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Comment by james2doyle | Hacker News Reader

I really only bought a Steam Deck because I wanted to support the _spirit_ of a Steam Deck. I thought it could be a really fun and interesting computer. I am happy that Valve has been contributing back. I think the sales of it clearly drive that attitude. Not that they weren't before, but it helps to have a successful product to drive the work.

I have ended up buying 2 dozen games since it arrived and have gotten back into games. It is a life saver when travelling. At home, I leave it on the dock and actually use an old Stadia controller as the main input.

The Steam Deck is a special device.

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Similarly, I'd stopped playing computer games as I couldn't be bothered/find the time to go and use my desktop windows PC. As soon as the Steam Deck was announced, I put my deposit down, but was a way down the queue. However, I was on holiday when I reached the front of the queue and missed the notification, but instead saw the refund three days later of my deposit! Somewhat annoyed, I paid the deposit again and joined the back of the queue, but luckily they were ramping up production and I didn't have to wait too long.

It's the sheer convenience of it that makes it a winner. You can just pause/resume it and even just play a bit of a game during a TV ad break. It's great for exploring old, unplayed games from my Steam collection.

Now, if I can just figure out how to enter a cheat code to get me past a Half-Life 2 save point (in Ravenholm) where I don't have enough health (or more likely skill) to survive.

Pretty much same. I bought a Deck primarily because I wanted to support the company putting them out and to tinker with it. I'm not a hardcore gamer or anything like that - I've been using it a bit to play a few games but mostly when I have time I play on the Switch or my gaming laptop that has a higher-end NVIDIA card (works great on Pop_OS!).

I do wish that the desktop stuff was a bit more polished. TBH a lot of people could probably just use the Deck as a primary computing device in addition to playing games.

In my experience the keyboard solution is just a bit too awkward to use for anything other than short sentences. I do enjoy the keyboard experience but for me to use it as a computer would require a lot of accessories. I have used it on a plane to watch movies though! Something I needed to switch to the desktop for (used VLC) and it worked perfectly.

Thank you for justifying a steam deck for me. Right now, I have to move my desktop over to the TV to play there, but with a Deck I don’t need to do any hauling. I’ve been looking for a good excuse haha. Are you using just the 1st party dock?

I'm not using the first party one. But I have a relative who does and loves it.

I'm using the JSAUX one. It has all the necessary features that I need. I would recommend it.

I'm using the first party dock, works very well. At home my Deck basically just sits in the dock, acting as a game console. I have it connected to my amplifier for sound, beamer for a wall-sized picture, and two PS5 controllers for playing from the sofa.

It's great, basically a Steam console for me.

My biggest complaint with the steam deck is that if you let it sleep you often have to manually power it back on, it won't come back on by itself.

Other than that, it has some clunkiness, but I'm happy with it.

Oh really? I haven't noticed that. I keep it docked and in sleep mode and I haven't had any issues like that. I power it up once a week or so.

Sounds like something that could be fixed with an update hopefully.

Are you using the official docking station? I have the official one and I'm now wondering if it's an issue with the docking station.

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