Hey all, sorry in advance if this kind of post isn't welcome in this community. I wasn't really sure where to post this question and I didn't see anything in the rules against text posts or questions. If there's a more appropriate place to post I'll take this down and repost somewhere else.
With the recent price hikes of game pass, Microsoft's general inability to publish good games, and a deep loathing for AAA studios obsession with milking me for every dollar I have while delivering uninspired, broken slop, I've cancelled my game pass subscription and started considering PC gaming. I'm still on the Xbox one and haven't bothered to get the one X due to these issues. I'm due for am upgrade and don't feel particularly thrilled at the idea of spending that much money on a console that has little to offer.
I don't have a lot of money, but I do have enough to afford a modest build (600-700 USD.). But with all the praise and broad support that the steam deck has been getting, I'm wondering if my money may not be better spent on getting one and using the extra for a dock, some peripherals, and a start to building my library. The steam deck would be living most of its life docked and plugged into a monitor. The fact that it's a capable portable gaming machine is, for the most part, a bonus to me.
I'm curious to hear everyone's thoughts on this. Is a steam deck a viable alternative to a budget gaming PC?
Personally my inclination would be building a PC. There are just too many small things here that make a PC seem a better fit in my mind
A PC can be upgraded over time. A PC can run Windows, and from what I understand there's still some willingness to tinker and adjust stuff needed to get stuff working on steamdeck at times (I say this as an exclusively linux user for the past like 10 years, though I don't have a steam deck and haven't played with gaming on Linux). And ultimately the main selling point of the deck sounds like it would be pretty secondary for you
I'd love to tell you go with the cheaper option, but I think long term the PC just makes more sense. Even if you just wanna run linux and use a distro that replicates the steam deck's configuration and setup, the PC will trade the portability you don't seem particularly interested in for upgradability that I think is really worth it. If you're looking to save money my gut says you'd be better served by getting used components, a used case, and a good power supply you can upgrade around.
Thats my 2c as someone fairly unqualified to give advice lol. Regardless, I hope you find the right path for you!
But I think the big consideration is whether to trade portability for upgradability, or vice versa.
Outside of windows, you've essentially described my radionale for building a PC. I was planning to build a Linux machine to 1. Save on not having to buy windows and 2. Simply because I like Linux, and (besides competitive games) gaming on Linux seems to be a pretty solid option nowadays. I wanted to buy second hand as much as I could and upgrade piecemeal to keep up with hardware demands and improve my experience.
The convenience of the steam deck is attractive because I've never built a machine before and graphics aren't all that important to me. But I do like the prospect of having something that will last and be able to be iteratively improved for years to come
Yeah, that makes sense. If you have a friend that's built a PC before that'd help a lot with it being intimidating. I think building a PC and picking used last gen parts that roughly match the performance of the deck would be my choice in your position.
I can absolutely understand it being appealing to buy something complete out of the box though. Maybe it's worth seeing if anyone is selling complete working PCs they're ready to replace?
Isn't the PC the cheaper option? You act as if the only benefit you get is the upgradeability, but since a desktop doesn't have to be as small, the components are much cheaper individually, which makes a PC cheaper than a Steam Deck simply looking at performance.
It's not a necessity to upgrade the PC, and if you never upgrade it, then it also never costs more than the Steam Deck.
In essence upgradeability should be almost not a decision factor, since you probably can "upgrade" the Steam Deck in the future as well: you buy a new Steam Deck handheld once Steam releases a more powerful version. Yeah, you're not swapping out components, but there'll very likely be a way to copy over your setup/data, and then the only difference is that the upgrade is more expensive, same as the initial purchase is right now.
Price to performance and just outright price aren't really the same thing. And isn't a base deck like $300? I could be wrong, I sort of assumed building a PC and buying your peripherals was more expensive 🤷♂️. I mentioned to OP it might be a lot more comparable if you just aim for roughly the same specs as the deck using used last-gen parts, since super impressive specs didn't seem important to them.
And yes, I just mean that it's cheaper to replace just one component when you need to than buy the whole thing over again. Its also way less e-waste. To me, upgrading not being necessary seems like a very odd point to make- if you never upgrade at a certain you won't be able to play anything newer. Which maybe doesn't matter to op, but that seems like an odd assumption to make. Even if you just use a computer for less demanding productivity tasks, its specs will eventually start to struggle...
It just seems like most of the benefits of the deck seem like things that either aren't as important to them (handheld functionality) or are short term benefits (no need to build anything, potentially cheaper upfront), where the PC seems like it makes more sense longer term, given they don't especially care about having a handheld specially.