A few weeks back, I wrote about how after the Switch 2 presentation, I decided to go ahead and buy a Steam Deck OLED. I wasn’t sure when I was going to make the move, but tariff news spooked me into buying it almost immediately after that article. I have been playing my Steam Deck OLED for the past few weeks, and I have to say, I am absolutely blown away.
This probably shouldn’t be surprising. The Steam Deck OLED came out something like six years after the original Nintendo Switch was released. I never bought the updated OLED version of the Switch, as I didn’t feel like I spent enough time playing it to justify getting it when the Switch 2 would be coming soon enough. So yes, with almost any tech out there, getting a new product made six years after your last product is going to feel like a massive upgrade. I often scoff at people who are so eager for the latest phone every year, but I definitely notice a difference when I wait 3-4 years for a new one. I imagine if I had one phone for six years and then got a new one, it might blow my mind.
But despite expecting this to be an upgrade, this still feels like more than I expected. Having a Steam Deck made me remember that for about 3 years, the Switch was probably my favorite way to play video games. Being able to lay on the couch and have the TV on in the background is a great way to play games. I slowly got away from that in recent years as the Switch’s power started to really pale in comparison to newer consoles, and other annoyances with the system started to bother me more. Watching the NBA playoffs while playing my Steam Deck the past week instead of awkwardly watching them on my phone while trying to play a console game made me remember that portable gaming is freaking awesome when done right. I originally bought the Steam Deck more as a portable indie machine, but I now realize that it has to be way more than that for me. While I don’t think the Steam Deck is going to be my primary “console,” it is, at the very least, my clear #2 now. I love this freaking thing.
It wouldn’t be BigNerdGaming without using ranks to talk about things, so with that, here are my four favorite features of the Steam Deck OLED so far!
4. The Customization And Options
My first few days with the Steam Deck were a little bit of a struggle when it came to the controls. It was an odd phenomenon, as I primarily use an Xbox, so the Steam Deck lay out of A-B-X-Y is much more in line with how I play most of my video games.
But I quickly realized that my mind is hardwired to reverse how I use A, B, X, and Y when I’m playing portable because I’ve played the Switch for so long. If I needed to press the A button on the Steam Deck, I was using the Nintendo A instead due to pure instinct. It was getting pretty annoying.
After doing some digging, I realized that the Switch actually has an option to change controls to a Nintendo style layout. I was pretty amazed by that. Apparently, you can change the controls for pretty much any game you want to play with Steam Inputs. While I can’t see myself using that often, it’s definitely a great thing to have in my back pocket.
Every single time I dive into my Steam Deck’s options, I see something interesting. I haven’t really dove into these menus yet because I just want to feel like I have a good handle on everything before changing anything, but it feels like they’ve taken tons of user input with how they’ve designed so many of the options here. I haven’t even thought about things like emulation yet, and I can’t imagine how amazing that world is going to be to jump in to eventually. This feature is at #4 since I haven’t actually used tons of these options yet, but it’s incredibly exciting that they are there.
3. The OLED Screen
I have been eyeing the Switch’s OLED version for years now. Every time, I ended up not pulling the trigger. I wasn’t playing my Switch quite as much, with the PS5 and Xbox Series X now out at that point. I figured I’d just hold out for the Switch 2, which I assumed would be coming within a few years (oof, I was wrong there). I was also hopeful that the Switch 2 would launch with an OLED screen (also wrong there, but I do understand why this wasn’t the case).
Now that I’ve used an OLED for a few weeks, I feel very dumb for not just biting the bullet with the Switch 1 OLED, and I am starting to feel like I won’t end up buying the Switch 2 until the inevitable OLED version comes out.
I was relatively skeptical about how great “deeper blacks” could be, but actually, they are pretty damn cool! I have played Koira and a little bit of Bionic Bay on my Steam Deck in the past few weeks. Both those games feature plenty of blacks, and I know I am way more in awe of the visuals on these games than I would have been otherwise. I haven’t played games that are quite as colorful, but I can already tell from watching some trailers on the Steam Store that the more colorful games are also going to hit really hard on this screen.
Also, I’ll get into the size of the Steam Deck in other ways later, but the larger screen is obviously awesome. This thing is definitely big, but it also doesn’t feel too big. This might be the perfect screen size.
I might be imagining things, but it also feels a bit easier to use when there is sunlight as well. I’m hoping the OLED screen will make it easier to do some portable gaming outside this summer in my backyard. Either way, I still have a few games that I’m going to want to play that will only be on the Nintendo Switch this year, and I am feeling a bit scared about going back to a non OLED screen because of how much I’m enjoying this screen.
2. The Feel Of It
I’m not sure how to write about this without sounding like a douchebag, but here we go. I have pretty big hands. I’m 6’3. My hands are big enough where I actually liked the original Xbox controller. So yeah, I’m pretty pumped about the size of the Steam Deck. This thing feels so much better in my hands than the Nintendo Switch.
And it’s not just the size either. The joysticks feel considerably more firm and nicer in my hands. I am also very happy not to deal with the removeable Joycons, which gave me endless trouble.
The triggers also feel significantly better. I have a hard time playing any shooter game of any sort on the Switch because the trigger buttons feel so mediocre. In retrospect, I’ve never enjoyed playing shooters on any portable Nintendo console. So it’s weird to hold this Steam Deck and realize that for the first time in my life, I can play a shooter portably and potentially enjoy it!
The trackpad feature for the mouse is also an interesting one, I attempted a mouse-heavy game styled after Oregon Trail on it, and it just didn’t quite work for me. Perhaps with more time, I will adjust to it, but it’s cool that there is some sort of option to try and bridge the gap for games that rely on a mouse.
It’s still not absolutely perfect. The rumble in particular seems pretty mediocre to me, but this is still a massive upgrade that feels like it will open up multiple new genres for me from a portable perspective. That is incredibly exciting.
1. The Steam Store
One of my biggest justifications for not buying a Steam Deck in the past despite some interest is that it just didn’t seem worth it from a games perspective when I already owned a Switch, Xbox Series X, and a PS5. While there are a few random games that are PC only, it feels like almost all of the highest rated and most popular games work their way to a console eventually. I was really interested in Nine Sols and Mullet Madjack last year, and sure enough, they ended up on Xbox Game Pass later down the road.
But I’ve slowly realized that this isn’t the case for every game. I was very interested in Minishoot Adventures last year and was certain it would end up on the Switch. It did not.
And also, at this point, if a game is on the Steam Deck and the PS5 or Xbox, and it’s not some big AAA game, the Steam Deck is easily going to be my choice for console to play that game on. So either way, it’s worth it.
I’m also having a blast navigating around the Steam Store. It’s been a long time since I used Steam regularly, and I forgot how much I love all the different ways they have to discover new games. Steam also has the best wishlisting system of any of the consoles out there, and it seems to be the only wishlisting system that really helps developers out. So I’m also having fun wishlisting games if I see a new trailer that interests me. It can be easy to lose track of indie games since they don’t have massive marketing budgets, so wishlisting through Steam is going to be very helpful for me.
It’s not all perfect. I have had a few interface glitches when I’m on the Steam Store, but overall, it’s working great, and I’m really happy with it, especially when I compare it to the Nintendo Eshop, which loads slower than molasses and has many other issues as well.
After all that, I’ve gone from Steam Deck skeptic to Steam Deck convert in a few short weeks. I can’t believe I waited this long! All hail the Steam Deck!
Big Nerd Gaming 
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