I joined the club

I love that they put Portal refences on the box. It made me so happy when I got mine. Be sure to play through Desk Job! It's free and let's you try out a bunch of the control schemes. And also it has some Portal-style writing

... I was too excited to look at the box.

Snag yourself a battery pack for traveling. I got a baesus 65w one off Amazon for $38 when it went on sale.

Most important thing? Have fun. Don't get wrapped up in fps limits and tweaking unless your game isn't running to satisfaction. There's a lot you can adjust and tinker with but it's easy to get lost in that.

Don’t get wrapped up in fps limits

Or do, depends on what you consider fun ;)
- Ya know what? You're absolutely correct. As long as you're having fun 😊
I bought the same battery and can't recommend it enough. It's a monster!
Got the same one too. Just a quick note for anyone looking to buy one: if you're planning to travel with it, get the 20,000mah instead of 30,000mah one to stay under the 100Wh limit for most airlines.
Also, beware the rabbit hole of custom bindings.

But, also, how did I go an entire year without finding out about radial pop-up touch menus on the touchpads? HFS, I'll never get to play a game again for all the time I could spend messing with those.

Permanently Deleted

Congrats! If you're someone like me who owns a decent PC but no longer enjoys sitting in front of one, definitely get yourself a dock so you can hook it up to your TV. They cost around $30 and is a great investment. Just remember to take the casing off (if you use one) if you're planning to have your games running at anything between 1080p to 4K, and use FSR to reduce the load. I find the Deck heats up a fair bit even in winter.

Owning a Steam Deck really got me back into gaming. I carry it to work to play during breaks and hook it back up to my TV when I get home.

This was my motivation for getting one. I work from home, and my work laptop and my gaming PC share a desk, thanks to a pair of KVM switches. Sometimes I don’t feel like spending my evenings in the same chair I spent the day in, and enjoy flopping down on the couch with the Deck in handheld mode.
- Best is going outside and touching grass and playing games with the Deck.
Plus you can set up Moonlight/Sunshine to stream more demanding games from a more powerful desktop at up to 4k 60hz with minimal latency.
And! Enable wlan and get an app on your phone to power on the decent computer with. Get game streaming working. And now you play the demanding titles on the Deck through your computer in handheld with good graphics and enormous battery life. Also get something like parsec to be able to log on and power off the computer. Never need to sit Infront of it ever again? That's my life :)

Fill it with emulators and roms baybaaaaay

Yeah, I think it will be perfect for finally play to the SNES Zelda :) and more !

Install decky loader on it, and look at the plug-in store to see if you want to download something. I really like the Bluetooth plugin for connecting my wireless headphones quickly

I like vibrant deck since it made the screen look more vibrant...

Steamgriddb has been great for changing game artwork and making non steam games look official by putting in banners and icons for them.

Protondb badges are useful for giving some info on whether the game will work for Linux or not, since some games that work just fine haven't received steam verified.
Installing Firefox right now, for install the decky loader, thank you for the suggestion.
I was going to write the same! it’s a no brainer

Throw Fallout 3 and New Vegas on it. IMO, they are excellent games for the Deck. The older graphics look fantastic on the smaller screen and they run perfectly without issue (aside from the typical Bethesda bugs built in).

I tried FNV recently, it was good but didn't really connected with it. I should give Fallout 3 a try.

Put up a hammock

I wish I could 😀

Playing games? ^^

Maybe... ;)

One of the best clubs to be in. I absolutely love my Deck & I hope it brings you the equivalent joy.

GL/HF

GL/HF

Thanks !

Welcome to the wonderful world of cardboard box collecting!

You definitely would have figured this out eventually, but the back buttons are SUPER handy and you can remap any games controls on the fly! I personally hate pushing the thumb sticks down as a button, so I almost always remap those to the back buttons.

Also you can adjust the graphics settings on the fly (three dots button on right) and then move up to the battery menu to see their impact on real time.

Speaking of the battery I read somewhere I should let it drain fully for reset it, do you know more about this ?
- Under no circumatances should you do that to a Lithium battery. That’s a relic from NiMH battery era and was done for specific reasons you can find online.
  
  Fully draining your Lithium battery will shorten its lifespan. Many new devices have a way to even limit the max charge and keep the battery in the optimal 60-80% range.

Download Decky in desktop mode, install VibrantDeck plugin, and increase saturation to around 135 to make the screen pop a little more.

I recommend Devil May Cry V and Metal Gear Solid V The Phantom Pain for AAA games that look and play great with little to no tinkering.

Or you can tinker to your hearts content, it's what's great about the deck!

It would only be the 3rd platform I would play MGSV with (ps3&PC before the steamdeck)

Was thinking about joining the club but then realized I missed the summer sale by about a day 🙃

Edited:typo

Well, just need to wait a bit, and you will get it this autumn :)
For what it’s worth, both my girlfriend and I got ours second-hand on Swappa.
- ngl I forgot that Swappa was a thing. THANKS!

oh I thought you bought a portal gun

Next Steam sale, I will

Get the Spigen screen protector with a placement tray so it lines up perfectly and don’t take off the original screen protector off until then!

Then get the Anker nano 2 charger and a 3 meter usb c cord, because it runs out of power pretty quick.

I got the JSAUX protector, it has a placement tray too. And yeah I will need another charger and a long usb cord.

Enjoy!

If you're interested in loading up emulators and other games via desktop mode I highly recommend going over to XDA and checking out their articles for the deck. For example: they have a whole article about getting Minecraft java edition up and running on the deck (which is something one of my kids wants us to do).