6.2" phone screen vs 7" SD screen...

[karmazyn1]

Phones have OLED screens
Phones screen on my S21 is just 0.8" smaller. Thats nothing.

Imagine now your phone being 7" , now add controllers, add touch pads, add lots of plastic.

Well now you have Steam Deck.

All is great, you have portable PC but could you really play games like Civ VI, RPGs on such a small screen?

It will be difficult on txt heavy games. It will be very, very difficult.

My Steam Deck is suddenly very small.

Will I be able to see little, fine details in games like pattern textures on character clothes, will I see all nice artwork in Hades?

No I wont because screen will be too small. Too small to enjoy all that PC has to offer. If anything SD can frustrate many players. Many new to PC gaming will think, 7 inch, really? They will sell their SD, grt ps5 or xbox and play on 65 inch TV, forever forgetting about PC gaming.

Is it even PC gaming? It is something but calling it PC gaming is fundamentally wrong.

[MusicDenny]

civ on the switch is ok but not great with a 6.62-inch its %100 playable

[Silence]

your s21 screen is not 16:10

[karmazyn1]

Publicado originalmente por Silence:

your s21 screen is not 16:10

Phone is little wider, Steam Deck will be little taller. Real estate will be the same.

[Andrius227]

There is a magic trick that can turn a 7 inch screen into an ~40 inch screen.

I use it all the time with my phone. Works great.

[karmazyn1]

Publicado originalmente por Andrius227:

There is a magic trick that can turn a 7 inch screen into an ~40 inch screen.

I use it all the time with my phone. Works great.

Whats the point of portable if you want to make portable into a PC, just plug PC to TV, more power. Portability has its moments but immersion is not one of them, not on a 7 inch screen anyway.

[Haruspex]

Which is it? Is the Steam Deck too big and heavy as others have said, or is it too small as you have just suggested? Clearly no matter what size it is, someone will have something to complain about.

PC gaming isn't about your desk, with keyboard and mouse, and RGB lighting, and 32" 4k 120hz monitor, although those things are great. PC gaming is about openness, freedom, and choice. Whether you are on your God-tier desktop setup, a laptop, or using a portable like the Steam Deck. It's all PC gaming.

7" is not an ideal monitor size for very text heavy games that expect a larger display, true. So don't play those kinds of games on the Steam Deck unless you don't mind squinting at it's 7" display. Countless other games that don't flood the screen with tiny type will be absolutely fantastic though.

[retrogunner]

Maybe you need one of those book-sized fresnel lens to assist ;-D jk

My most favorite portable of all time was my Shield K1 tablet. It was 8". I've a Samsung 10" now and it feels a bit big to comfortably control Need For Speed and others.

I totally get your point. There's only so many games that will be playable on 7". I doubt my wife will be taking mine to play her point-n-click hidden object games - whew.

Last Prime Day, I invested in a USB powered portable 15" laptop screen. Super slim, 1080p, has a mini-HDMI port, but my also has the Alt-DP built-in so I could literally plug it directly into the Steam Deck - no dock required.

But isn't that part of establishing a new "platform"/console - developing the economy around accessories? Raspberry Pi hats, all consoles, Apple junk, etc.

[@R+5]

few phones have a screen that big, and is a common size for tablets because its good enough to read, specially with high dpi screens. i can agree it could be annoying to people that have vision problems, but its likely an accessory to place a magnifying lens will be offered, and maybe thats one of the things that SteamOS could include to zoom in areas of the screen (currently kde plasma includes something like that, but it wont work with games).

[tyl0413]

Yeah phone can't play real games though, streaming doesn't count.

[shak59]

I think people will be shocked how many PC games will be unplayable at 720p because of text. Most PC games don't scale below 1080p.

I guess that's why the only showed FPS and modern indie games.

[FatStupidAmericant]

tbh im starting to wonder if I'd rather play on a smaller screen in my hands, mobile, as opposed to a large one that's high res

you can run it off a lower power device, saves watts, looks about the same in term of sharpness, etc

that being said Witcher 3 in 4k on high will still beat out a Deck at 800p medium, but I really am starting to feel I'd rather play it in my hands on the lower settings, even if my ass is at a desktop. The Switch was great for this. games are still fun at 800p.

I'm tired of the 'PC' format of sitting at a desk with 27-32in screens in general. I really want to convert over to a living room format with 43in+ at pc, even just for general stuff. I'd effectively be sitting at a PC like a console. I don't really think it's really how something is laid out that really defines it as a 'console' or a 'pc', more just what its capabilities are.

Also, selling your SD for a console makes no sense because a console doesn't have the mobility or features a steam deck has. It's all based on needs and wants. If you don't want a low spec handheld, don't buy one to begin with. Just think of this as a laptop but as a gaming handheld really.

[ReBoot]

The screen looks to be about as large as one on an a Switch, and playing ON THE GO on the Switch is a fine experience.
For stationary play, there's still the Deck Dock (or any other dock on the market).

[figmentPez]

Publicado originalmente por karmazyn1:

Phones screen on my S21 is just 0.8" smaller. Thats nothing.

Most 6.2" phones have an aspect ratio of ~19:9 giving them a screen area of ~14.9 square inches, when content is full screen.

The Steam Deck screen is 7"and 16:10, giving ~22.2 square inches.

49% larger is not "nothing". And when viewing 16:9 content, the image will be 56% larger.

[karmazyn1]

Publicado originalmente por figmentPez:

Publicado originalmente por karmazyn1:

Phones screen on my S21 is just 0.8" smaller. Thats nothing.

Most 6.2" phones have an aspect ratio of ~19:9 giving them a screen area of ~14.9 square inches, when content is full screen.

The Steam Deck screen is 7"and 16:10, giving ~22.2 square inches.

49% larger is not "nothing". And when viewing 16:9 content, the image will be 56% larger.

Math does not work here. 0.8 inch is 12.9% screen size increase. How can you claim 56% larger? It is 12% bigger. Aspect ratio will change shape the shape of the screen, it will not make it magically 56% bigger. 12% is 12%.

[figmentPez]

Publicado originalmente por karmazyn1:

Math does not work here. 0.8 inch is 12.9% screen size increase. How can you claim 56% larger? It is 12% bigger. Aspect ratio will change shape the shape of the screen, it will not make it magically 56% bigger. 12% is 12%.

You're only measuring the diagonal, from one corner of the screen to another. I'm measuring the total square inches of the display. Changing the aspect ratio will make the diagonal longer while reducing the square inches of the screen.

You can take the issue to an extreme to see how this works. Take a hypothetical 10" diagonal. If the screen were perfectly square with a 10" diagonal, the sides of that square would be 7" and it would be 49 square inches of space. If you had a ridiculous 99:10 aspect ratio the resulting screen would be 1 in x 9.9 in and still have a 10" diagonal, but the screen space would be just shy of 10 square inches. The wider the screen is, the longer the diagonal gets for the amount of square inches shown by the screen.

So yes, by math the screen of the Steam Deck is 1.5 times the size of your phone screen.