$749
Windows
Done, I've read enough.
It’s crazy to me the way that all of the also-ran handhelds seem bent on putting a desktop OS on these things. The steam deck didn’t succeed in spite of its lack of windows, it succeeded BECAUSE it ran a purpose built OS.
Like imagine looking at a market where the Switch exists and saying “My path to victory is Microsoft Windows, that is what the people are demanding!”
Even worse is that there almost certainly going to be some sort of handheld optimized windows release in the coming years from MS and they have zero incentive to license it to hardware OEMs. Best case for MSI et al is that they build a market for MS to steal from them in a year or two.
There already is a handheld optimized MS OS, the xbox. It's made to be used with a controller on screen of any size, if they baked in the support for PC games they would be 90% of the way to a Steam Deck.
Don't forget,
Intel integrated graphics
Are they that much better than AMD?
But it comes with 7 days of Ubisoft+ for free!
Which is like a double insult. 7 days is a pittance but it's also Ubisoft who think AAAA is just a price point.
Also I wonder what the battery life is like with the Intel silicon.
That's a reason I would not buy this
Thank you for saving me so much time.
Cheers, I don't have to go looking for this clip now
"7 days of FREE Ubisoft +" is the most failed attempt by MSI to hide they earn something by pre-installing Ubisoft's bloatware and (wishfully) get some money from some sort of install/link referral scheme.
Stupid name, stupid price.
Manufacturers keep coming up with "competitors", but don't even attempt to compete with SteamOS and just slap Windows on it and do like the bare minimum and just leaves it to the user to deal with Windows and get their games to work.
The Deck's UX is good because you download your games, hit play, they launch, you play, and move on with your life. It's reproducible, it's reliable, no bullshit, works exactly the same on everyone's Deck. That's definitely not the Windows experience even when you try.
The Deck's magic is that it's all the freedom of a PC, with the experience of a console. This is just a handheld PC with minimal effort put into it.
it will fail lol.
I honestly wonder why the Claw looks so much like an Ally, down to the screen type, logo placement, and button placement.
Some of the edges and angles are completely different, but hold these at a distance and you could probably mistake it for a black Ally
Not interested in this one specifically, but I'm stoked that this device category is taking off. Can't wait to see what's available in a few years as manufacturers figure out what works/doesn't work.
What distro is it based on?
If I bought this I'd slap Bazzite on it as soon as it becomes supported.
Is that the bottles one or the egg roll one?
Not sure I get it 🤔
The Bottles team and the Eggroll team (wine implementations) both made gaming focused distros
Ah.. hmm no idea.
I love all these Steam Deck knock offs coming out. It's really going to continue to help the Steam Deck sell well!
I wonder if any of these guys will actually release their own deck competitor with SteamOS on it. I'd be more into that.
Cool but look how far gaming on linux has come in the past decade. If we keep voting with our wallets we will no longer have a PC gaming monopoly. I strongly dislike using windows, 7 was the last one I liked. To boot to windows to play games sucks, which is why I'm so glad Linux is getting a lot more attention lately. For my setup, Elden Ring actually work better under Arch Linux than Windows. I hope Valve releases a new steam deck in the next 5 years and it's just as much of a success as the first one. I want this trend to continue.
Suppose this thing succeeds wildly. It sells a hundred million copies, they become a world-bestriding colossus.
It's now a competitor to Microsoft, running Microsoft software.
That's not a good place to be. I think this thing is dead as a concept.
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