I think no, so much of what makes the Steam Deck great is SteamOS. Plus my understanding is that this things battery life isn't very good.
That being said, still appears to be a competent competitor and I'm here for that.
The lack of touch controls was a red flag for me, too. Having a trackpad as a backup input device for menus and things seems like it'd be pretty important, but I don't have a Steam Deck so maybe I'm wrong.
Trackpads are nice for desktop navigation so you don't have to be tapping on the tiny screen.
It isn't just for menus, having good mouse input allows you to play significantly more games than with just joysticks.
The touchpads also can act as extra buttons or touch menus, giving you way more input options for games where you don't need one to be a mouse.
Exactly this - I play a lot of old PC games on my Steamdeck that assume you have a keyboard attached. A simple touch menu can easily give you 10 more buttons to bind!
There’s definitely a fair few Steam games that are 90% controller compatible but have some little launcher, and trying to get through it without some simple pointer is an annoying challenge.
I think no, so much of what makes the Steam Deck great is SteamOS. Plus my understanding is that this things battery life isn't very good.
That being said, still appears to be a competent competitor and I'm here for that.
The lack of touch controls was a red flag for me, too. Having a trackpad as a backup input device for menus and things seems like it'd be pretty important, but I don't have a Steam Deck so maybe I'm wrong.
Trackpads are nice for desktop navigation so you don't have to be tapping on the tiny screen.
It isn't just for menus, having good mouse input allows you to play significantly more games than with just joysticks.
The touchpads also can act as extra buttons or touch menus, giving you way more input options for games where you don't need one to be a mouse.
Exactly this - I play a lot of old PC games on my Steamdeck that assume you have a keyboard attached. A simple touch menu can easily give you 10 more buttons to bind!
There’s definitely a fair few Steam games that are 90% controller compatible but have some little launcher, and trying to get through it without some simple pointer is an annoying challenge.