Valve’s handheld gaming PC, Steam Deck, is about to go on sale, and a group of media has already taken the lead in getting the evaluation machine to test the battery life of this long-awaited handheld device for PC players. From the test, it seems that the results are not as ideal as Valve officially said.
According to GamersNexus’ battery life test on Steam Deck, the battery life of this handheld gaming computer can’t reach the 2-8 hours previously advertised by Valve. Specifically for the game, through their testing using “Devil May Cry 5” with no frame rate limit, vertical sync turned on, and 50% screen brightness.
The Steam Deck finally ran out of power in the 87th minute. However, if you lower the game’s settings to 60fps and turn off vertical sync, Devil May Cry 5 can be played for up to 2 hours.
While the Steam Deck’s battery life may not be long enough for graphics-demanding games, it’s more than enough for some indie games.
According to another test from The Phawx, although the battery life of “Control” is only 80-90 minutes, he uses “Dead Cells”, and with the vertical sync setting turned on, the Steam Deck can last for 6 hours, but it’s still a long way from the 8 hours Valve advertised.
Still, the Steam Deck is more durable than the Nintendo Switch. For example, when The Phawx played Forza Horizon 5, it could achieve about 4 hours of playtime using the 30fps setting, and most importantly, the test showed that the Steam Deck recharged very quickly: GamersNexus ‘s charging test shows the device can go from 0% to 80% in 100 minutes, although the final 20% battery trickle takes an extra 80 minutes.
Steam Deck will be officially available on February 25th.