Hardware reviews are out today; from Linus Tech Tips, The Phawx, and Gamers Nexus.
Note that they're not allowed to do anything they want just yet. They're limited to a small pool of games and restricted to talking only about hardware, i.e. not about the OS or UI. The three outlets cover vastly different parts of the system in their reviews. Gamers Nexus is the best review for actual hardware data and numbers; Linus covers a lot of the things you'd expect in a mainstream review like controls, comfort, and the display; and The Phawx is best if you want to compare the Deck to other devices in its class (AYA NEO, GPD Win 3, etc).
Games allowed to show were:
- Control
- Portal 2
- Ghostrunner
- Dead Cells
- Devil May Cry V
- Street Fighter V
- Forza Horizon 5 (lot of 5's on this list)
I'll sum up some of the stuff I found interesting if you can't be bothered to watch over 2 hours of review.
- Battery life is about expected: 2 hrs if you're pushing it to its limit, and realistically up to 6 hours for less taxing games. Despite the battery being lower W/h than some of its competitors, the system is extremely efficient, handily taking first place for battery life in the Handheld Gaming PC market.
- Depending on your grip style, you may or may not have minor comfort issues if you have very tiny hands. Linus says L2/R2 are slightly uncomfortable (gripping with index finger over both triggers), but no problems with B button I thought might be problematic. His wife found the entire face button section slightly awkward, but said nothing about the triggers. Their other employees had no issues whatsoever, and none of the other outlets had any complaints.
- Thermal results are very good. The fan, albeit small, is great at managing heat. Fan runs at about 25-28 dB idle, and 36-38 under maximum load. The backplate is actually part of the thermal design and, shockingly, taking it off
makes the system run hotter. Stark contrast with systems like the PS5 where their form-over-function design hinders air flow and removing sections of the chassis decreases running temperature.
- Display is good. Antiglare model does well at its job. Brightness goes higher than even the Switch OLED's (400 nits vs ~350). Brightness goes
really low for those like me who like to play at night; to the point the Deck looked as if it was shut off in a side-by-side comparison with other systems. Blacks are deep, despite being IPS. Color performance is decent, but scales phenomenally well across the entire spectrum of brightness settings.
- Speakers are amazing. Good news if you're not a fan of headphones! Quoth Linus: "This [AYA NEO] makes noise. This [Steam Deck] has a
sound system!"
- Loading times on SD card are impressive. If you don't put them side-by-side, you probably wouldn't even notice.
- Performance is
amazing. Control on low (if you haven't played the game, it still looks fantastic at low) is almost constantly hitting 60 FPS; on medium is locked at 30. DMCV on medium preset averages almost 90FPS. Ghostrunner on Ultra averages around 60; on medium around 90. The
absolute minimum it hit in Ghostrunner on medium is above 60. Forza on low averages 60. All these are at native resolution; 1280x800.
Steve from Gamers Nexus' conclusion is "from a hardware perspective, it's pretty good." If you're unfamiliar with their content, this is glowing praise. They're well-known for burning bridges with companies if it means giving the consumer an accurate review.