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Hello!

I often see people with different setups to dock their steam deck and play, steam deck docked to portable monitor, custom stands, TVs, or whatever.

But I've only seen people using it as their main PC while actively searching for it, and I get the feeling that that's not a very common use, and that surprises me, as I believe its a hell of an offer to buy the cheapest model (like now 330€ LCD), and run that docked as your PC. When you want to play or bring it to the couch, you can do so because you got a cheap steam deck not a cheap pc. (I know laptops exist, but c'mon)

Anyway, my uses for the steam deck are:

  • Gaming (Town to City is my new favourite)
  • Programming
  • Studying
  • Consuming media
  • Breaking and fixing my home server

Normal stuff for a PC with the added bonus of

  • I get tired and go to bed
  • I get tired, undock it and dock it back on the living room to play on the couch
  • Get out of classes to rest and play it on the car for half an hour

Anyway, I'm getting further and further away from the title, but again, this thing fascinates me. I used to have;

Main pc + 2 screens

then it was

Main pc +1 screen + 1GF with 1 Steamdeck with 1 screen

And now

1 me with 1 steamdeck and sometimes both screens (which really impressed me when I first saw it), and my gf with my used to be main PC.

And so, for you, what are your favourite or niche use cases for it? Do you daily drive it as a PC? Do you feel like the steam deck lacks anything for a good desktop experience?

pd. Yes, I really made the post image for this one post, and it absolutely took me too much time for what it is.

40 comments

  • I'm one of those weirdos. It's my daily driver desktop PC.

    I ordered mine with the same intentions as everyone else in the Great Queue of 2022 and waited patiently until it arrived in June. The week before it did, my old laptop finally kicked the bucket.

    At first I intended to replace that laptop, but... I docked up the Deck and fell in love. I had already divorced Microsoft and was on Linux anyway, so it was an easy transition, and the Deck is far more capable than that old laptop was, so weirdly... it was an upgrade. More capable on daily tasks, and more portable when I had to be on the go with it. It's been a great several years, and no regrets.

    • I have an aging computer and have test driven the Deck with a dock as my main. I don't do a lot of heavy lifting with it because i have a homelab so i mostly need a simple workstation. It's def more than capable for that task.

  • I only use the 256GB LCD Steam Deck as my desktop that I do all my work on (graphic design, web development, illustration, Blendering, etc.)

    I have it permanently hooked up to a stamd/dock connected to my monitor external storage and graphic tablet, with the keyboard and mouse being wireless. I get to put videos or reference boards on the built-in display that works as a cute little secondary monitor too.

    I'm still on SteamOS stable. Almost all my apps are Flatpak, but I also have Nixpkgs set up for anything else. Also Distrobox, I suppose, but since installing Nixpkgs I've not had to use Distrobox at all. Occasionally I miss having a newer kernel. But not enough to want to install any other distro.

    It's been a blessed couple of years. No complaints!

  • Main pc +1 screen + 1GF with 1 Steamdeck with 1 screen

    Did girlfriend come with a SD, or SD came with a girlfriend? Can I find them as a bundle?

    • I needed a girfriend for my SD Steamdeck so my gf could play by my side :)

      I believe the bundle (gf+SD) isnt on sale rn, but I think you should marry any woman you see gaming on a SD, that's my grain of salt

  • When I travel I take the deck and a Bluetooth keyboard with a trackpad. It works fine as a laptop in a pinch. With an external monitor it's a perfectly serviceable PC.

  • My friend has been using theirs for several years to manage their home server and for gaming. They tend to have it docked by the TV and use KDE connect and/or a trackball mouse and keyboard for server stuff and an 8BitDo controller for gaming.

    They haven't seen the need for a dedicated console since and they had been gaming on playstation for decades prior to getting a Steam Deck

  • I mean I need something with a trackpad and keyboard and a bigger screen to work efficiently so if I already have one of those, why would I use the SD for that?

    If you don't need a laptop? Sure, why not.

  • Yep, started of with the stock OS and distrobox for dev stuff. I had occasional issues with multi monitor setup so ended up just using 1 on its own.

    Recently put cachyOS handheld on it instead.

    No problems with it so far. For gaming I mainly use it hooked up to either a monitor or TV but handheld works fine too.

    Dev wise, I've gone down the docker rabbit hole and had no issues so far with it.

  • I guess, most people who buy a steam deck already own a PC.

    Would be the same for me. I'd get a steam deck to game on the go, but I already have (multiple) PCs. So why would I replace my PC with a Steam Deck?

    It might be an use case for a student or other young person who is getting their first device, but then again I feel if you have only one device, a laptop is the more sensible, more versatile choice.

    I'm pretty sure that for most people a steam deck or similar device is a secondary or tertiary device.

  • I've tried mine a few times, always had a poor experience. Compatibility issues aside, the Steam Deck simply isn't powerful enough to make it a truly enjoyable gaming experience on a big display. I can't do sub 30fps on a 27" monitor anymore.

    • Depends on the game I guess (lucky for me I like emulation and 2d games a lot more than AAA games)

  • I remember pewdiepie was doing something like that, although not many people here may like being associated with him.

  • Bit late with a reply but I bought one with this use case in mind, thinking it could be a cost effective family PC, but immediately fell foul of the lack of proper user switching. You can sign in to different Steam profiles but on the desktop everything runs under a single predefined user with admin rights. Fine for a single person but no good for a family needing multiple distinct user profiles and access controls.

    I've installed Windows as a dual boot setup but it makes the whole thing much more of a faff, so it doesn't get used. It's back to being exclusively a handheld gaming machine.

  • I use my Steam Deck as a PC. I mainly use it for web development. The integration between my containerized services (via distrobox) and my IDE was giving me problems, so I went with Nobara Linux. I don't do a ton of gaming on it these days, but when I do, it is usually 2d games. They work absolutely wonderfully. At the end of the day, it's just a laptop, and in desktop mode (with an external monitor and keyboard), it is perfectly capable of everything I need it to do.

  • I was visiting a friend by train and took my deck with me. Best experience ever for a good session of Age of Mythology!!

  • I recommended my little brother get a steam deck and dock because it was within his budget, a gaming PC was not. He’s had an absolute blast and been able to play every game he’s wanted to. Mouse and keyboard and display work fine.

  • My Steam Deck has been my primary and only PC for almost 2 years. My laptop that I had broke and instead of buying a new one I decided to buy adapters and a portable monitor. I rarely game on it but manage my homelab and do web development.

    I've been trying some different distros over time and currently I've been sticking with NixOS, however it's been giving me some minor inconveniences here and there so I've been thinking of moving back to Nobara again.

    When I do game I never really leave desktop mode and just play it normally. Lately I've been playing Peak, No Man's Sky, Stardew Valley and occasionally some VRChat.

    Overall, it's great, my steam deck works well as a secondary screen while plugged into my monitor. I place my chats and stuff there and then I do whatever else on the main screen.

  • I’m not sure if it’s still the case but Pewdiepie was using his as a home server.

  • I have a privacy oriented raspberry pi 400, that i use for my web browsing, banking, office, microcontroller and video conversion stuff.

    Steam Deck is for games and 3d modelling and other stuff that rp400 might not have enough power for.

    Steam Deck is mostly 90% on desktop mode mounted on a dock with external display, mouse and keyboard.

    I keep my personal stuff out of Steam Deck because I don't trust steam + games data gathering.

    I allowed my son to scavenge my old desktop PC, because I didn't need it anymore.

    Only gripe is that Arduino IDE is shit on both Steam Deck and RP400, but so far Thonny and micropython has been adequate.

    • Wow the raspberry thing is cool, and after seeing a streamer get scammed 30k worth of crypto for downloading a steam game, separating gaming from banking and such seems smart

      • If somebody is inspired to get one, I'd recommend getting raspberry pi 500. The 400 is OK, but needs a hefty overclocking to run most robust webpages smoothly. It can still get a little sluggish on really bloated webpages, like using steaming services from a webpage.

        Good thing is that you can overclock it quite far before you need to modify the default cooling setup.

  • I sometimes do but it's not my main desktop PC. I have a notebook that's much more powerful but when I left the notebook in my backpack besides the apartment door and sat down at my desk already, I may be too lazy to get up again and then grab whatever is the USB-C dockable device nearby. (Sometimes it's also my Samsung phone for DeX desktop.)

    Steam Deck is artificially power-constrained. That affects desktop use as well. Everything is just that bit less smooth than a Ryzen 9 system that's not constrained to handheld power consumption.

  • That's a bad use case, honestly. I mean, sure, you can do it, but... why?

    The deck starts at 400 bucks (yeah, I know there's a sale now, that's not the base price). But that SKU comes with only 256 Gigs of storage and 16 gigs of RAM. You need a keyboard, mouse, monitor and dock to use it as a desktop PC, and now... well, it's a desktop PC, you can't move that set up with you to do anything other than play games.

    What you want is... you know, a laptop. If you want some gaming ASUS will throw in a dedicated GPU for the price of all that loose hardware. And, you know, your keyboard and monitor can go in your backpack instead of being locked to a desk.

    It's fine if you really really want a handheld and your other tasks are a secondary concern, but if you can only afford one cheap device and you want an all-rounder to do both desktop replacement and on-the-go entertainment laptops still make the most sense.

    • I wanted a gaming device to play anywhere; at home, car, etc. Laptop was too big and I would have to bring a controller with me to play the way I like.

      The steam deck was the better option in that case, and I just feel in "love" with it. I like that I can be gaming, want to watch a movie, I have another dock on the living room, so I just bring it over and in 30 seconds I'm on the couch watching whatever, or I can go back to gaming on the go. Also I enjoy being in the bed as I can't stand being on a chair for more than 3hours or so.

      Steam deck is less bulky, the ecosystem is better, the community is better, and has linux by default, good repairability and compatibility with extra pieces in the market. It fitted my interests.

      I agree, a laptop can do what I described, but you would also have to consider the ergonomics of playing daily with a keyboard, mouse and dedicated monitor vs the laptop keyboard and monitor + extra mouse, are way different. So if I want this desktop experience, for both laptop and steam deck I would need all peripherals, and for all other user cases steam deck seems like the better option.

      As a all in one device, laptop is the best option always (besides gaming on the go like car or similar), but I was mainly talking about gaming on the go + home setup with it, I think the steam deck is the best all rounder at a good price, but sure, laptops are great too, if you're lucky with all specs, durability, battery life, seller support, etc, at this price point, anyway, different things, both great :)

      • Cool, so you really really wanted a handheld.

        Which is fine. Go nuts. Love me a handheld.

        But "the best all rounder" it definitely is not. There is a big difference between needing a dock, a monitor, a keyboard and a mouse versus just a mouse for fundamentally the same experience. If you're into the ergonomics of a separate monitor then you're looking for something else than "an all rounder", you're looking for a desktop replacement specifically. That's not the same thing. And then I'd say the Deck still wouldn't be how I fix that problem, honestly.

        Also, FWIW, I don't think the Deck is particularly good at anything that is not gaming. The 800p screen is not good enough for media consumption, especially given that the thing has no easy way to handle it other than gripping it with both hands. No stand, no easy way to one-hand it, tiny screen... Yeah, not how you want to watch a movie. Especially not on the LCD model, which is the only one under 500.

        I agree that it's a good cheap PC handheld. I don't think it's anything but that, though. If it's the only device you can afford I genuinely don't think it makes much sense, and in almost every other circumstance either spending more on a better desktop/laptop or splitting your budget between a cheaper work PC and a Deck is a better solution.

        I think if you're considering a Deck or a console it's a different conversation, but as your main computing device? Yeah, no, not a recommendation from me at all.

40 comments