#Steam you need a budget install
#Steam you need a budget upgrade
#Steam you need a budget Bluetooth

Which brings me neatly onto my next point. Why carry all that extra weight and separate peripherals when you can essentially have everything rolled into one device? Laptops can do all this and more, but if you prefer playing games with a controller and aren't so preoccupied with FPS scores, the Deck is a no-brainer. Games with large text lend themselves to the Deck, but if you play games with a lot of menus, a laptop's 15-inch screen is going to put the Deck's 8-incher to shame. The small screen is going to be a barrier for some people, too.

#Steam you need a budget Bluetooth

Once the Deck Dock (opens in new tab) rears its head you'll be able to plug a mouse and keyboard in, and of course there's always Bluetooth for wirelessly connecting peripherals, but the device is primarily designed for controller-based games. The Deck's controls are a little awkward to get used to (opens in new tab), and tend to work best with RPGs, platformers, farming sims, and driving games, but you can get colony sims and the like working pretty well, after a little faffing. Thinking about the way you're going to use your tech is going to be one of the most important things you can do at this stage there will be both situations and games better suited for each platform.įirst consider the kind of games you like to play. Sadly, the reality is that sports cars have tiny trunks and aren't so great for installing kiddy car seats. If it were, we'd all be driving sports cars. It's never as simple as going for the thing with the most power under the hood. The main point here is that, for the price of the top Steam Deck, you can certainly get a laptop that pumps out more frames per second, although you might have to make sacrifices when it comes to storage or RAM. Black Friday sales are the best time to get the most out of your money, although you may be able to find the Steam Deck on sale by the time the deals season rolls around again. It can be done, though, if you know where to find the best deals on gaming laptops (opens in new tab).

#Steam you need a budget install

For the purpose of comparison I'll assume your only option is to get the $649, especially considering game install sizes (opens in new tab) today.įor this price, you can get a gaming laptop, but managing to find one with a current-gen GPU and CPU is a bit of a stretch. Valve has warned against jamming anything else into the Deck's M.2 slot (opens in new tab), however, and not everyone's as handy with a screwdriver.

#Steam you need a budget upgrade

Of course, that gives us a pretty great incentive to bag a $399 model, and upgrade the Deck's storage from 64GB to 500GB (opens in new tab) as soon as you get it, like some absolute legend on Reddit did. So while spending more on a laptop could give you more powerful components, there's no difference in performance between each of the Steam Deck models. The price mainly varies depending on the level of storage you choose, starting at $399 for the 64GB, and moving up to $529 for the 256GB, and $649 for 512GB. It's a tight little machine, and Valve has done a great job packing a lot of power into such a small package. Valve has done a great job packing a lot of power into such a small package