According to revelations from a developer who had access to the Steam Deck development kit, Valve’s next console would display rather limited autonomy.
As you may know, Valve surprised in July 2021 with the unveiling of the Steam Deck, a brand new handheld console halfway between a Nintendo Switch and a laptop. Very quickly, the machine was the victim of its success, the copies available for pre-order being out of stock in just a few days.
And while we could expect delivery of the first Steam Decks before the end of 2021, Valve in turn fell victim to the global semiconductor shortage. Faced with the difficulties experienced in sourcing components, the company has confirmed the postponement of deliveries to February 2022.
Among the latest information published on the beast, we learned that SteamOS will only weigh 10 GB, thus leaving more internal storage space for players to install games. However, on Monday, January 10, 2022, a developer unveiled new information about the machine.
Read also: Steam Deck – screen, storage, interface, Valve’s FAQ reveals everything
The Steam Deck displays an autonomy comparable to the Switch
In the columns of our colleagues Boiling Steam, this developer, who has chosen to remain anonymous, claims to have had access to the beast development kit. For starters, he explains that the semiconductor shortage isn’t the only reason for the SteamDeck’s release postponed. According to him, Valve teams also need more time to polish the SteamOS experience.
In addition, he reveals during the interview that the battery life of the SteamDeck is between 2h and 5h depending on APU load. This may not seem like much, but we must not forget that this autonomy will vary according to the games, the brightness level of the screen, the use or not of the speakers, etc.
The developer also specifies that the loading times are indistinguishable between loading from an SD card and the internal SSD of the console, whilefunctionality in the style of the Quick Resume Xbox Series X is in development. Question ergonomics, he says that the console is much more pleasant during long gaming sessions than the Nintendo Switch. “It’s more comfortable to play for long sessions, the button placement is good. Being wider than the Switch helps the SteamDeck’s weight distribution and the feeling of balance ”, he explains.
