Valve hit a home run with the first year of Steam Deck

It sounds like the problem is games don’t reliably switch resolution/aspect ratio in the middle of running. This is something you rarely do on a PC and you’d accept having to restart games after plugging in a new monitor.

The Steam Deck isn't really just a PC, it's a PC with a lot of hacky overlays to try to get it to operate like a console.

Here's the Steam Beta patch notes from September 22, 2022, it says they added 3 features:

"Added external display output resolution and refresh rate selection UI in Display Settings (requires Steam Client Beta)

Automatically avoid problematic resolutions like 4096x2160 or 30Hz modes on external displays)

Fixed aspect ratio and resolution not properly switching in the Steam UI after reconnecting an external monitor"

https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1675200/view/3308480...

It took Value from the Deck's launch in February 25 to September 2022 to have buggy beta support of features you would need to make it usable on a 4k TV, such as giving the user the option of changing the resolution to 1080p.

Previously if you plugged the Deck into a 4k TV you'd have to run everything at 4k because there was no resolution switching.

It's widely speculated the Steam Deck Dock was delayed until October 6 2022 because Valve knew their software for 4k TVs was not ready.

It's been a month or two since I retested my Steam Deck with a 4k TV, so perhaps some updates have improved things, but last time I tried it the experience was frustrating.

For small text size Valve will lower a game's rating from Verified to Playable and it will tell you it's playable because the font is too small (although in my experience still readable for me anyways).

With noise it can be about as loud as gaming laptop IME. Not too bad and can easily be drowned out with headphones. However you can often adjust the graphical settings down so it ends up quieter. I usually do that anyways as it improves battery life.

I've never had an issue with text size, and there is a shortcut to bring up a magnifier. Then again I haven't played any text heavy RPGs on the deck.

Noise isn't an issue with PS3/360 era games and older (make sure you cap the frame rate). Newer games definitely push the system and the fans, but it's equal to a thin gaming PC. I think mine is the newer revision with the better fan, the first run had a louder fan iirc.

I'm a heavy visual novel player, which involves reading a ton of text (the games are essentially 90% all text), and have never encountered issues when it comes to reading on the Steam Deck.

Out of many games I've played, one had impossibly small to read text that wasn't a visual novel, nor was it a triple A title; it was an indy game that I don't think was popular to begin with.

Text size, just fine. A few games have had pixelated text that was obviously meant for a larger screen, but I've had zero issues reading in these cases. Note, I'm not trying to play Civilization VI or some 4X game that _wants_ a big monitor. While the screen is small (bigger than a Switch screen, bigger than my phone) the resolution is great. I'm playing games on it that I last played on a 1024x768, or a CRT TV (Fable).

Noise-wise, yeah you can hear the fan kick in but it's not really loud. No issues bothering other people nearby, no issues with the onboard speakers playing over the fan noise.

In regards to the Deck not having games designed for it, Valve has done a fantastic job laying the groundwork for this product. Go all the way back to the Steam Controller and Steam Link; while those products were not a huge commercial success for Valve, I can see all the lessons learned paying off with the Deck.

Wanna save some battery life and you're on your LAN? Stream the game from your beefy desktop. Controller layout not working? Every button is fully programable and removable. This thing has inputs out the arse. Touchpads, D-Pad, 4 extra under-side triggers. Wanna play a game that's not officially supported? 90% chance some fan has already made a community gamepad layout that's better than what the game maker would have made, you can download it and it works instantly.