- [Linus] Wow! The sound stage on this thing, that is impressive. The time is now six days ago, and I am about to get my first hands-on with a production unit
of the Valve Steam Deck. Now there's gonna be an LTT video that we're gonna be working
on over the next week or so where we get into more details, performance, thermals, anything else that we're allowed
to tell you at this point. We can't get too deep into the software 'cause that's not final yet. So this video is gonna be focused on the unboxing experience, the specs, and just first impressions of this potentially
revolutionary gaming handheld. So we gotta bunch of different languages telling you places that you can play with it, I think. Subway, Ferris wheel, toilet. They know their audience, don't they over there at Valve. Okay, so packaging. We've got a nice little like guide. So you press this button
to bring up this menu, press this button to bring up this menu. Really impressed with
the packaging so far. I was gonna talk about this in a little bit more detail later, but we actually considered doing a carrying case for the Steam Deck as like an LTT store item. And then we found out that
Valve was making their own and I kind of went well, hey if, if it's not any good then maybe that's still
something we can explore, but unfortunately, it seems to be kind of awesome. So, I have a nice little elastic strap there, if you want to strap it onto something. We've got this little pouch that you can kind of stash in there. If you're into that sort of thing, carrying handle, (banging) man it seems, ooh, it's in there, isn't it? Well, it's probably fine. It's pretty armored. Hold on, we'll get to
that in a second though. First let's have a look
at our power adapter, might have preferred to
see just a Type C female jack on it so that this
cable can be replaced with a longer one if we really want. But it's a reasonable length. My one concern is that the Steam Decks' only charging port is at the top. So, if you have this plugged in, and the outlet's not right next to you, it could actually be
a bit of a reach issue to get up and around the device. I didn't mention this, but the astute among you
probably figured this out. I'm planning to do size
comparisons on short circuit here with all the other gaming
handhelds that we have on hand. There it is, ladies and gentlemen. I opened it upside down. Trust me, I'm a professional. Okay, so yeah, so that's fine. Um, yeah. That's fine, but the outlet
has to be pretty much right next to you. In fact, you often, if you, can you see that thing? So you can see there's actually
not a lot of slack on this. It would've gotten another six inches if it had been down here but I'm sure Valve knew
what they were doing when they put the power in on the top. If I had to guess, based on that I actually used the top
charging port on the Aya Neo more often than the bottom charging port. I'd say that it's because
of the weight of the device. And what I find is that after
even like 10, 15 minutes. Really, I have to set
it down on something. So I suspect it's gonna
be quite a similar story for the Steam Deck. And the last thing you wanna be doing is setting it down on your cable. You know, causing like a
strain, or like a breakage. So Steam Deck, 650 grams, actually, I think it's lighter than the Aya Neo. I thought it was just due
to the better ergonomics. Oh, nevermind. Well, okay. It feels deceptively light because of the really
nice hand grips back here. I'd say that they're designed
for someone whose hands are maybe a touch bigger than mine, but that doesn't prevent me from comfortably reaching everything. A B X Y, D pad, joysticks. Everything is easily within reach. The only thing is that if
I'm playing a driving game and I want finer control
over the joysticks up here, I need to shift my palm up just a little bit. Yeah. Let's do some more size
comparisons real quick here. So we've got the OneXPlayer Mini, 566. That's the lightest one of the, this class of device. And then if you're looking at something like the GPD XD, okay so that's around 350, but that's Android base. That's not a, a full fat computer. And then for the big Kahuna, the OneXPlayer, we're
looking at around 782 grams. So it's on the heavier side of what's out there right now. But, because of the ergonomics, I'd say it punches down. I don't know what the best
way of wording that is. This video is brought to you by Dbrand. You know, those pranksters
that are always putting phones in cakes, or dumping buckets
of chocolate loonies on me? Well this time the prank is on Nintendo because they're announcing
Project Killswitch. Ha ha. Funny name, I, I get it. Which is a case for the Valve Steam Deck
that aims to make it a little a bit more you know,
rugged and drop resistant. Oh, I get that one too. And also, presumably a
little bit more ergonomic. I haven't had a chance to
actually get my hands on it yet. 'cause it looks like it's still in very early stages right now. But, I gotta say the design looks freaking fantastic. Goes to show you bad people
can design good products. (laughing) What? Hey, they started it. (laughing) So you guys can check it out. We're gonna have it linked
in the video description. It's kind of like their grip phone cases, so it looks like it has a really nice kind of padded interior to
protect your Steam Deck. And then this outer layer
that looks like particularly if you have larger hands, it's gonna be super comfortable. So, we're gonna have
that linked down below, and it will actually be released someday. Unlike Half-Life 3, ha
ha Half-Life 3 joke. Very, very current. (object thumps) Banana for scale, yes thank you, thank you very much, Jono. LTTstore.com, you can get your
very own banana for scale. Also this sweet indoor hoodie. Now one of the things I'm realizing with all these devices
spread out in front of me is there's a lot more to
portability than just the weight. And I've put a lot of hours
on the original Aya Neo, and now the 2021 Pro since
I did my first hands-on. And one of the things that
is really great about it, is how flat it is, how easily packable. But there are a couple of
things that make the Steam Deck, even though its main body segment here is about the same thickness. The actual overall profile of the device is like double. And that's because of the grips, as well as the fact that the joysticks are more of a full-sized controller
class of joystick with like super long travel compared to pretty much all of these other devices. Like look at the profile
of these joysticks next to each other
Hoffman, can you see that? - [Hoffman] Mhm. - [Linus] So you can see there's like, like double the travel. So if you want finer control, this is gonna be it. But, you know, this, I could
conceivably put in my pocket, like when I'm walking around the mall and I did that the other day, right? My son and I were going for haircuts, and I knew I was gonna have to
wait for him for 20 minutes. So I just grabbed the Neo, Chuck it in my pocket, we're walking around the mall, Steam Deck. Hm, I mean, yeah, maybe, but I wouldn't really recommend it. You're putting a lot of
strain on that thumb stick. Fortunately, Valve's
approach to right to repair so far has been exemplary. So I am expecting it to be very easy to get your hands on and replace these thumbs sticks if you (clearing throat) do accidentally screw them up. One of the other things
that's really standing out to me before even turning it on, is the anti-glare coating. For the preview, Valve set
out the 512 gig version which has, okay, well it
has some other extras. It has like a special keyboard theme or something like that. But the big one, is this
kind of etched glass, anti-glare coating. You guys can kind of
see how the reflection is compared to these other devices which are mirror-like, see that? It's kind of hazy. So it's got a quad core Zen
2 CPU, eight threads total, 16 gigs of LPDDR 5 memory. So that's running at 5,500
mega transfers per second. That's gonna help both
with CPU performance and more importantly, the onboard GPU. It's running RDNA 2 graphics
instead of Vega based graphics, which means that theoretically,
we are looking at significantly better GPU performance on this compared to
everything else on this table. So on the top, you got pretty much an Xbox controller-like layout. So you got your DPAD, left thumb stick. You've got your start and
select, whatever the modern names for that are on the Xbox controller. Two microphones, I have
very high expectations for both the microphone
and speaker on this thing based on my experience
with the Valve Index. For a company that doesn't
make dedicated audio products, Valve seems to know a
fricking lot about audio. You got your A B X Y, second thumb stick. We already saw what these
buttons are supposed to do. So this one is your Steam button, which brings up your Steam
library, Steam store, anything Steam settings. And then this one right
here is gonna bring up your like your system overlay. I mean, I guess I don't need
to get into too much detail about that right now cause
that's sort of software. Volume buttons, headphone jack, USB-C, so that's for charging or
connecting to the dock, which we don't have unfortunately. Power button, and then we've got shoulder buttons. Ooh, those feel pretty good actually. I'd say that's a nice
respectable travel distance on those triggers. Then you've got L3 and R3 when you press in the analog sticks, by the
way these are capacitive, so they're touch sensitive on
the top, which is pretty cool. - [Jono] What! Really? - Yeah, I know right? Then you've got L4, R4, L5, R5 on the back now personally,
I've never really daily driven a Scuf-type
controller with the back paddle. Actually I do have an Elite controller. I've never really used them, but what I will say is they
are super easy to access. You gotta kind of shift
your grip on the device a little bit. So it's kind, you kind of
claw a little bit more, but I'd say they're a really good balance of pressing force and tactile response. Actually all the buttons
feel pretty darn good. I wouldn't mind if the A, B, X, Y were a little bit shorter travel. I do have a preference for that but, it's definitely better
feeling than the Neo. With the Neo, I think
the problem is just that they have the long travel
and the small buttons. I feel like you gotta pick one. Oh, I guess I never really
talked size comparison with the OneXPlayer. So you can see the profile
is actually quite similar 'cause the OneXPlayer
also has a sculpted grip like the Steam Deck. Everyone's taken a very
similar approach to cooling, it's almost like there's
just a best way to do this. You got your intake at the back, exhaust out the top. It's the only way to get the heat into the unit without
getting suffocated, for sure. And away from the user. Here's the size comparison
with the full size OneXPlayer, that thing is such a, such a Chungus. Surprisingly though, it's a touch narrower, full-sized OneXPlayer with the like almost nine inch display. Oh now it's probably a good
time to talk display specs. It's 1280 by 800. So that's 16 by 10 aspect
ratio, seven inches. It's very similar in terms
of specs to the Aya Neo. It's rated for a typical brightness of only 400 compared to 500 nits. But, if the black levels are anything to go by, I think once we actually
get the game loaded up, here we go. It's gonna look significantly (clearing throat) better. Compared to the OneXPlayer,
it's not gonna be as sharp. So, OneX has decided to go for
a 1440p class display. I believe it's 2560 by 1600s
on the full-sized OneXPlayer. And then, this one I
believe is a 1920 by 1200. But the reality of it is that the processors in these things, they're not gonna be able to drive that kind of resolution anyway. So, personally I agree with
Aya and Valve's decisions here. This feels like, probably
about 20 FPS right now. So let's see if there's anything we can do to fine tune that a little bit. Oh wait, what the heck? Why is it running at
non-native resolution? There we go. Wow! That's gotta be a solid 30 FPS now. You know, it is amazing how
good a modern game looks, even at lower medium details
on a display this size. Like it makes a huge difference
to be running this class of hardware compared to, you know what Nintendo's put in the
Switch which is basically like a six year old phone processor. Let's fire up a game that I can run side-by-side and compare. Now to go much deeper, I wanna spend more time with it and you're gonna have to
tune into the full LTT video. But there are a couple of little things I wanna
try real quick here. First, is the mouse. This pad is set up to
control the mouse cursor, and it kind of vibrates actually here. Can you hear this? - [Hoffman] Oh yeah. - Crazy, right? Ooh. It's momentum based. So you kinda be like, woo, woo, woo! And kind of flick it over,
and it'll kind of rumble. So kind of almost like it feels like a friction ball or something that you're
rolling your finger over so you can move it, or you can throw it. And then this one you can
use as a touch pad to, oh I guess you could just use
it as a D pad if you want to. That seems to be how it's
configured right now. One of the great things
about the Steam controller was how highly configurable it was. You could use it to
play just about anything from FPS to third person to racing, to even like RTS games. And I believe Valve intends
to continue that legacy here, 'cause they certainly aren't
continuing that legacy in the form of (clearing throat) Steam controllers. Can we just take a
moment to appreciate that Forza Horizon 5, a Microsoft
game, is launching on Linux? Like we're not talking software much today like I said, but ah? Ah? Valve rates the 50 Watt hour battery for anywhere from two to eight hours, depending on what you're doing. So it sounds like that's
gonna end up quite similar to the 47 Watt hour
battery in the Aya Neo, which gets just under two hours under the heaviest loads, and much more than that if you turn down the performance profile of the SOC or whatever else. What else is there to really say? It's got WiFi, Bluetooth, all the connectivity that you'd expect. And, we are now loaded
into Forza Horizon 5 on a Linux-based machine. If I had to guess, I'd say this is somewhere in the neighborhood of, it's actually really hard to tell. That's interesting. See, my car looks great. That looks like 60 FPS locked, but then there's kind of this judder or stutter or something when I look at objects in the distance, can you see that? It's like te-te-te-te-te-te, - [Hoffman] It's very subtle. - Here, let me show you
this one for comparison. Man, it's hard to even
show this one to you guys because the screen's
so shiny by comparison. See how the towers and stuff are smoother? - [Hoffman] There's more motion. - More motion you say? - [Hoffman] Like blur. Nope, they are both set to
exactly the same settings. You're looking for distant objects, Whether they look smooth, or
whether they look juddery. - [Hoffman] Oh, yeah. - Okay . - [Hoffman] Yeah, yeah, yeah. - So you, you can see what
I'm talking about on camera? - [Hoffman] Yeah. - It's not final. And we have a lot more investigation to do over the next six days. Actually, let's talk acoustics. To my ear, which obviously
is not very scientific. It sounds very similar to the Aya Neo in its 15 Watt profile. And that would be at EXC fan mode, whatever that means. So that's kind of what I try to aim for for an enjoyable gaming
experience. Otherwise it gets this thing gets loud and wild fan mode, and that's really impressive considering that that's at 15 Watts and this is a 25 Watt chip
running in auto mode right now. (car engine roars) Wow! (laughing) The sound stage on this thing. - [Hoffman] It sounds so good! (laughing) - Okay. That is impressive. And you guys aren't even
getting the directionality, like an absolute toy by comparison. (car engine revving) This makes noise. This has a sound system. And I think that pretty much
wraps up the short circuit first impressions. Guys, head over to LTT for
our full first impressions with thermals benchmarks,
all that kind of good stuff, and make sure you hit subscribe.
