About a year ago, gaming platform Valve announced that they would be releasing the Steam Deck, a portable gaming computer that many believed would totally revolutionise the way that we enjoy all of our favourite games.

As more information was released about the Steam Deck, the more exciting people became, and now that it’s finally out, it’s generally been nothing but good news.

There are a lot of great reasons to invest in a new Steam Deck, and all of them will appeal to people who want to take their gaming to an entirely different level. Here we will look at some of the most compelling reasons to buy the Steam Deck.

Runs Any Game

While the Steam Deck isn’t quite as powerful as a custom-built gaming desktop with a 3080, it’s more than capable of running more games at a respectable 60 FPS, including some of the latest AAA titles.

Because it’s basically a fully functional PC, the Steam Deck has all of the hardware necessary to render any kind of graphical video game with ease. Of course, it’s a small device, and running more demanding games will put a much greater strain on the battery, meaning that a user can expect around 3 or 4 hours of gaming at a time.

Any Operating System

The Steam Deck will ship with Steam OS, an operating system designed to make the most of the hardware available, but the user isn’t limited to just using Steam OS. Due to the fact that the Steam Deck is essentially a portable computer, just about any operating system can installed on it, ranging from Windows to any distro of Linux/GNU that a person can imagine.

This means that it can potentially even be used as a portable workstation, something that makes the Steam Deck as versatile as a laptop, but at a much smaller size, meaning it can be used for everything from watching videos to placing online bets in New Zealand.

Repairability

Valve has recently announced that they will be partnering with popular repair platform iFixit in order to ensure that the Steam Deck can easily be fixed and upgraded with minimal effort. This is a major advantage of using the Steam Deck, especially as more and more other manufacterers make it difficult for people to repair their own devices.

Thanks to how easy it is to open the Steam Deck up and swap out its components, it makes repair and upgrade extremely easy, and something even those with minimal hardware experience capable of fixing their device.

Use As A Controller

Although this is a feature that not everyone is going to use, it still increases the overall practicality of owning a Steam Deck. The device can be used as a controller for other computers, meaning that a gamer would not have to invest in dedicated controllers for gaming on their main computer.

While it might be easier to simply use a small controller, the fact that the Steam Deck is capable of this makes it fairly unique in the market right now.