What made me buy one that I can use it as a desktop computer. Dock it and you have ethernet, USB ports, HDMI. It's really really good.
I meant it in the sense of, "it takes the place of and serves almost all the same purposes in usages as..."
Ultralight laptops can match or exceed it in [burst] performance, but that's table stakes. They aren't designed for gaming, and if you try to play games on one you will understand that very quickly.
So it really depends what you play.
FWIW in my case, it is much better than my laptop from only a year prior.
Gaming wise, the onboard GPU is pretty adequate for 720p (or the 800p of the native display), resolutions beyond this like the 1080p or greater found in most monitors are going to make a lot more games struggle.
1080p is 2,073,600 pixels (2.25x 720p)
1440p is 3,686,400 pixels (4x 720p)
If performance scaling was linear, and given that the Steam Deck targets 30fps (up to 60), any game running at 30fps is going to be dropping to roughly 13fps at 1080p at the same settings.
Generally, 7th-gen console era games and earlier can often play at 1080p60, 4k30, or 4k60 depending on the demands. Newer games make compromises. FSR and TSR (upscaling from lower internal resolutions) effectiveness depends on the game.
Even better, its only $399! I think its a great deal at only 50 bucks more than the OLED switch model personally.
https://store.steampowered.com/steamdeck
By all accounts, the entry level model with a large microSD card performs just as well in games as installing on a more expensive model with a larger built in SSD. The only other feature you miss out on really is the most expensive config has an additional antiglare coating. The CPU/GPU configuration is exactly the same on all models.
I actually ordered the most expensive config, but with what I know now and having tried a friend's entry model, if I ordered again tomorrow I would just buy the 399 one with a cheap microSD card. Some folks even prefer the extra contrast of the display without the anti-glare coating.
The microSD cards are hot swappable too - you can carry a bunch with different games installed if you wanted, the Deck OS instantly repopulates your game library with the contents of whatever card you just inserted.
OP was probably talking about CAD. Base model is C$ 499.00 and the switch is C$ 299.99.
*Edit: OLED switch is C$ 349.99
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PxLB5khCmGo
But you can of course install your own distro or whatever you want. Windows is officially supported by driver, people also confirmed OpenBSD works too. It's pretty much a real computer not just a console.