Is it not much easier and cheaper to buy a mini pc and run Steam with an OS of choice? (You can chose between any number of Linux distros, I use Arch btw). Steam can just launch on boot into big picture mode, it’s pretty much a console at that point.
Mini PCs usually don’t have a battery. The use case for this conversion is on the go with AR glasses.
I recently went looking to see if there was a practical way to expose a USB powerstation to Linux as a battery under
/sys/class/power_supply, the way internal laptop batteries are. Unfortunately, that didn’t appear to be the case. There are UPSes that NUT can monitor, but not a route to treat them the way Linux does laptop batteries. Kind of annoying, since for a luggable computer, it’d be really neat to have an external, expandable battery that looks to the computer like the one in a laptop.
I think it would be hard to find a NUC that costs the same or less and still performs the same as the Steam Deck. You could maybe get there with a custom-built SFFPC, but it would be tricky.
I’m not sure what a Steam deck costs? $450 - $550?
A Minisforum UM870 with 32GB of memory and 1TB SSD is around $500. That has an AMD Ryzen 7 8745H CPU. 8 cores 16 thread 4.9ghz boost Zen4. Gpu builtin Radeon 780M with 12 RDNA3 2.7ghz cores. That could give the Steam Deck a round for it’s money I think.
Yeah, I think the battery thing OP pointed out makes more sense than the power argument. The Z1 extreme used in other handhelds is based on the 8840HS iirc, anf its at least one generation newer than the basis for the steam decks somewhat custom silicon.
The Deck processor is 4 Zen 2 CPU cores and 8 RDNA 2 GPU CUs, while the 8840HS is 8 Zen 4 CPU cores plus 12 RDNA 3 graphics CUs. It’s going to be wildly more powerful. The 8745H actually has the same CPU and iGPU configuration as the 8840HS – not even close to steam deck specs.
It’s really amazing how much power you can get for cheap in a small package these days. But yeah putting a battery on that wouldn’t be practical, it’s still a very efficient chip, but in absolute terms eats a bunch of power. So you’d need to be tethered. You could easily wear one of those mini pcs, but need a power cable. One of those could be dropped down from the ceiling, but still not as good as a mobile solution.
Seems like a cool project I might try if valve doesn’t release a steam console soon
i think we’re getting there. The new ASUS ROG Ally is shipping with Steam OS and official Steam OS support, and I think this is just the beginning. If this partnership goes smoothly, I think Valve will open up the floodgates to other manufacturers doing similar stuff. And I think this will include a new wave of “Steam Machines”.
Could always just buy a NUC?
They don’t have HDMI CEC
The new steamos release for x86 is a nice start though. I was trying to run stock KDE before and and nothing worked with HDR and I couldn’t get any sound out of my TV’s TOSLINK output. Being able to run steamOS is probably a big improvement for out-of-the-box setups.
