For me, it’s been useful to get in some gaming time while still being around my family/kids. I have a gaming PC too, but it’s in my office which is kind of cut off from the main living areas of our house. The SD allows me to play and still easily pause to do whatever for my kids or talk to my wife, etc. The sleep/wake is *chef’s kiss.

My other use case is emulation. It’s really good at it, and even passable at emulating the Switch. Though the sleep/wake doesn’t work with those, it’s a trade off.

I also have a great gaming PC so I do most of my major AAA gaming on that. People will talk about how great games like Elden Ring, RE4, or even Cyberpunk run on the deck but the experience is so degraded on the mobile platform that I’d rather play other games on Deck.

Things like Emulation, JRPGS, Platformers, Indie games fucking excel on the deck. The experience playing them there is so much better when being able to take it and go places.

If you are only interested in playing major AAA games or shooters, probably not worth it

I bought it to play in hotels while travelling for work, but what I most use it for is playing games while sitting on the sofa.

There had always been this separation between PC gaming and handheld/console gaming. With the Deck that separation goes away. The things I would normally go upstairs to play on a PC on my own are now things I can play anywhere.

It works well with almost any game, but it works particularly well with games with control systems designed for gamepads. A great use case are the former Playstation exclusives ported to PC - Spiderman, God of War etc.

It’s great for gaming on the go or chilling on the couch, in a hammock, etc. I have a laptop I can game on, but it’s still not as convenient as grabbing the Steam Deck.

I’ve got a big library, and most of it works great on Deck. I can also stream via my desktop (also running Linux) and play without a second install. In fact, I recently discovered this works with my PS4 Pro as well, via RemotePlay.

EmuDeck is the best integrated emulation experience I’ve tried. It’s mostly RetroArch, but with very easy setup.

Trackpads. I can play strategy games with no controller support very comfortably in bed.

The list goes on. It’s a great device.

I use it as my primary computer. The handheld ergonomics and thumb track pads make it the most comfortable device I own. I am familiar with KDE / arch, so I am at home in desktop mode. I bought the cheapest one and added a 2TB SSD. I am considering dual booting or just removing SteamOS and installing a standard linux distro. It’s a great computer.

I have a friend who uses the same 4g chip that’s in a PinePhone via USB. This lets him use his Steam Deck as a phone. That’s way beyond my skill level.

I use it everyday, but only occasionally play games on it. I love it for Spelunky 2, Risk of Rain 2, Dwarf Fortress, Rocket League, and puzzle games. I don’t play too many 3d games on it. High performance games seem to run ok, but I don’t have the attention span or time for cyberpunk or similar games.

My elbows and wrists have been savaged by decades of mouse and keyboard use at work. The only way I can play video games now is with a controller. So Steam Deck has given me access back to most of library. It was expensive but so worth it to game again.

Play it on the couch sitting next to my wife while we watch tv or movies in the evenings.

Spending nights sitting at a desktop (or monopolizing the TV) is frequently impractical and honestly unappealing to me, the SD makes it extremely convenient to play whenever.

Emulation is amazing. I’m playing all the games I couldn’t afford when I was a kid

I like to play it in bed before sleeping, or lay on the couch and play either on the deck itself, or docked on the TV. The main reason I wasn’t using a lot of consoles was more just having to purchase games twice / lack of cross platform cloud saves. The deck made that way better.

I was in a similar boat as you during the spring sale - have a powerful desktop, was pondering getting the deck. Decided to go for it and to be brutally honest, it’s mostly a new shiny toy, not a revolution - which is absolutely fine enough.

I am excited about it, enjoy using it very much (on a long train/bus ride, on couch/in bed), but I don’t use it every day, it hasn’t been some miraculous revelation. However, it built a new clear division for my library: on one hand smaller, less demanding games I now save exclusively for handheld experience (thanks to this I already tried some games I probably wouldn’t on PC, at least not in near future), on the other for big, graphically marvelous games still prefer a big screen.

Also, if the desktop goes unexpectedly tits up some day, it’s nice to know I have an emergency solution in the form of the deck.

I play a stupid amount of Stardew on my SteamDeck.

It’s also just nice being able to play my Steam Library on a portable device and having my Cloud Saves available as well, I’m a big “like to game in bed or on the couch” kind of girl.

I’ve been into Linux since 2006 and Linux gaming for almost just as long. When Valve announced a handheld PC with a Linux OS that actually has a ton of game support it was a day one preorder for me. I’m super happy with it. It’s such a polished experience with SteamOS that it’s become the main way I play games anymore. It has the benefits of a handheld console and the openness of a Linux PC. It’s by far the best gaming purchase I’ve ever made. I picked up a ROG Ally as well to attempt to run Linux on it but the out of box experience is garbage compared to the Deck. Windows is a terrible handheld OS and Armoury Crate is a terrible user interface. The performance is better, yet everything else leaves much to be desired while the Deck is an all-around solid and refined experience.

You just have to be willing to say no to games that don’t want to support Linux, but that’s easy having run Linux on my desktop for years.

I use mine when I travel for work. Great for being bored in the hotel and procrastinating actual work I should be doing

Sometimes it just works better to be laying on the couch playing as opposed to sitting in a chair