Valve has announced its handheld game console to compete with the Nintendo Switch.
The novelty was named Steam Deck. The gadget is equipped with a 7-inch display with a resolution of 1200 × 800p, 400 nits brightness and a refresh rate of 60 Hz. The screen is surrounded on two sides by different control buttons, joysticks and touch panels.
Under the hood of the device runs an AMD processor with Zen 2 architecture, RDNA 2 graphics accelerator and a maximum clock speed of 3.5 GHz. The GPU, in turn, operates at a frequency of 1.0-1.6 GHz. The console is also equipped with 16 GB of LPDDR5 RAM and three storage options: 64 GB eMMC (PCIe Gen 2), 256 GB NVMe SSD (PCIe Gen 3) and 512 GB NVMe SSD (PCIe Gen 3). All three support a microSD card slot.
Steam Deck also received Bluetooth 5.0, dual-band Wi-Fi, USB-C port with support for displaying images to an external screen with a resolution of 8K @ 60 Hz and 4K @ 120 Hz. To do this, you need to use a proprietary docking station. It has two USB-A 2.0 ports, as well as one USB-A 3.1, DisplayPort 1.4, HDMI 2.0, USB-C with Power Delivery and Ethernet. The console is powered by a 40 Wh battery. Depending on the game, the battery lasts for 2-8 hours of device operation. The gadget will be charged using a 45-watt power supply.
As for the software, the device received a special version of SteamOS 3.0 with a branded game store. If desired, you can install Windows or another third-party OS on the gadget.
Valve will start selling the Steam Deck this December with the following prices:
- Steam Deck 64GB – $399
- Steam Deck 256GB – $529
- Steam Deck 512GB – $649
