Valve Steam Deck looks awesome, but I’m waiting until Razer makes one

Valve Steam Deck looks awesome, but I'chiliad waiting until Razer makes 1

(Epitome credit: Valve)

Valve'southward surprise Steam Deck announcement made gamers' eyes gleam with anticipation, creating what many feel is a true Switch Pro alternative. While I was also smitten by the clean contours and the concept itself, I opted not to drop the minimum $5 necessary to reserve a unit, with prices starting at $400. And no, it's not because of Valve'due south shaky track record with hardware.

I do experience that Valve has put a lot of enquiry and evolution into making the Steam Deck a solid piece of handheld kit, 1 that will feel premium in-hand. The impressions past IGN indicate equally much. Rather, I feel that hardware makers with more than experience building computers can elevate the electric current concept and bring information technology to its ultimate form.

Steam Deck release engagement, price, pre-orders and everything nosotros know so far
EA Play Live recap: Battlefield 2042, Dead Space and all the biggest announcements
Plus: Steam Deck availability looks bad — Valve pushes back date once again

Razer should build a Steam Deck

An obvious tertiary-party Steam Deck contender would be Razer. The Singaporean-American blueprint company has washed an excellent job setting itself apart past creating gaming laptops that are both powerful and graceful. Even the newly released Razer Blade 15 screams of quality, although it costs a staggering amount of money. I feel Razer makes gaming'southward closest equivalent to a MacBook Pro.

A Razer-fabricated Steam Deck would likely feature an all-aluminum frame, a bezel-less screen, tactile and satisfying buttons, all in a sleek matte black package. Razer would also put much time and effort into energy management, figuring out means to tune the AMD system-on-chip to extract as much bombardment life equally possible.

Plus, Razer was also i of the showtime companies to push button eGPUs, external devices that can give a laptop the power of a desktop graphics card. Razer could potentially sell a dock with a beefier GPU built-in for greater gaming performance when playing on a monitor on television.

The case for Samsung and Asus

I personally would like to see a Steam Deck from a visitor like Samsung. The Southward Korean conglomerate controls the runway for a lot of component manufacturing, and then why not?

A Samsung-branded Steam Deck would probable feature an OLED display made by Samsung Display, an SSD, RAM and wireless chips made by Samsung Semiconductor, and speakers made by Samsung Electronics. Hell, even a stylish instance could be made by Bean Pole, a way brand owned by Samsung.

While Samsung itself hasn't washed much in the gaming infinite, its feel in mobile could give it an advantage when designing a PC-handheld meant for on-the-become.

Asus with its Democracy of Gamers, or ROG, brand would as well brand a compelling Steam Deck. Autonomously from the tired black-and-cherry-red color scheme, Asus has feel making well-regarded gaming laptops and gaming phones. The Asus ROG Zephyrus G14, with its dot-matrix laptop lid, caught the attention of our TVs editor Brian Westover, calling it a dream come truthful. Phones editor Jordan Palmer said the Asus ROG Phone 5 was a "true marvel of engineering" even if the cameras were mediocre.

I feel an Asus-made Steam Deck would exist a bit more angular, but would piece of work in some overly-engineered cooling solution to become the nearly functioning out of a tight bundle.

Don't forget about Xbox

A final Steam Deck contender I'd like to see would be Xbox. The blueprint team at Xbox did a tremendous job putting together the Xbox Series X. I consider it a marvel of industrial design.

Seriously, the Xbox Series X is able to get 12.1 teraflops of performance out of a vi.86 liter instance with a single fan. It's heed-blowingly well made. And remember, an Xbox Serial 10 but costs $500.

If Team Xbox were to work in conjunction with the Surface design team, then a Microsoft-made Steam Deck could truly be adjacent level. Not but could it characteristic a magnesium trunk like the Surface Pro vii Plus, the Xbox design team has the working relationship with AMD to potentially create an even ameliorate chip than what'south on the Valve Steam Deck. Plus, such a device would send with Windows 11 onboard.

While I'chiliad sure Valve Steam Deck owners will take a smash playing with their new PC-handheld when it ships at the end of the twelvemonth, I call back we're still in the nascent stages of this new production category. I wouldn't be surprised if we see announcements of other Steam Decks presently.

More than: Dead Space remake coming, coming to PS5, Xbox Series X and PC

Imad Khan is news editor at Tom'south Guide, helping direct the day's breaking coverage. Prior to working at the site, Imad was a full-time freelancer, with bylines at the New York Times, the Washington Post and ESPN. Exterior of piece of work, y'all can find him sitting blankly in front of a Word document trying badly to write the first pages of a new volume.