Steam Deck

There has been 1 game I've tried to play that hasn't worked, people say it does, but there are 2 versions of the game (square enix, final fantasy 8) and I have the older version, for some reason no control input is sent to it no matter what I do. I'm sure if I bought the new version it would work fine, but I'm done with that company after they bricked my phone copy of ff6 (even though the phone didn't change at all) and told me "if I want to continue playing you need to buy the new version". I'm sad they seem to be doing the same thing with all their old games.

That rant out of the way.

I have 1400 games in my steam library, the above is the only one I've wanted to play but haven't been able to get working.

I highly suggest a Bluetooth mouse and keyboard for first person style games (I'm too old to get used to the "gyro control fine aiming", but the younger people say it works great.) and 4x games.

I play a lot more 2d platformers and rogue-lite games on the deck than I ever did on a PC/laptop. The controls are fantastic and there's no input lag like I used to have with a wireless control to my PC.

I'm about to buy a 3rd because my household, and the company we bring over, sometimes use mine when I want to be using it.

Some of the games I've played on it: red dead redemption 2, Witcher 3, elder scrolls Skyrim, rim world, dead cells, path of exile, Warhammer total war 2, sid Meier's civ 5 and 6, subnautica, factorio, satisfactory, monster Hunter frostborn wrath, baldurs gate 3.

It's actually amazingly good at running the ported PS2/4 and xbox360 games, I was amazed to see 5-6 hours predicted battery life while playing dynasty warriors 8 and Disgaea 4.

I was thinking about getting a new gaming laptop to replace my 5 year old 15" dell, but the deck filled that need perfectly, and at a fraction of the price a new computer would've cost.

When I originally bought it (pre ordered the 512 gig) I bought a "leather skin" and screen protector, I'm glad that I did, but I think the skin was going overboard.

If you aren't a gamer I'm not very sure how much desktop function there is, I've only done it once or twice, but I was able to YouTube and Amazon through the browser.

If you get one (and I highly recommend it) I suggest getting a kick stand, a Bluetooth mouse and a Bluetooth keyboard.

My next investment is going to be a "dock" and a pair of a.r. glasses so I can charge it and use the glasses as a monitor and lay in bed and game until mold grows over me.

Edit to add: I've actually found a couple newer games that developers have decided my laptop is "too out of date" to run, but will run just fine on the deck, so there's that!