The Steam Deck has been out for a good couple of months now, and when it came out it was missing something, the Dock. This piece of hardware was delayed due to COVID and other difficulties. It’s been over half a year and Valve is almost ready to release this device, but the question is: Is it worth it?
I mentioned in my review that the Steam Deck is a great piece of hardware to have if you’ve ever been interested in PC gaming but never got around to it. This time we’re seeing if it’s worth buying Valve’s add-on to the Deck that helps sell it as a small PC.
Since there are a lot of peripherals on the market that can do pretty much the same thing, USB hubs, USB-C Hubs to HDMI, and so on. So for someone that does own a Steam Deck, is this the go-to option for playing with the Steam Deck at home, at USD$ 89.99?
▍Big Things From a Tiny Package
For something so small, the Dock has quite a good number of ports, more than you’d expect at 117mm x 29mm x 50.5mm in size, which if you can’t picture it in your head is quite small. This is nice to have when the Deck is in itself kind of bulky, so having something this tiny means the deck won’t take up any more space barely take up any more space on your desk, and even less since you can prop it upright.
Despite its size, the Dock comes with three 3.0 USB ports, an ethernet plug, a 4k 2.0 HDMI port, a Display Port and a USB-C port for power. Unless you have a setup requiring loads of cables, this is enough for most applications, and a Display Port isn’t included with many USB-C hubs, so that’s a nice bonus.
The size lends itself well to bringing it around places even for travelling if you want to use it on say a hotel TV. One hidden benefit is it actually kind of fits in the back of the Steam Deck’s case, almost like it was designed for the Dock from its inception, just that Valve never got around to shipping it. The build quality isn’t cheap either, as it feels fairly solid and the rubberized bottom and inside make it grip most surfaces quite well, and won’t slip.
The Dock even works without an external power source. I was confused for a bit as to why my Deck was losing charge while plugged into my monitor, only to realize I never turned on the power source to charge it in the first place. This means the Dock really functionally works closer to a USB-C hub rather than the Switch’s Dock which must have a power source, giving you more areas where you can use it. While I can’t really think of many scenarios where this could be handy enough to be a selling point, it’s definitely nice to have one less restriction.
▍Gaming on the Steam Deck Dock
If you’re anything at all familiar with gaming on a regular Switch and docking it, you’re pretty much going to get the same experience here. After putting the Deck on the dock and plugging in the USB-C, it instantly takes all the video output from the device and beams it to whatever monitor you have plugged in.
There are a few kinks you’ll have to work out though. Firstly the Deck’s screen by default is a slightly wider ratio of 16:10 compared to most 16:9 displays, reaching a maximum display resolution of 1280×800. During testing I found most games to be running at 1280×800 on default even when plugged in, which naturally looked blurry on a 4k or 1080p display.
Thankfully there’s an easy workaround. Before launching a game you can just go into the options of a game to set a maximum resolution, Though I wish the Steam Deck would automatically detect this for more titles. I also couldn’t find a setting to have all games run at a default display of 1920×1080, which meant every time I tried a new game I’d have to do this setting. It’s far from difficult to do, just something you need to remember.
Playing on a controller and a bigger screen feels great. Since it’s so portable you can even turn the Steam Deck into a party-game machine with this, bringing this around to a friend’s house and pairing your controllers with it to play some fighting games or good old-fashioned beat-em-ups. Also being able to use a keyboard and mouse, sure makes certain titles a little easier to play, if you aren’t used to the deck’s trackpads.
Unfortunately, external devices don’t have a hotkey to access the deck’s View and Menu buttons, which means if you want to quickly turn a game off or check settings, you’ll have to get up to the deck and press those buttons yourself, which kind of defeats the purpose of it. Thankfully you can still set up hotkeys for certain functions like screenshots.
▍Taking Your Work Everywhere… Kind of.
With the Steam Dock, you can now successfully link it to just about any desktop setup around, replacing any PC with this device, so long as there’s a monitor and you brought an HDMI cable. Bringing the Deck around doesn’t take up more space than its carrying case, and setup is a breeze since it has enough USB ports and Bluetooth for your work setup.
At its core, though the Steam Deck is still a Linux PC, meaning you won’t be able to run certain things like Adobe products, Microsoft Office and the like right out of the gate. Chances are though if you are planning to use this thing for work, you’ll be prepared to dual boot it with Windows, that’ll really depend on how far you want to go to use this thing for work.
If you are planning on doing some of the bare basics like working with Google Drive or websites like Photopea and the like, it can definitely get the job done. For most people that work in a digital field though, I’m not sure how convenient it really is to be bringing this thing around and having to set it up, when most workplaces will probably provide you with your own computer to work with, or you probably already have a dedicated laptop for work.
In general, yes. You can definitely bring this thing around and set it up for work very quickly, and you can definitely do most of your job on it without a hitch if you take the time to set it up. Whether you’ll want to commit to installing another OS or WINE to get the job done on it in the first place though, is up to you.
Though I will admit it’s definitely neat to be writing parts of this review on a Steam Deck.
▍A Great Peripheral Worthy of Consideration
The Steam Deck Dock is easily one of the better accessories to get when it comes to turning your Steam Deck into a home console and computer. Its sleek and tiny design and not need an external power source make it laughably easy to set up shop with the Steam Deck at any place with a screen.
Although there are cheaper alternatives on the market, because the Dock can receive firmware updates easily and is of course from Valve, it’ll be much easier to get support and compatibility fixes for the device down the line, making it last even longer.
If you’re looking to enjoy the best of both worlds of PC gaming from the home, and on the go, the Dock is a great device to add on peripherals to get with the Steam Deck. If you’re looking for the Dock to turn this handheld into a full-on working computer though, you might want to stick to a laptop instead.