target 72 or more. In all of this the Deck was roaring with fury (docked) and as my amusement worn out, I just uninstalled SteamVR and Taskmaster because it’s really not worth it especially since on the other side of the desk I have a gaming computer.
tl;dr works but just barely and expectations needs to be very low. Not worth it aside from curiosity.
Thanks! I’ll have to find a way to “pitch” this but that’s interesting.