Looking for some advice. My Switch Lite is approaching the end of its life and given that a Switch 2 is basically the same price as an OLED Steamdeck I was thinking it might be a good time to jump back to PC gaming.

I’m not much of a gamer. I got the Switch Lite because of portability and the ability to wake it up, play for ten minutes and then toss it back in my bag. My only beefs with the Switch ecosystem is that you can’t download DLC - for Cities Skylines I have the bare game on Switch but a pile of DLC on my laptop for example.

So - would going with a Steamdeck make sense? Any gotchas I should know about? Is there a better option?

Thanks all!

**edit: y’all rock. I’m ordering an OLED Steamdeck

  • Jtskywalker@lemm.eeEnglish
    2·
    2 days ago

    Battery life definitely depends on what you are playing. In BG3 I get around 2 ish hours. But I can play older games like Morrowind, or newer retro style games like Skald against the black priory (10/10, do recommend) for 6-8 hours, maybe more.

    You also have a lot of control to improve battery life like clock speed, frame rate limiting, etc.

    But yeah it has a huge screen and if you play newer games with good 3d graphics it drains fast. Switch doesn’t really have those kinds of games so it’s not a 1:1 comparison.

    EDIT: I also agree with your points on it being very bulky and not well suited to a 10 minute session. Launching games is slower on the deck and most PC games have more loading screens before gameplay.