Essentially, every single game or feature required to test Steam Deck's next-gen credentials has issues: the path-traced Quake 2 RTX or Remedy's Control's RT features cannot be accessed from Linux. Ideally, it's a question we should have answered in the main review, but there's a problem: despite running Steam, the Deck is based on Linux rather than Windows, meaning that a wide range of games still don't run, while features such as hardware-accelerated ray tracing are not supported. It's 'next-gen capable' if you like - but does it have the horsepower to run cutting-edge games at reasonable frame-rates? Its main processor is based on the same core technologies as the silicon that powers PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S. The only difference? Lowering resolution from 1080p down to 720p or 800p.

When Digital Foundry reviewed Steam Deck, the overall takeaway was that Valve had delivered by far the most powerful handheld we'd ever seen - to the point where we could take PC ports of console games and run them at PS4-equivalent settings with much the same performance.

Steam deck handheld