My two main rigs are a 13900K/4090 equipped PC and a fully spec’d 16” M1 Max MacBook Pro, which I use for work; they are both fairly high end solutions.

Most of my file management is done via a local network/home labs setup, with a few synch tasks keeping critical files updated and managed in real time. Decided I wanted to test the Deck out as an all around productivity and entertainment tool. Spun up my dev environment in roughly 30 mins; offloaded some of my environment to Portainer/Docker running from my NAS. Was able to get all of my design and development work done without a hitch. Ended up running all my gaming, work, and personal tasks off of it for roughly a week, connected to a dock and external display.

Didn’t miss a thing. Undocked to game; didn’t miss the 4090. Watched Plex from bed; didn’t miss the TV. Honestly, if the next iteration provides native eGPU support, I could see this being a viable all-in-one solution for a large segment of users who are not locked down to Windows or MacOS. If it wasn’t for some mandatory MacOS tasks, I’d even consider it.

Also forgot how much I missed running Linux desktops. Last time I used a distro as my main machine was 2006 or so. Forgot how flexible and utterly malleable it is to work with and tweak.

#GlossyMasterRace

I also have fantastic, flowing locks. We must all be from similar stock. Makes sense.

You forgot your commas and periods.

Let’s fix that downvote, since some Reddit luddites don’t pay attention to usernames or understand how humor works.

No, they’ll tell everyone.

Going to disagree with the consensus. I also have all the consoles, and a bleeding edge PC (13900K/4090). I barely touch them. I put more time into my handhelds; I work 16-18 hours a day, sleep 4-5 hours most nights. I barely have time to sit down and enjoying gaming from the couch.

But, I have the Deck and an Ally that are close by in my office, or next to the bed. I pick them up from time to time between meetings, or before bed. I also have an insane backlog (at least 15 years of stuff I still haven’t finished). To put it in perspective, I finished Divinity Original Sin 2 for the first time on my Deck, because it was easier to pick it up a few times a day and get some playtime in, then it was to justify booting it up on the PC and sitting on the couch for 2-3 hours at a time to play.

I also fly a hell of a lot; while I love my Switch, I wanted to make my life a little more minimal so I grabbed roms of all my Switch games and loaded those up via EmuDeck. So I have my entire library with me most of the time. And Steam sales makes it economical to pick up several older games that I still haven’t gotten around to playing since I’m already pretty far behind. I’m the guy that owns all three of the new Tomb Raiders, but still hasn’t finished the first, non-enhanced version of the original (like pre-Meghan Fox plastic surgery Lara).

This is great. My Deck basically became my emulation handheld; moved most of my AAA library to the Ally. Poor Ally might get retired with the OLED arriving in the mail.

It’s complicated. The internal SSD is noticeably faster in games that load a lot of assets. AAA titles, or games with more complex environments, will load much more slowly on an SD card.

Where this discussion gets more fun is comparing the more expensive A1 to A2 MicroSD cards. A2 is generally the default recommendation for Steam Deck users. But this isn’t as drastic as the difference between the internal and external expansion options.

I have an OLED arriving today; after testing extensively on my prior Deck and Ally, my recommendation is always to prefer upgrading the internal SSD first, which is more expensive, then pick up a MicroSD card that meets your needs for capacity, not speed, and save your money on that purchase instead.

In my case, I picked up the Sabrant 2tb SSD for my OLED, which is probably the best drive you can purchase for the device, but I went with the SanDisk A1 1.5tb drive for my MicroSD card. It’s pricy only because of the capacity — it was more important for me to have additional space for my roms/emulators than it was to have speed. But a simply 512gb or 1tb A1 card will probably work for most people.

I’ll be loading all of my Steam games from the internal drive, and all of my roms (and likely some indie titles) from the MicroSD. This setup worked well on my original Deck and Ally, and I never felt like I was missing out on loading times and overall performance.

This was my one saving grace. I absolutely despise the etched glass screen, especially for an OLED display. The Apple XDR display, and the surface of my Cintiq and the Paperlike I use on the iPad Pro, taught me to hate the font-blurring, contrast-reducing, color-diluting laminated etched glass. I love the look of the LE, and it was a near perfect combination of materials and colors — and the lined case is pretty fantastic too — but I was immediately uninterested in reducing some of the major benefits of OLED to reduce reflections in the few cases where I might appreciate the feature.

So while I may feel a little burned they didn’t offer the option between the display types, and will miss the colorway, I do not regret not dealing with the stress of trying to order one of these today.