 This is the steam deck. It's a crop top whenever I wear it. It's so embarrassing. Doesn't matter It's finally here. I have been waiting for this for I was gonna say what feels like a year But I think it has literally been a year since I slapped down my five dollar deposit It arrived today in this very box That is not even close to what I expected Hold on apparently I'm gonna have to blow out my address because this is actually just the box That the steam deck is shipped in even the a and neo were shipped in a really nice packaging Attention plug in power on okay. Uh, this is what I meant by I Didn't expect it to and it's fine. It actually came in a carrying case. So I mean, it's nice I don't have to buy a carrying case. I definitely wasn't expecting that accessory But I wasn't expecting it to be shipped just in a generic box and have the power cord Outside of the unit. That's not a slight on this at all. This case does feel very nice Yeah, there's the power cord now this big thing that said attention Plug it in. I guess that telling you put it on charge immediately Your games are going places. Oh, that's actually kind of me. All right. Here we go the Nintendo switch killer I'm actually just kidding. I mean, yeah, that's what the picture looked like. It's massive I can't help but really look at the size of this thing. It's so Oddly reminiscent of a game. I'm really curious to see what these pads are like though. Oh, they're weird to touch That's not what I expected. Oh, oh, hold up a minute. It's actually super light It is way way lighter than I expected That's actually really cool if we take a look even at this a and neo the recent one that I did a video on I mean this has to be almost twice as heavy. I'm actually super impressed with how light it is. It is big It is big. It's really big, but I love these grips on the back. That's actually really nice I might have been a bit harsh on it when I got it out the box initially also bananas that the d-pad and the buttons Are like leaving the console They are so tucked away in the corner that the B button is starting to drip around the side of the console Like it's it's melting off the side. It's trying to escape, but the triggers feel really nice The buttons feel really nice. We have back buttons too two on either side. No, I like it. I actually like it I think it feels and looks pretty good now that I've had a second for my eyes to adjust from I guess just what I'm used to but let's plug it in before I turn it on since they really stressed it Hey, that took a hot minute to boot up welcome to steam deck press or tap to continue This is the steam button press to access your library store settings and more This is the quick access button quickly view notifications friends list quick settings and more all right So I don't have the most extensive Steam library, but I do have some solid things to download like the witcher cyberpunk red dead 2 So I'm gonna get to installing some of these things and then now we'll try them out. See you see We'll see I'm very excited. So I've installed but I've started installing three games apex cyberpunk and Witcher and I'm already maxed on how much I can fit on this thing locally I do need to get a bigger SD card. All right, let's leave that let it do what it do and we'll be back I've just been sat here for three days No, not really. I've played with this thing a lot in spoilers I love it before we get too fucked actually not this thing This thing before we get too far ahead of ourselves though There's one thing that I love about the steam deck that it had day one looking at you Nintendo switch. That's right Bluetooth the reason why having Bluetooth on a handheld console is so great is gaming with wireless audio Which is perfect because this video was sponsored by Raycon as you guys already know, I love my Raycons I've been using them for over three years and when the switch could finally use them I was excited so you bet the first thing I tested on here was linking up the earbuds and it works perfectly and immediately or maybe that fantastic audio is just because how great the Raycons are at half the price of other premium wireless earbuds on the market. It's incredible They sound this good. They offer an eight-hour playtime and 32 hour battery life So you're gonna loop the steam decks battery life by about times 10 They have optimized gel tips for the perfect in-ear fit so no matter how much you shake your head They're not going anywhere plus their noise isolating as soon as they suck these bad boys in I can barely hear myself Say anything so it's no wonder. They have over 48 thousand five star reviews So if you want to slay some Elden Ring bosses while hearing everything in high definition audio on the go How about you go to the description box down below or go to buy a raycon.com forward slash feed them ups and get yourself 15% off a pair of Raycons So click that link below if you want to grab a pair and thank you Raycon for sponsoring the video But okay, what else can this guy do? You know what? I'm gonna need more time to figure that out. I Took my sweet time with this one. I actually have had the steam deck now for over two Weeks initially my plan was to rush out some sort of video You know the first impressions that I'm boxing, but I I gotta be honest I fell in love with this thing Really quickly and I didn't want to rush out a video I didn't want to do it any kind of injustice the more I played it the more I found to love the more I wanted to talk about and suddenly I had way too much to talk about to just put something out there quickly I've tried dozens of games on this thing and almost every single one has impressed me in Multiple different ways. I've fallen in love with the form factor of the steam deck and Everything it has to offer from its track pads, which I actually like I thought I was going to hate them And I actually like them even down to little things like the Wi-Fi on this thing is actually really great I downloaded cyberpunk in like ten minutes on this thing and that's like a 60 gig game I mean yes, I have very good internet, but still okay. Let me reel it in I don't really know where to begin I guess the first thing I'll say is this is in no way a replacement for my switch I still love the Nintendo switch and I always will and I'll talk at the end of the video Why I think they can both exist alongside each other, but to summarize it It's it's I mean it's kind of like saying well I don't need my Xbox anymore because I have my PlayStation 5 well That's probably not a good example really for most of you, huh? Um Sometimes it's just good to have more options. All right The first things I fell in love with really quickly is it's very user-friendly I love the Steam OS interface they have on here immediately as you load it up You can go straight to your library, but to make it even more streamlined You can go to your library and go great on deck Which means these are all the games that have been verified to run Perfectly on the console with no issues and if you decide that you know You don't have enough games, which is really everyone's problem It takes two seconds to load up the store right at the top You have a scrolling bar that seems to update every day with a bunch of games That's great to play on the deck today. I got no man sky Lego Star Wars Elden ring and I will definitely get to that and as you go down you'll find a ton more games on sale You can sort by action adventure RPG and there are just so many games that are already verified to just work perfectly on the console But that's not to say that a bunch of other games don't work great to for example red dead 2 They haven't even tested that yet or given it any kind of rating for the steam deck But I've been playing it and it's fantastic the speakers are these big right on the front here and yeah They sound great the fan It's not whisper silent well unless you're playing like an indie game or something I have a game on here called eternal the card game Which if you watched my 10 free e-shop video what I recommended that game? Yes, I'm still addicted to it when I'm playing that It's definitely whisper silent But if I'm gonna boot up a game like Elden ring it might it might start gasping for air But that said it's not nearly as loud as the a and neo which will get to or maybe even as loud as you might Think really the only time I notice it is if I'm playing in bed at night And it's like 2 a.m. And I've got the sound turned down so I don't wake him up and all I can hear is However the battery It's also really not that bad Again, they say that it lasts between two to eight hours if you're playing Elden ring You'll probably get that two hours sure I was playing that eternal card game last night for five hours because I'm addicted to it And when I was done my battery was still in green so it really all depends on what you're playing some other neat things I really love about this everything just works With the a and eo, I'm gonna be referencing this a lot and if you don't know I made a video on this. It's a $1400 handheld PC. It's essentially a steam deck, but you know a thousand dollars more the steam deck blows The a and ea out of the water in my opinion with performance frame rates graphics It's insane how much better the steam deck is but yeah anyway on this thing like I would try and load up red dead redemption 2 Off of steam mind you and it would always load up in the corner of the screen And I had to do like a bunch of Jimmy in with the rotating and then resizing the game in the options It took five minutes every time I wanted to play the game just to resize it to full screen And there were a bunch of games I had issues with just like that like monster hunter rise was another one on the a and eo I have never had that happen on this even red dead redemption to just opens up Perfect every time it's hassle and stress free as long as you're using the steam OS There are ways to get like game pass and epic store on the steam deck rather than loading up in the OS You can load up just a desktop and use it like a computer, but it runs on Linux I have never used Linux before and I discovered the hard way that you can't just open a dot exe file on Linux Just just open game pass just open game pass. What do you mean choose an application to open? What what do you mean? I don't get it. What am I? What am I doing wrong? I'm not this dumb Open the dot exe. What do you want to do with this file execute select the program? You want to use to open Xbox controller dot exe? Oh Hold on. I can't open an exe in Linux. All right. I'm dumb It actually takes a bunch of having to kind of hack the thing to download anything like that So you can't go on load a browser and download Genshin impact because dot exe you can't download and install game pass For the same reason there are ways to if you plug in a keyboard and a mouse And you go in and you hack some files and you type in some things to get it to work But as soon as I started trying to type everything in and I had a keyboard plugged in But then I needed to get a mouse and I was like, you know what I I can't be bothered It is an option if you want to do it. Um, I just I Don't know All right, everything else about the steam deck comes into play when I talk about the games So I'm gonna be breaking down every single game by what it looked like how it visually stacked up compared to I guess What a console or a PC port would look like but also what kind of frame rates did it have and how did it feel to play? Frame rates are very important. However, I feel like I'm not as hardcore on Needing 60 FPS There's a lot of people are and when it comes to gaming on the go, you got to make sacrifices So for me personally anything above 30 FPS is good Let's be honest though most of the games I tested are like 45 FPS and up So I think everyone's gonna be pretty happy with it. All right, okay I've kept you waiting for the game part of the video for long enough So let me just get straight to the game You will want to see and I know it because I know you guys Elden ring. I love Elden ring by the way. I I want to review it on the channel. So just a small side note I freaking love this game. The Elden ring is super impressive on the steam deck to start It is verified so to quickly talk about what that means with the verified So what this rating means and there's a bunch there's verified There's playable so it might have some issues, but it's playable and then there's just we haven't tested it yet How they get these is people working at steam closely with the steam deck are playing these games testing these games Maybe even the developers of the games themselves are Optimizing them for the steam deck and we've seen that for quite a few of the games and Elden ring is one of course Because it's a recent release and why wouldn't you it's been optimized for the steam deck It looks and plays super smooth It holds a steady 30 to 40 FPS and in my opinion for a brand new triple a release that just came out That's really impressive as someone who just played through the PlayStation 5 version 2 I don't feel like there's a massive downgrade here at all It feels damn near the exact same experience just on the go easily one of the most impressive games I played on the console and it's so good. It's even got me stuck playing through a new character I did try Lowering the graphic settings to see if we could boost the frame rate up a bit But it just things went south really quickly see the way those trees are like dancing now This definitely does not look as good and for some reason it didn't improve the frame rate at all so just keep it on the default God of War is verified and Wow, I know this game is I guess technically old older now I mean it was a PlayStation 4 game, but it still feels super Recent to me and I still hold it in higher regard as a game that had gorgeous visuals Fantastic gameplay. I couldn't imagine playing it on the go just a couple years ago but it is Immaculate on the steam deck and it continues to blow me away every time I loaded up to record more footage I just still I could I had wrote the word immaculate in the script and I would load it up thinking like maybe That's a bit strong and every time I saw it. I was like nope. That's pretty good It's easily sitting around 30 to 40 FPS, which for me in an action game like this is perfectly fine But visually it's stunning. Okay, so let's look at a game. That's not verified Jedi fallen order Now this is interesting because fallen order it says playable with a caution So when I looked up what the caution was it actually gives you a breakdown and it said everything was great Graphically, it looks great. There's no bugs. It plays you're gonna have a great time But the caution was there's a launcher that you might have to like type or press some buttons or something So I guess they consider that like a bad user experience where if the EA launcher pops up or the CD project red Launcher pops up you might have to sign into something and then from there the game just opens So I think really it's doing these games a disservice to have a caution mark on them because Jedi also plays really great and Looks fantastic, although I will say and this is not why it has a caution on it Uh, it does have it does have frame dips. It's weird because the opening Intro area sits pretty close around 60 FPS because it's linear and it looks fantastic And then when you hit the open area in the game the first area it does go down like 45 frames It's it's pulling a little bit more power now, but both of those are great It's just when you load in or walk into a room or an area the first time It just seems to tank and dip for like a second and then it's fine once you're in the area It's fine I've never had it dip or do anything like that while I'm in a boss fight or any kind of Pre-established area I've been in so that is a weird little hiccup that might throw some people out of the experience But for me to play this on the go and have it looking this great I don't mind so let's take a look at apex which is also verified on the console So apex does look amazing It's a really cool one to play on the steam deck because it's one of those games that we have a direct Comparison for on the switch the switch port is un Playable in my opinion. I am it's maybe 30 FPS with some dips But to get to that point they had to severely chop up the visuals It ended up looking like a mud bath very blurry hard to see anything in the distance So having it crystal clear on the steam deck is really nice I mean you weren't looking at 50 FPS all day, baby, and that's great It does hit 60 FPS when nothing really is going on and you're standing still I even almost won a couple of games playing on the steam deck I think that that one's a winner too quickly before we look at some more graphically intense beasts I want to point out that indies on the steam deck go hard I mean I love the switch and the indies seen on switch is just one of my favorite things about the console But with indies they usually don't start on switch they start on steam So the steam deck is just like the home of indies There are so many that I'd never seen on switch not to mention They are always on sale when I first got my steam deck hollow night was like four dollars for the first week But of course all these indies are gonna play in like perfect frame rate They're gonna look and pop on the screen The fan is gonna be whisper quiet and you just have this huge plethora of really cheap games to buy and play Okay, I gotta be quicker with some of these. I'm taking too long. I'm just gushing over all of them Red Dead 2 was easily the most impressive game for me Because when I got this initially that was one of the things that blew me away Because I could play Red Dead 2 portably I could and it looked really great But the frame rates were around 25 And I said it's borderline playable borderline like I'm pushing it because I love Red Dead and it looks great But I wouldn't blame anyone if they looked at that and thought okay steam deck I it looks better. It looks better than a in here somehow the textures are better There's more foliage the shadow and lighting all looks better, and it's like 40 FPS I mean, I don't I don't I don't understand. I mean there are points where I see it hit 50 I mean those are frame rates that the PlayStation 4 and Xbox one would dream of And that's only one generation of consoles gone And to have it be put just straight into your hands and possibly perform even better What year is it? And again interestingly that game is unrated. They haven't tested it They haven't given it a rating at all. I feel like that's a game they would have Right, but they also haven't tested a game like Monster Hunter Rise Which is perfect on the console. I mean again the switch version is pretty perfect So of course the steam deck version is just gonna look a little cleaner around the edges And be just as good in 60 FPS solid But they they're like nah, yeah, we haven't tested it. We don't know I can tell you steam deck. Let me test them. Monster Hunter Rise is legit perfect And Red Dead 2 you could sit down and play that whole game on this thing and have no problems That's wood verified Witcher 3 is of course another great game to test Because it's not only one of in my opinion it is the best open water RPG of all time But it's just a game that many people would love to play on the go And it has been possible before now because there's a switch port And I think the switch port is borderline They managed to get the game on there and that's great And they kept the frame rates pretty stable But there was just too much of a sacrifice visually The game has that apex mud look about it Where just everything kind of looks like an interpreter's painting Of what the Witcher 3 actually looked like I really feel like a broken record But for a game that came out on the PlayStation 4 and the Xbox one You can of course guess 60 FPS pretty solid across the board And it just looks I'm running out of words adjectives You know gorgeous striking stunning fantastic I don't think I've said that one yet. Have I? It looks fantastic Oh the track pads you know I said I actually like them And I never really talked about why here's a good chance Sims 4 I wanted to buy a game that was specifically a PC game You know like you can play it on console but without a mouse it's tough Because the track pad essentially acts not only as the d-pad and as toggles But also it's touch it's mouse you can use it as a mouse So I downloaded Sims 4 I'm you it's it just becomes a mouse It's super pinpoint and sensitive I can very easily Delete a wall and then build an extension to the house in seconds Now is it as easy as a mouse? No but I've been using a mouse my whole life The more I've been using this the better at it I have been getting Obviously it's never going to compare but it's not a bad replacement Another thing I really like about it too is They have like haptic feedback in these track pads And when you run your finger along the mouse pad It kind of like vibrates along where you're running your finger To let you know that yeah you're touching it you're mo- It feels really cool Here's a weird one Uhhhhhh Cyberpunk It's weird for a lot of reasons Cyberpunk on the A&E was trash Which I kind of at the time just blamed on Cyberpunk Right? Cyberpunk's a very poorly optimized game But it didn't look bad But again it was like 15-20 FPS at best on this $1400 PC So I really expected similar from the Steam Deck And I was very wrong and very impressed again But here's what's so interesting When you load it up it defaults to a graphical setting called Steam Deck It'll go low, medium, high, ultra, Steam Deck So it actually has its own preset optimization for visuals And it blows chunks It's horrible I don't get it at all Barely holds 30 FPS at the best of times And as soon as you start running around or moving The blur becomes insufferable Like you're gonna throw up When you start moving like that and the blur kicks in It just tanks down to 15 FPS Literally unplayable for any kind of driving or shootouts Or you know everything that makes the game worth playing So initially I was like Okay well yeah this is This is Cyberpunk right? That's kind of what this thing was doing too This is what they've optimized it as I was done honestly And I think someone in chat said try lowering the settings So if I set it all to low I wonder That's way better It doesn't look as nice But it's locked on 30 now That's way better What the heck? It's 30 FPS and extremely extremely playable Oh yeah someone in chat wanted me to put it on medium Give me a second Okay we're on medium now We're still doing good for the 30 So you don't have to go all the way to low You can go to medium I wonder if I can go to high Even high is not nearly as bad What the hell is Steam thinking with its setting for this game? I mean it was night and day The fact that the game is Cyberpunk aside It's super playable on the Steam Deck If you really wanted to Might not be the best way to play it It also goes to show that When you do get your Steam Deck Feel free to mess around If you do get a Steam Deck Feel free to mess around with some settings And see what you can squeeze out of some of these games Because you never know But honestly that's the only game I've had to tweak those Every other game that I've talked about today That I've played outside of this video I just used whatever the default was And it was fine Maybe I could have squeezed more out of some of these But I'm really going for the most generic User experience possible And I think it's been fantastic Easily my favorite experience with the Steam Deck so far Other than the countless hours I've played To tunnel the card game It really is a problem guys Help me easily My favorite experience is Tales of Arise Every single game I've talked about today Is a game that I've played before It's a game that I adore and I love And I wanted to see what it could do And play it portably And it's been exciting to see my favorite games that way I wanted something new And whenever I think of handheld gaming I think of like playing Persona 4 Golden on the Vita And how much fun that was I love playing these long RPGs on a handheld console Immediately I wanted to download Persona 5 on this Apparently that's not on PC or Steam yet And then one day I was browsing the store And on that little scrolling tab up top It said Tales of Arise is verified I haven't played that yet and I've heard great things I didn't realize what a great choice I was making Honestly, the self-shaded visual style pops On the Steam Deck With no rough edges I mean it just seems pixel perfect And the colors really shine through And then the gameplay is fast and smooth Sitting around 50 while exploring the world And 45 while in combat It really is just a fantastic game to play on the Steam Deck Okay, let me give you some final thoughts Clearly, I love it I mean, I can't hide that I can't even talk about the stupid thing without a smile on my face I want to reiterate I love portable gaming Ever since I was a kid I've had home consoles all the way back to NES But I also always had a Game Boy A Game Boy Advance A Game Boy Advance SP A DS A 3DS A Vita I've always loved handheld gaming And I've always been excited for the future of handheld gaming So I think you would be insane to think I wouldn't love something like this I mean, it would have to be pretty abysmal for me not to I like this thing a lot But it was $1,400 I don't think it looks or feels that very good And I just don't really have any attachment To something called Aeonio I'm sorry to say it Steam Deck has that brand recognition That makes it a little easier for me to feel attached to it I feel safer in knowing that this thing probably isn't going to explode in a week And it's going to have continual support from a platform that has been hosting games for years Now, I realize that what I just said might not age well Because Steam does have a habit of releasing things And then discontinuing and dropping them And then selling them for a nickel a year later But that doesn't change what this is in my hands right now I think it's a perfect companion for me to have alongside the Switch Of course if I had to pick one I gotta go the Switch because it has Zelda and Mario and Splatoon and exclusives That I would be missing out on if I didn't have the console An insane library of games That I'm not going to want to just throw away Because I can buy things on Steam now But there are experiences I've been dying to have portable That the Switch just can't pull off because it's a five-year-old outdated console As much as I love it, that's the truth This has the entire Steam library And my bet is it can play pretty much anything on it Games I probably never would have tried or considered otherwise Like Tales of Arise I love this thing And if it's something you think you might like or you might want You're probably going to love it too Just promise me you won't sell your Switch for it Because I'll be very mad at you if you do All right, that's it I hope you liked this video Comment down below and subscribe with your thoughts If you have a Steam Deck, let me know what you think Also, please check out the Nintendo podcast It's a new podcast I started with my buddy Bob Wolf It's all about Nintendo It's been a ton of fun so far Weekly episodes every Thursday And bonus episodes every Thursday on Patreon But that's it All right I talked about this thing for an hour and a half And now I have to edit it into like a 25-something minute video How did I do? What's the time down below? Let me know