Great device but poor battery life

[MeddersSnr]

The comments that follow are just a warning to potential buyers, not a critical review.

I've had my Deck (512GB version) for several weeks now and though it truly is an exceptional piece of IT kit, I unfortunately find myself frustrated by the very poor battery life. When playing a AAA game I am lucky if I get between 1 hour and 1 hour 30 mins of play time, before I have to recharge.

Given this is a mobile device, good battery life is critical. I would mention I'm fully aware it is possible to tweak settings, including graphics etc to try and improve battery life.

At the moment I'm finding myself booting up my 14 inch gaming laptop, instead of using the Deck as I can normally get about 3 to 4 hours of play on that via battery.

Such a shame. I ordered my Deck last year when they were first announced. I have a large catalogue of Steam games, so the ability to play them via a handheld was of great interest to me. I'd read about battery life issues months ago but had hoped Valve would improve things enough to address that before general release. Seems not. Got a feeling my Deck may end up on eBay in the near future.

[Areinu]

Yep, if you let the games just drink all juices without any limits they will do just that. Usually without much tweaking you should be getting stable framerate with about 2h 30m (seems to be common "top battery life" for more demanding games). With some well optimized games you can get it to 4h even. Indies might be around 6-7.

One benefit of the deck is everyone has the same deck. You can check out sites like https://sharedeck.games/ which list settings and battery lives people got for their games.

Quick and dirty trick for battery live is just limit TDP as much as you can until framerate starts dropping, then put it 1W more. It is in triple dots energy menu of SD. Doing just that can, in some games, save you 30-90 minutes of battery. My FFXIV went from 60 minutes to almost 3.5h on the same settings. Note though, that battery life expectancy takes up to few minutes to "stabilize" after changing TPD.

[Jâbbérwôkkï]

If you press the ... button, you can adjust the frame rate, gpu speed, & the cpu tdp, to get more battery life out of it. You can also use the fsr tech along with lowering resolution & graphics quality in games to make them run better while maintaining a decent looking picture. Try a little experimenting with the Deck, get to know it's settings locations before getting let down by it, it will surprise you. Too many people but something and never look in the settings of it, then get upset thinking it can't do something, when often the capability of the device can be expanded by adjusting a slider or something in the settings of it.

[saber556]

I’ve been having the greatest time dialing back TDP and GPU speed on my deck. 4 watts and 400mhz for the win!

[HaŦŦrick ✓ 🛠 🗽]

you can velcro a somewhat small 45watt battery pack onto the back but the Deck is already kind of heavy. i'll probably end up doing this lol

[raventhehunter]

Depending on the game, I get about an hour and a half to two hours of playtime unplugged. Which is actually pretty much exactly the range I'm expecting, in light of the device settings that I use and the performance load my chosen games put on the system.

I'm pretty sure that I'd get quite a bit more time by both dropping my settings down and playing less demanding games.

[Evanga]

yeah you should sell it, piece of garbage...right?
How much time does your laptop last when playing the same AAA game? i bet between 1 - 3 hours...
i am getting tired of these kind of posts.

[HaŦŦrick ✓ 🛠 🗽]

Originally posted by Evanga:

yeah you should sell it, piece of garbage...right?
How much time does your laptop last when playing the same AAA game? i bet between 1 - 3 hours...
i am getting tired of these kind of posts.

yeah these topics are pretty lame in 2022. people should already know of the sacrifices for mobility and the current state of li-ion battery tech.

[invision2212]

its been well known for months the decks battery sucks on very demanding games

[Door Into Summer]

Its weird how so many people don't think to play their mobile devices while charging. I can understand this being an issue when you are out and about but as long as you are around an outlet this should not be a big issue.

[OGNocturnal]

Its a 5313 mAh battery. Slightly higher than a typical smartphone battery capacity for reference.

[76561198296098152]

Can you play the steam deck with the charger plugged in I know that defeats the portability but it’s an option

Originally posted by MeddersSnr:

The comments that follow are just a warning to potential buyers, not a critical review.

I've had my Deck (512GB version) for several weeks now and though it truly is an exceptional piece of IT kit, I unfortunately find myself frustrated by the very poor battery life. When playing a AAA game I am lucky if I get between 1 hour and 1 hour 30 mins of play time, before I have to recharge.

Given this is a mobile device, good battery life is critical. I would mention I'm fully aware it is possible to tweak settings, including graphics etc to try and improve battery life.

At the moment I'm finding myself booting up my 14 inch gaming laptop, instead of using the Deck as I can normally get about 3 to 4 hours of play on that via battery.

Such a shame. I ordered my Deck last year when they were first announced. I have a large catalogue of Steam games, so the ability to play them via a handheld was of great interest to me. I'd read about battery life issues months ago but had hoped Valve would improve things enough to address that before general release. Seems not. Got a feeling my Deck may end up on eBay in the near future.

[SimonSays]

I mean, I am likely going to be playing it plugged in most of the time myself (or at least always near a charge area) - and when I am portable, it will most likely be times when I am not really looking to sink 3 or 4 hours into a deep game experience. Like on a lunch break at work, or possibly during the commute to and from.

I think it is kind of crazy that the Deck's battery performs as well as it does - especially considering the herculean task of what it is doing half the time.

[karmazyn1]

For the 100th time, good power bank (30,000) will extend battery life 5 times over stock. Zero problems with battery life which I thought will be biggest compromise for me.

[HaŦŦrick ✓ 🛠 🗽]

Originally posted by FlyingOrange:

For the 100th time, good power bank (30,000) will extend battery life 5 times over stock. Zero problems with battery life which I thought will be biggest compromise for me.

there's a 45watt small form (9600) battery on amazon for 50usd. they need to be 45watt + or it'll just be a slow charger for this device, which is ok but something to think about if you want a true power extension.

[Cyberbeing]

I don't know what you're expecting from a Li-ion battery this size? Valve isn't some wizard that will create new tech. Huge bets are put on graphene to transform the tech industry in the next decade or two.