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Article don't even mention SteamDeck's amazing touchpads, which no one replicated yet. These small squares enable a lot of old-ish games and whole genres what don't work with gamepads well

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Indeed. As far as I'm concerned, the touchpads have been the killer feature of the Steam Deck. Emulating a mouse using a stick or the gyros doesn't click for me. The touchpads are just so much better when you need both speed and precision, be it for games (specially shooters and strategy games), or desktop mode (for navigation and web browsing). Plus, it works pretty well for typing text with the virtual keyboard.

I don't understand why none of the other manufacturers implemented those. I wish the Steam Deck had just a little bit of extra power, but I'm not willing to part with those pads. I'm eagerly waiting for the Steam Deck 2.

As someone that owns the (now discontinued) original Steam Controller with the touchpads, I imagine the touchpads on the SteamDeck are much better? It’s probably common knowledge at this point that the Steam Controller appeared to be a kind of testing ground for some aspects of the Steam Deck.

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