5 ms·

These handhelds are great, but the battery life is just not there. They need to be able to sustain ~4 hours of continued gameplay. As they are, they can do mayb

These handhelds are great, but the battery life is just not there. They need to be able to sustain ~4 hours of continued gameplay. As they are, they can do maybe 1-1.5 hours. It's simply not enough. Still great machines and I believe they only need a little more power to be able to play 1080p at 60fps; or personally I think we should focus on 40fps (40hz screens) at 1080p and then just focus on efficiency as much as possible.

hhh 3y ago
I would take a lower battery life for higher refresh rate. 60hz gaming makes me nauseous, but this is probably because I haven't played a game at <360hz in a long time.
- jerojero 3y ago
  Really? Huh. I mean the ROG Ally can do 120hz. For me personally, 40fps/40Hz seems like the sweetspot for these consoles. Ideally on a decent (1080p) resolution which at that screen size looks phenomenal. But I think ultimately we both want the same thing; more power, more efficiency.
mrguyorama 3y ago
Meanwhile, you can play 900p xbox 360 era games on the Steam Deck for at least 4ish hours if you don't run them full bore, or 8+ hours if you do something like emulation or very specific games. The game output the past five years hasn't been good enough to justify needing better than that for me. Millions of units sold seem to suggest that's closer to the real value people see in them as well, rather than playing yesterday's best AAA game at 4k There's so much to play in the past 30 years of video game history that the Steam Deck (and this handheld) can do effortlessly for several hours, and as cheap as $350, all the elitists who can't seem to care about gaming unless it's twin 4090s with 128 cores at 5ghz and 128gb of DDR5. I don't think you guys actually care about PLAYING video games
- Arrath 3y ago
  I'm currently moving and my desktop is all packed up, so it has given my Deck its chance to shine. As a Stardew Valley machine, I'm getting upwards of 6 hours of life out of the battery, can't sneeze at that at all.
- jerojero 3y ago
  I have a Steam Deck. The battery life is good on old games, that's true. But you can comfortably play a lot of modern games at 40hz/40fps mode; but just not for a very long while. It feels bad knowing you can run them decently but not really unless you're plugged. Like, I wouldn't call people who want to play modern games on a handheld elitist? It seems to me that you're the one that has an elitist attitude as you're invalidating other people's opinion based on what... ? People want to play the games they want to play. Not only that, but as with any industry, the video-game industry has evolved over the years; games are not just prettier but there's also plenty of changes in how games are played. So it's not unreasonable to think for a lot of people games that were released 20 years ago don't feel like the games they enjoy. Really, there's a ton of really amazing games out there. And it's a shame to not be able to play them as comfortably as one would like to. Also, by your own reasoning, there's hundreds of games on SNES/NES/N64/PSX that can be played perfectly on sub 100 dollar consoles. Damn to all those elitist that only care about consoles capable of emulating XBOX 360 era games, it's never enough for them!
  - soulbadguy 3y ago
    > Like, I wouldn't call people who want to play modern games on a handheld elitist? Not elitist, but somewhat unreasonable. One of the big difference between PC gaming business and console gaming is that the PC crowd (which i am a part of) has have an unreasonable fixation on performance and hardware specs instead of focusing on the experience, and that is bleeding on the reception of those windows handheld. Back in the day of the PSP, gameboy etc... It was rarely the case that someone would buy a handheld and expect to have "qualitatively" the same experience as s living console. We all understand that you get the same enjoyment, just in a delivered at a difference price/graphic/performance point. As people mentioned, there is so much amazing experience to be have at reasonable battery life around the 1.5 TFLOPS that the same deck can provide... From emulator, to old games, to nice 2D/indie games on steam or for very well optimized game (like diablo 4 or doom). Buying a PC handled and wanting the same experience as a desktop for me is just missing the point of an handheld PC (as opposed to a gaming PC for example). But to be honest, i can't really blame people for wanting that because the marketing is strongly implying that's what you get when you buy those. I have a steam deck (and will probably get the Ally), i play very different type of game on my deck vs my pc.
theshrike79 3y ago
I envy people who can get 4 hour gaming sessions at all =) It's not a huge deal to carry along an external powerbank for the Deck if you really need to get over two hours of gameplay while you're mobile. You can use the same one to charge everything else you need. If you're at home, a 3+ meter USB-C cord isn't that expensive and you can charge while you play.
dayvid 3y ago
I have a Steam Deck and a Switch and barely use my Steam Deck. You basically have to be tethered to an outlet which defeats the point if you already have a gaming laptop or console. It also takes up too much space if I travel. This also compounds with the fact that you can even get a Switch OLED for $90 used fairly easy. It's a great device, but just too big and power hunger for me to use regularly. These will improve and I'm looking forward to smaller form factors that seamlessly integrate streaming from a local device as well.
- Zathu 3y ago
  $90 used Switch OLED? Is that a typo?
  - dayvid 3y ago
    Checking again, most are scam listings, but I see a legit $90 normal switch in my local FB Marketplace
babypuncher 3y ago
The display in the Steam Deck supports VRR, and the in-game overlay lets you adjust the framerate cap on the fly. 40 FPS is a very popular compromise on it. The problem with battery life is that any gains made by more efficient chips will be eaten up by more demanding games, especially as developers start dropping support for last gen consoles. But you can play plenty of older games for hours on end with current hardware.

hhh 3y ago

I would take a lower battery life for higher refresh rate. 60hz gaming makes me nauseous, but this is probably because I haven't played a game at <360hz in a long time.

jerojero 3y ago
Really? Huh. I mean the ROG Ally can do 120hz. For me personally, 40fps/40Hz seems like the sweetspot for these consoles. Ideally on a decent (1080p) resolution which at that screen size looks phenomenal. But I think ultimately we both want the same thing; more power, more efficiency.

mrguyorama 3y ago

Meanwhile, you can play 900p xbox 360 era games on the Steam Deck for at least 4ish hours if you don't run them full bore, or 8+ hours if you do something like emulation or very specific games. The game output the past five years hasn't been good enough to justify needing better than that for me. Millions of units sold seem to suggest that's closer to the real value people see in them as well, rather than playing yesterday's best AAA game at 4k There's so much to play in the past 30 years of video game history that the Steam Deck (and this handheld) can do effortlessly for several hours, and as cheap as $350, all the elitists who can't seem to care about gaming unless it's twin 4090s with 128 cores at 5ghz and 128gb of DDR5. I don't think you guys actually care about PLAYING video games

Arrath 3y ago
I'm currently moving and my desktop is all packed up, so it has given my Deck its chance to shine. As a Stardew Valley machine, I'm getting upwards of 6 hours of life out of the battery, can't sneeze at that at all.
jerojero 3y ago
I have a Steam Deck. The battery life is good on old games, that's true. But you can comfortably play a lot of modern games at 40hz/40fps mode; but just not for a very long while. It feels bad knowing you can run them decently but not really unless you're plugged. Like, I wouldn't call people who want to play modern games on a handheld elitist? It seems to me that you're the one that has an elitist attitude as you're invalidating other people's opinion based on what... ? People want to play the games they want to play. Not only that, but as with any industry, the video-game industry has evolved over the years; games are not just prettier but there's also plenty of changes in how games are played. So it's not unreasonable to think for a lot of people games that were released 20 years ago don't feel like the games they enjoy. Really, there's a ton of really amazing games out there. And it's a shame to not be able to play them as comfortably as one would like to. Also, by your own reasoning, there's hundreds of games on SNES/NES/N64/PSX that can be played perfectly on sub 100 dollar consoles. Damn to all those elitist that only care about consoles capable of emulating XBOX 360 era games, it's never enough for them!
- soulbadguy 3y ago
  > Like, I wouldn't call people who want to play modern games on a handheld elitist? Not elitist, but somewhat unreasonable. One of the big difference between PC gaming business and console gaming is that the PC crowd (which i am a part of) has have an unreasonable fixation on performance and hardware specs instead of focusing on the experience, and that is bleeding on the reception of those windows handheld. Back in the day of the PSP, gameboy etc... It was rarely the case that someone would buy a handheld and expect to have "qualitatively" the same experience as s living console. We all understand that you get the same enjoyment, just in a delivered at a difference price/graphic/performance point. As people mentioned, there is so much amazing experience to be have at reasonable battery life around the 1.5 TFLOPS that the same deck can provide... From emulator, to old games, to nice 2D/indie games on steam or for very well optimized game (like diablo 4 or doom). Buying a PC handled and wanting the same experience as a desktop for me is just missing the point of an handheld PC (as opposed to a gaming PC for example). But to be honest, i can't really blame people for wanting that because the marketing is strongly implying that's what you get when you buy those. I have a steam deck (and will probably get the Ally), i play very different type of game on my deck vs my pc.

theshrike79 3y ago

I envy people who can get 4 hour gaming sessions at all =) It's not a huge deal to carry along an external powerbank for the Deck if you really need to get over two hours of gameplay while you're mobile. You can use the same one to charge everything else you need. If you're at home, a 3+ meter USB-C cord isn't that expensive and you can charge while you play.

dayvid 3y ago

I have a Steam Deck and a Switch and barely use my Steam Deck. You basically have to be tethered to an outlet which defeats the point if you already have a gaming laptop or console. It also takes up too much space if I travel. This also compounds with the fact that you can even get a Switch OLED for $90 used fairly easy. It's a great device, but just too big and power hunger for me to use regularly. These will improve and I'm looking forward to smaller form factors that seamlessly integrate streaming from a local device as well.

Zathu 3y ago
$90 used Switch OLED? Is that a typo?
- dayvid 3y ago
  Checking again, most are scam listings, but I see a legit $90 normal switch in my local FB Marketplace

babypuncher 3y ago

The display in the Steam Deck supports VRR, and the in-game overlay lets you adjust the framerate cap on the fly. 40 FPS is a very popular compromise on it. The problem with battery life is that any gains made by more efficient chips will be eaten up by more demanding games, especially as developers start dropping support for last gen consoles. But you can play plenty of older games for hours on end with current hardware.