It is not a flawless experience, but pc gaming rarely is. I would say it is the most efficient, cost effective way to have a tv gaming experience with pc games.

Yes you could have a dedicated pc for this and have it run holoiso for a smooth OS experience, but the progressive optimization of steamOS on the deck is worth the investment in the deck alone. Thats not mentioning the option of having a handheld experience if you want it.

I think PC gaming comes with a certain amount of jankiness and problem solving and the deck, whether docked or not offers a more consistent experience than gaming on windows. Its just not as consistent as console gaming.

Definitely get the deck if this is your use case. Stick with the OLED deck though i used to have the lcd deck and its a 1st generation device… The OLED will be an all around better product.

I use mine all over the house, including docked on our main TV and it works great! You can even set up moonlight on the deck and sunshine on your gaming PC and just stream games locally to the deck. If you have a decent router, dead by daylight should be no problem when locally streaming either.

idk why people are shitting on you and saying the deck isnt for you. sure there might be some alternatives you can use just for at-home stuff but the deck is plenty capable. for me, i have a switch and a deck - i mostly play docked at home but when i want to take it with me the portability is great. so if youre like me and occasionally want to take it out with you on your travels, the deck and a dock is a great investment. it can struggle with running AAA games, often this is helped later with patches or strategically turning the graphics down so it still looks good but runs smoother, so as long as you have tempered expectations for that then thats cool. there are tons of games on steam that arent AAA games though that run beautifully.

i love playing my deck docked, but be warned not every game works docked - some dont run on the deck at all (proton.db is great for checking this) and some do run on the deck but external controllers dont work, or they run but with some tweaking done first. its not like the switch where it just works and no tinkering is needed for the game to work. for games that cant use external controllers, a keyboard & mouse are a great addition (even in bed, just put the mouse on a book or something) and a dock has usb ports for dongles or wires or whatever, or bluetooth is an option too. a kb+m is also great if you want to go into desktop mode and set up emulators and stuff, just makes it easier to do it all, especially if its docked. you can get a more basic kb+m and theres even fold-up ones for if you want to travel with them.

How is the latency when playing games?

i havent noticed any issues with latency.

Can I use an xbox/PS4 wireless controller?

yep!

What are it’s speed/processing like? Does it struggle or is it quite happy? E.g. Dbd on Switch takes 1 minute to load in each game and it tries to crash.

depends, some models have faster hard drives than others and it also depends if you use a microsd or not - beefy games can struggle with loading times when installed onto microsd, so i install those directly onto the internal storage and put indie games/lighter games on the microsd.

Is there anything I’m missing that’s important?

i had my switch first and got my deck a few years later and the only thing i miss is the ability to easily take/share screenshots and clips like the switch can. but it does have the versatility of being docked and portable like the switch, and even though some games can need a bit of messing around to make work and some games dont work at all, the general experience ive had is that ive been able to get all my games to work. again, protondb helps. i have about 150 games installed and i have about 10 that can only be played handheld because it doesnt work docked for some reason (usually that it doesnt recognise the external controller). desktop mode can also be really good for a lightweight pc, i play minecraft on mine very easily, watch youtube/netflix etc when i want to watch docked on the big tv screen rather than my small laptop screen.

idk why people here are getting weird about “people wanting to use the deck for things it wasnt made for”, it has an official dock available for a reason and if people wanna play it docked they can, its literally a function deliberately made for it. its not like anyones any less valid because they want to play docked 95-100% of the time instead of only handheld. the beauty of devices like this is that you have the ability to use it however works best for you. for some people, its handheld. for others, docked. for others, both.

another plus is that the games go on sale more often than nintendo, the discounts are bigger, and the sales are more frequent. base price for games is also consistently several $ cheaper on steam vs the same game on switch. and since steam is pc based, if you want to play on your pc you can, and any future valve devices will also be able to play the same games since its all compatible.

one minor drawback is that browsing the shop on steam deck kinda sucks, i mostly use my phone (though this sucks too) and my pc to browse and buy games, then install them via my deck.

just my experience and thoughts with it, hope it helps 👍

To echo others, If you are exclusively using it to be hooked up to a TV, there are better options. If you want to hook something primarily portable that has the option to hook up to a TV, the steam deck is pretty good.

If you don’t care about portability,

the Youtube channel Retro Game Corps has a spreadsheet of mini-pcs that he’s tested that will give you a good overview of what the chipset can do.

Link to his website where he goes over some advice for buying:
https://retrogamecorps.com/category/mini-pcs/

Link to the spreadsheet:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1nfmESc0IbpT6OCws7irEId41aR1T2m2xj9Fp4jKOq0U/edit?usp=sharing

Don’t know why 70% of people in this sub are so precious about the SD not being about hooking it up to a TV. It absolutely works fine so you go for it OP.

Mines primarily always docked and next to all 3 consoles I have the option of playing on the couch but much prefer to play in my gaming room on the tv. Buying a PC is a no go for me as I need to be more proficient with the tinkering and I will be tweaking everything more than playing. Steam deck just works and gives me my fixes for games not on consoles.

This is what I did. Love it.

Don’t…

It works great, except for wireless controllers. You can use them but expect a lot of disconnections, especially if you use multiple controllers at the same time.

Note that it’s for the LED, the OLED supposedly has better bluetooth because it has a dedicated chip. But other than that you’d be paying more than a LCD despite not benefiting from its biggest improvements (screen and battery life).

People keep using the Deck for what it was not designed for.

Please don’t. The Deck isn’t a Switch - or a laptop.

The Deck is hamstrung with a power output restriction that makes sense as a PORTABLE device - not as a console, PC or docked experience.

You will likely have issues, not be satisfied and be right back here asking us why it doesn’t work like a Switch or why you can’t get anything above 20fps playing at 4k/60.

This isn’t the device for you. To Obi- u/chrisdpratt you listen.

Some games that require very fast reaction are a bit hard to play for me due to verrry little input lag, but it’s there. My TV doesn’t have a gaming mode so there’s nothing I can do about that. So keep that in mind. Other stuff worked fine for me, just not quick reaction games (Sonic Adventure 2 for example, the jump is delayed by milliseconds).

Otherwise I love playing docked. Your controllers should work fine. You can also use a bluetooth headphone but idk if you can listen music when it’s plugged into a controller, never tried.

Loading times depend the game but I find the Switch is horribly slow in comparison.