It’s been a year since Valve Corporation unleashed a new revolution in PC gaming when it released the Steam Deck, a half-PC, half-portable console. The idea of taking its PC games everywhere has seduced more than one and despite some flaws, this console is a commercial success with the million sales exceeded a few months after its launch. On the occasion of its first candle, the three versions of the Steam Deck benefit from a 10% discount.
After crossing the desert caused by the Nintendo Switch and mobile gaming, portable consoles needed to renew themselves and find an audience. The year 2022 has been the starting point for a new generation of portable consoles with the release of the Logitech G Cloud, the Valve Steam Deck and soon the Razer Edge scheduled for 2023. The Valve Steam Deck is in the spotlight this week since to celebrate its first anniversary, the 64 GB, 256 GB and 512 GB consoles give you a 10% reduction.
The Valve Steam Deck in a nutshell
- Impressive performance for a portable console
- A large library of games
- A very good grip
Until March 23 at 6 p.m., the three versions of the Valve Steam Deck are on sale: the 64 GB version goes from 419 euros to 377.10 euros, the 256 GB version from 549 euros to 494.10 euros and the 512 GB version from 679 euros to 611.10 euros.
Thanks to this Steam Deck promotion, you can then take the opportunity to take a microSD card to increase storage. Currently on Amazon, the 256 GB Samsung Evo Plus is at 27.50 euros and the 512 GB model at 63 euros.
If the offer mentioned in this article is no longer available after that, please take a look below to find other promotions related to the Valve Steam Deck. The table updates automatically.
Where to buy the
Valve Steam Deck at the best price?
Like a miniature laptop in a big chassis
At first glance, the Steam Deck impresses, and not just because it’s a portable console capable of running PC games. The plastic frame cheap by the way, is 30 cm wide and is lined with controls galore. Looks like a premium Xbox controller with analog sticks, D-Pad, four action buttons, four triggers, four back controls. Not to mention that we also have two touchpads and a large LCD touch screen in the center, enough to get lost quickly. The console is however relatively light and the controls easy to access.
As indicated above, the screen uses an LCD display, so we are not sure of the optimal quality. The 7-inch panel displays a resolution close to HD (1,280 x 800 pixels) and with a refresh rate blocked at 60 Hz. The brightness of 475 cd / m², the contrast ratio and the colorimetry measured during our test confirm that the display quality has been put aside a bit in the budget choices. At this price, we would have preferred an OLED panel. Nevertheless, we are not in the presence of a console either low tierfar from there.
An excellent gaming experience
The biggest asset of Valve’s Steam Deck lies in its performance, which is excellent and even surprising given the size of the machine. And for good reason, the processor is similar to what is used for the latest generation consoles from Sony and Microsoft. The AMD processor is based on Zen 2 and RDNA 2 architectures and is assisted by 16 GB of LPDDR5 RAM. Storage is managed by eMMC memory, an NVMe PCIe Gen 3 x2 or x4 SSD depending on the version of the console.
Here you have a monster of power capable of running any game, which is what this console was designed for. But that much power generates a lot of heat, so you’ll be treated to particularly noisy ventilation. As for the autonomy, this varies according to the titles you play and can range from 2 to 8 hours. It doesn’t seem like much, but knowing that the Nintendo Switch has almost the same endurance and that the Valve Steam Deck is intended to run games that are more demanding than those of Big N, so it seems fair.
For even more, read our full Valve Steam Deck review.
6 /10
In order to compare the Valve Steam Deck with other products in the same category, we invite you now to consult our guide on current video game consoles.
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