Nah
Need my banking apps and other things for life
this post was submitted on 15 Mar 2026
64 points (97.1% liked)
Steam Hardware
21471 readers
154 users here now
A place to discuss and support all Steam Hardware, including Steam Deck, Steam Machine, Steam Frame, and SteamOS in general.
As Lemmy doesn't have flairs yet, you can use these prefixes to indicate what type of post you have made, eg:
[Flair] My post title
The following is a list of suggested flairs:
[Deck] - Steam Deck related.
[Machine] - Steam Machine related.
[Frame] - Steam Frame related.
[Discussion] - General discussion.
[Help] - A request for help or support.
[News] - News about the deck.
[PSA] - Sharing important information.
[Game] - News / info about a game on the deck.
[Update] - An update to a previous post.
[Meta] - Discussion about this community.
If your post is only relevant to one hardware device (Deck/Machine/Frame/etc) please specify which one as part of the title or by using a device flair.
These are not enforced, but they are encouraged.
Rules:
- Follow the rules of Sopuli
- Posts must be related to Steam Hardware or Steam OS in an obvious way.
- No piracy, there are other communities for that.
- Discussion of emulators are allowed, but no discussion on how to illegally acquire ROMs.
- This is a place of civil discussion, no trolling.
- Have fun.
founded 4 years ago
MODERATORS
A Steam smartphone implies to me its main purpose is to play PC games and not caring about the other stuff. And no, for that reason I wouldn't buy a Steam smartphone. Because playing games on mobile phone sucks, for controls (and I always need a controller in addition), battery life and size. And its probably as expensive as a PC. I would rather buy a dedicated handheld, if its available in this form. And if its based on Android, its a nogo anyway, for privacy reasons.
Yes but not for gaming, just to get a Linux phone.
Mobile sucks. Smartphones are just too limited for real gaming. First problem is the hardware; you cant just put a desktop or laptop processors into a mobile device. Second is a small screen, which is very difficult to use for touchscreen controls and simply too small to actually see what is being displayed.
Define "real" gaming.
There's plenty of excellent games that can run on a toaster, and can run on a tiny screen
Absolutely. Can you imagine hearing the big picture mode starting every time you slide out the modern equivalent of this bad boy that was ahead of its time
Just to get away from Apple and Google.
I love the trend towards Linux phones. I hope that gets a good enough foothold for me to get one.
No, because I don't care about gaming on a phone. But I'd love to have numerous viable Linux phone alternatives to break the cartel duopoly.
If its a viable way to get a linux phone then sure.
Probably not Steam OS, specially, but I'd love an alternative Linux-based smartphone OS.
I already have a smartphone, no intention of buying another one.
Even if it would offer privacy?
But why would it?
Because Linux
Maybe. My phone is not a gaming device for me. But I would choose based on how well it works for other purposes.
Maybe, if was cheap. Dislike Google and Apple.
Don't care so much about games on the phone as like GPS, texting, ad blocking in the browser.
I would, yes, if it was not OS locked.
Not if it used Android, but if they ran like a Linux based OS, yeah, I’d give it a try.
As an alternative for the Apple/Google duopoly, I'd be curious. As a gaming machine, having tried playing PC games on Android, I'd say a lot of work is still needed.
If it allows side loading and has expendable storage, sure. That's all I'm looking for.
I already despise having to charge my phone once a day. I might buy one if it were FOSS, but I don't think I'd play many games on it.
I wouldn't buy it to replace my phone. I want to keep that and my gaming devices separate.
I would buy it a dedicated handheld in a similar form factor to a phone + some controls. I've actually been looking at the AYN Thor for this exact use case. It would have to be the right price too.
I just made a similar comment and totally agree on both points. In the past, handhelds were actually this small, like a (bigger) phone with controls attached. Smartphones have bad battery life too and if its based on Android, then privacy concerns too. A dedicated handheld should be cheaper then full fledged power smartphone being able to play those games.
They don't update the software on the steam deck frequently enough for me to be confident for phone software where security is more of a concern
It's fine on a game device, but I have much more personal data on my phone
Enable Beta updates.
Is Valve's update cycle really worse than what the typical Android device gets?
No, but I am looking forward to try Lepton on my Linux phone.
I had a fucking N-Gage at one point.
Never again. Not even from Valve.