I bought it to play in hotels while travelling for work, but what I most use it for is playing games while sitting on the sofa.

There had always been this separation between PC gaming and handheld/console gaming. With the Deck that separation goes away. The things I would normally go upstairs to play on a PC on my own are now things I can play anywhere.

It works well with almost any game, but it works particularly well with games with control systems designed for gamepads. A great use case are the former Playstation exclusives ported to PC - Spiderman, God of War etc.

I also have a great gaming PC so I do most of my major AAA gaming on that. People will talk about how great games like Elden Ring, RE4, or even Cyberpunk run on the deck but the experience is so degraded on the mobile platform that I’d rather play other games on Deck.

Things like Emulation, JRPGS, Platformers, Indie games fucking excel on the deck. The experience playing them there is so much better when being able to take it and go places.

If you are only interested in playing major AAA games or shooters, probably not worth it

I use mine when I travel for work. Great for being bored in the hotel and procrastinating actual work I should be doing

For me, it’s been useful to get in some gaming time while still being around my family/kids. I have a gaming PC too, but it’s in my office which is kind of cut off from the main living areas of our house. The SD allows me to play and still easily pause to do whatever for my kids or talk to my wife, etc. The sleep/wake is *chef’s kiss.

My other use case is emulation. It’s really good at it, and even passable at emulating the Switch. Though the sleep/wake doesn’t work with those, it’s a trade off.

I’ve got a powerful desktop computer, but I also have a 6 year old daughter and very little personal time. Grabbing the deck and playing alongside / with (for instance, both of us playing Minecraft, me on the deck, her on the PS5; or her playing on the PS5 while I play separately on the Deck) is a big thing. Also I have been emulating a lot, as she’s stolen my switch so I can play on that. It’s nice to be able to whack headphones in and game for 10 or 20 minutes in bed before sleep… Honestly, it broke and had to be RMA’d, and I missed it so much because the ‘instant on’ play for a few minutes is just so addictive…

I use it for emulation, (up to PS3 / Switch level works perfectly with a beta 3.5 OS with the SMT fixes), AAA gaming (Hogwarts legacy worked perfectly for the screen size at medium), old games, indie games, GamePass streaming, PS5 streaming…

It was a birthday present that I thought I’d use a reasonable amount. However, it’s almost taken over my gaming time because even if I want to run something too powerful for the deck, I often don’t want to sit infront of my home office PC (As I spend all day there working) and I can just stream from the PC using SteamLink / Sunlight:Moonlight… It’s basically only when I want to play at full-screen 4K and have a few hours to myself I bother to game on the PC.

Play it on the couch sitting next to my wife while we watch tv or movies in the evenings.

Spending nights sitting at a desktop (or monopolizing the TV) is frequently impractical and honestly unappealing to me, the SD makes it extremely convenient to play whenever.

The other big appeal is emulation- it wasn’t why I purchased one, but setting up Emudeck and Steam Rom Manager is incredibly convenient and lets you easily run anything up to WiiU/PS3 gen seamlessly from game mode. For that alone I would recommend it, the ease of access and convenience is amazing.

Couch pc gaming. I also play it while sitting in bed a fair amount.

My elbows and wrists have been savaged by decades of mouse and keyboard use at work. The only way I can play video games now is with a controller. So Steam Deck has given me access back to most of library. It was expensive but so worth it to game again.

I’ve got a big library, and most of it works great on Deck. I can also stream via my desktop (also running Linux) and play without a second install. In fact, I recently discovered this works with my PS4 Pro as well, via RemotePlay.

EmuDeck is the best integrated emulation experience I’ve tried. It’s mostly RetroArch, but with very easy setup.

Trackpads. I can play strategy games with no controller support very comfortably in bed.

The list goes on. It’s a great device.

I like to play it in bed before sleeping, or lay on the couch and play either on the deck itself, or docked on the TV. The main reason I wasn’t using a lot of consoles was more just having to purchase games twice / lack of cross platform cloud saves. The deck made that way better.

I’ve been into Linux since 2006 and Linux gaming for almost just as long. When Valve announced a handheld PC with a Linux OS that actually has a ton of game support it was a day one preorder for me. I’m super happy with it. It’s such a polished experience with SteamOS that it’s become the main way I play games anymore. It has the benefits of a handheld console and the openness of a Linux PC. It’s by far the best gaming purchase I’ve ever made. I picked up a ROG Ally as well to attempt to run Linux on it but the out of box experience is garbage compared to the Deck. Windows is a terrible handheld OS and Armoury Crate is a terrible user interface. The performance is better, yet everything else leaves much to be desired while the Deck is an all-around solid and refined experience.

You just have to be willing to say no to games that don’t want to support Linux, but that’s easy having run Linux on my desktop for years.

Sometimes it just works better to be laying on the couch playing as opposed to sitting in a chair

I have a 1.5 hour commute in total each day to work, so that entire time can be spent gaming. I really like my bed, or the couch, or just in general different settings especially for the cozier games I prefer.

I game a lot so spending dozens of hours a week at the same desk and chair doesn’t work very well for me. The option to play handheld or use my dock to move from my bed to my living room tv seamless is very welcome. Even once at a family gathering I brought it for us all to play Jackbox and it was a blast.

I play a lot of cozy games, ones that deserve to be played huddled up in a blanket on a couch, and I find them all the more enjoyable on Steam Deck than my Desktop.

I have always been a fan of handheld gaming. But having a gaming PC also introduced me to the world of indie games and affordable games.

The Steamdeck really brings these two together. The pick up and play nature of the device has doubled my average two week playtime on steam.

I’ve already finished over 10 indie games that have been on my backlog.

Thanks for all the inputs! That was very very helpful! Few things I’ve learned so far: 1 - It’s great for times that you don’t wanna stay in the office all day and spend more time with your loved ones. 2 - You can use Moonlight and Steam Link to local-wifi connect to your PC and play games on it without spending as much battery with a good wifi connection. 3 - It’s AMAZING for commuting and times you are not at your gaming rig 4 - You can basically install anything on it, and it could potentially replace your PC if it’s not as-capable.

I guess I won’t be purchasing it at the time as I have figured I could remote-play on my iPad 12.9 inch, and atm I’m not commuting so much so I guess it’s just a shiny gadget that I’d love to have sometime but don’t really need to spend money on it right now.

I’ll probably wait a few years for SteamDeck V2 to come out (rumors are saying it’ll be here at 2026+ so we’ve got a lot of time!) and it’ll replace my current laptop then.

Thanks everyone! That was very helpful and I learnt a lot from it! Saved a few bucks thanks to you guys and found a new cool way to enjoy my iPad :)

EDIT: Fuck it I’m getting one.