Want to get your hands on a Steam Deck?
Valve
Valve is back in the hardware business with the news of its Steam Deck last week. The portable gaming device, which looks similar to the Nintendo Switch ($299 at Amazon), plays PC games available on Steam and acts as a standalone computer.
The Steam Deck is Valve’s entry into the portable gaming device market. It looks similar to a Switch but with a 7-inch touchscreen and 16GB of RAM. It’s powered by a custom Zen 2 CPU and RDNA 2 graphics, which is enough power to run most AAA games. Reservations for the device went live Friday and brought down Valve’s site.
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Valve’s Steam Deck is a portable, handheld PC
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Here’s what you need to know about reserving a Steam Deck.
When can I reserve a Steam Deck?
Reservations started July 16 on the Steam Deck reservation page. Steam’s servers were wrecked for a few hours due to the vast number of people attempting to access the site. The reservation page grayed out the options for a brief time, but the reserve buttons returned.
The updated Steam Deck reservation page with new dates.
Valve
The reservation page is still up for anyone who wants to get their hand on a Steam Deck.
How do Steam Deck reservations work?
A $5 fee is required to place a reservation for a Steam Deck, according to the reservation page. That $5 will then go toward the price of the Steam Deck. When a reservation is submitted, it’s put in a queue. When the device gets released, order invites will be sent out in the order that the reservations were received.
On the updated Steam Deck reservation page, orders for the 64GB and 512GB versions are listed to be available in Q2 2022, while the 256GB is listed as Q1 2022. This means the first batch set to release in December is already accounted for and the rest will come in the following months.
Who can make a Steam Deck reservation?
Anyone can reserve a Steam, but you’ll need a Steam account. It’s free to create one and will be required to use the Steam Deck.
When will the Steam Deck release in the US?
The initial batch of Steam Decks should ship in December. However, many will not receive their Steam Deck until early 2022.
What notable differences are there between different Steam Deck models?
There are three different Steam Decks being released. The starter unit is $399 and comes with 64GB of storage. For $529, the storage increases to 256GB and uses an NVMe SSD, which Valve says is faster than the eMMC storage of the cheaper model. The third Steam Deck has a price tag of $649. It has 512GB of NVMe SSD storage with the fastest read and write speed, and it will have an antiglare etched screen.
In the case of the 256GB and 512GB versions, the NVMe SSDs is technically upgradeable, but it won’t be easy. Upgrading would require taking apart the device, which Valve says should be done by those with experience. All three will have a microSD slot for more storage.