The Morning After: Valve made a $399 handheld gaming PC
Valve just surprised us all with a handheld console. The $399
Perhaps unsurprisingly, it’s just shy of a foot long. Eesh. Valve has ensured there’s enough power inside to tempt PC gamers that already have an expansive Steam library. There’s an AMD 2.4-3.5GHz processor and a 1.0 to 1.6GHz GPU with eight RDNA 2 compute units. There’s 16GB of LPDDR5 RAM inside, too. Valve promises a battery life of between two and eight hours on a single charge, depending on how much power you need for your games. Given the power many AAA PC games require, you can probably expect a lot of experiences to hover around the lower estimates.
While the Steam Deck might not be as powerful as your gaming PC, Valve is using Proton, a compatibility layer that lets games run without developers having to do any work porting titles across — you’ll apparently have access to your full library of games. This price point makes it slightly more expensive than the Switch, and the same price as the digital-only PS5. Due to its Steam hooks, however, it’s a very different proposition. How well will PC games play on a seven-inch handheld?
— Mat Smith