Before getting an apartment for college, I’d always play it in docked. With the new steamOS 3.5, i can even activate the HDR on my monitor and make every game look all that much cleaner. Never had any regrets!

If you think you’re ONLY going to play first person shooters, then maybe invest in a good 3rd party controller! I suggest the 8bitdo pro 2, since I like the ps4 “dualshock layout”, but if you prefer the Xbox layout, they also have the 8bitdo ultimate controller!

It’s not as seemless as the Switch, and you have to generally play at lower resolutions for a better performance, but if it’s an older game or indie it can basically play games docked at a 1080p 60fps

It’s effectively a mini pc with a screen, controller and battery built in. For the price it’s amazing. If you get a 1080p monitor and a dock witha keyboard and mouse you effectually have yourself a full pc with a secondary screen that you can also unplug and play like a Nintendo Switch. Well worth it IMO if your current pc has worse specs.

I use it primarily on my tv, but really all use cases it works great

I just use it in docked mode. Can’t play the latest AAA titles but I have so many older Steam games I’ve never played that I doubt I’ll reach the end before upgrading to a newer Steam Deck.

It depends what kind of games you play. Old games and emulation sure, newer games not so much.

The only reason why I haven’t upgraded to the OLED is because i only play mine docked to my Samsung 4k. I bought the dock as soon as the OLED was announced…

It’s the only reason I have it

Possibly? I use mine docked with 2 monitors and external drives, a mouse and a keyboard and a tablet and it is way better than my 2019 mac which is now my new PLEX/streaming thing…

I was using it as a PC for some months while moving to a new continent, it works fine if you are not that pick with fps/resolution. I was playing everything on deck native resolution, even playing most of the time in the dock

I have a M1 Mac and bought the deck as my Gaming rig. Really good investment as I primarily play it docked. I don’t have time to play it outside but inside, if I can play I play whatever on it.

CS2 and Dota2 runs well. Alongside Apex and emulators.

I play docked all the time, no complaints. Yes you need to tweak and be ok with lesser performance but that comes with the power of the deck. It was almost a year after I got the deck before I started using my gaming pc again. Played through cyberpunk, horizon zero dawn,shadow of the tomb raider. It’s more a keep expectations in check and you’ll be fine

Depends a bit on what you want to play. Older stuff, emulation? Turning your Steamdeck into an SNES-PS1-PS2-XBOX-WII-GBA-Switch-whatever-machine with a huge library is very easy (if you know where to find the roms, but you’re on Reddit, so…). And even if you don’t travel much, it can be nice to be able to play in bed or on the couch.

Been using the Dock with my 12 yr old tv for the last year and I have no complaints.

In my opinion no. Just get either a desktop in the same price range as that will vastly outperform the deck in performance while giving a better gaming experience on a larger screen. Deck should be bought mainly for handheld gaming, which is where it excels, just like the other PC handhelds.