The steam deck is just great

Oh, your Stick is drifting? No problem, send it in.
What? You don't want to wait? Sure, in that case here's a manual to easily fix it yourself.
- Bluetooth controller drifting? Here, you can adjust the deadzone yourself and get realtime feedback to make it easier.
  
  That or you can just buy a controller that doesn't cheap out on the joysticks for less than what any of the main console companies are charging.
- Or, get some third party Hall Effect sticks, and have an enjoyable afternoon or evening of tinkering.
  No soldering required!
  
  While technically true, you will lose the capacitive touch functionality of the sticks (the steam deck knows when your thumbs are touching the sticks) unless you desolder the old thumb caps and resolder them on the new sticks.
  Edit: You're right. It appears newer Hall Effect Sticks for the Steam Deck come with the capacitive caps pre soldered, while the OG Gulikit Sensors required desoldering the original caps and resoldering them on the replacement board. That being said, it was super easy to do, even for my butterfingers that last touched a soldering iron in highschool more than 15 years ago.
  
  No soldering on the switch either though and Hall effect joysticks are a thing for it as well

Bonus "Fuck Nintendo" points: pirate their games and put them on the Steam Deck.
- This is the way.

"If something wears out after the warranty expires, here's an independent online store with a full inventory of all replaceable parts, along with the instructions for how to fix them."

Careful with SD; they quickly wear out with lots of small writes. I once fried one as homedir while trying to compile Firefox.
- Endurance SD cards made for cctv cameras are the way to go. The Endurance versions are slower and slightly more expensive but they last a lot of writes.
- Sounds like you got a shitty SD card. High endurance cards are recommended for frequent writing.
  
  Can't say for sure, because all are mixing high quality with recycled from the scrapyard quality. The big names only a bit less of the scrapyard.
- Each write to a memory location wears out that location slightly degrading it's oxide layer. Flash memories compensate for this by "wear-leveling" which spreads the writes around to different locations to make sure the device wears out evenly.
  It will mark bad locations and stop using them. If you run with the device almost full then it cannot effectively wear level and the few open locations will be overused and wear out.
  It's not specifically small writes, it's the number of writes to any one location. But of course it's faster to do small writes so you end up with more if they are all small.
  Also, there are flash memories optimized for performance that will wear out faster and others that are optimized for longevity that write slower.
  Keeping the device cool will extend it's life also.
  For longest life, keep the device cool and mostly empty and minimize writes. In critical applications find a device that optimizes lifetime over performance.
  
  Hold on, i think i now remember: this one was about SD usually having smaller block size, so each small write causing a multiple in blocks written, i think?
- Are SD cards not still the standard storage for digital cameras? I can think of few things designed to produce more small writes than a digital camera.
  
  This person is confusing me. I use SD cards for my cameras and drones and routinely move files and reformat them with no issue. I have several cards that are over 6 years old and used daily. SD is the standard for all current cameras and drones.
  
  A digital camera has several megabyte writes, every once in a while, filling up the SD card evenly. Even bad SD cards usually have many thousand write cycles before they degrade, so that's not likely to be an issue. What is worse is if you have a log file, for example, that is stored in a fixed position on the card and gets updated several times a second
- I'd like to know more about this- as far as I know they are solid state, meaning no moving parts (ergo more reliable)
  
  Hmm, for now only about the general fragility, due to simple controllers. But i think i have an article about this saved somewhere.
  Btw, if you reformat an SD, I/O and lifetime will fall sharply, because of some block size parameters differing, above mentioned article goes in detail about this stuff.
  Edit: it wasn't this but has some nice info too:
  https://www.bunniestudios.com/blog/2010/microsd-card-failures/
  https://www.bunniestudios.com/blog/on-microsd-problems/on-hacking-microsd-cards/

Only one small mistake I see here. Assuming Nintendo will say please. The same amount of time it takes them to say please, you'll blink and be in a courtroom facing piracy charges.
- Please understand
  
  Brother I require OATS

They don't say please, they just threaten you with legal ramifications.

We have basicly everything you play games on, so also both of these. But the Steam Deck is absolutely the gigachad, even moreso than my actual gaming pc if you just look at hours used.
If you forced me to get rid of all my devices but one, it'd probably be the Steam Deck that'll be left. And yes this consideration included my gaming pc and smartphone.
The only regret I have about buying the Steam Deck is being so late to the party, having acquired it but 6 months ago.

There is also more diversity on the steam
At this point, 90% of Nintendo is just Mario remakes, and broken joycons

I genuinely believe people will look back at this moment and wonder what Nintendo could have done if they weren't too limited in their vision to understand the opportunity they are throwing away here.
Apple isn't popular with younger people the way it used to be, nobody likes Microsoft, everybody hates Android (I do too even though that is my phone os)... there is a major generational opening here for introducing kids to computers in a fun way and becoming "the computer" in the minds of kids.
Especially with the environmental crisis and climate change, people will look back at this and shake there heads and lament that if only Nintendo had copied Valve for that generation of Switches, Nintendo could have grown into an entire operating system and computer culture and there would be WAY less needlessly obsolete handheld computers laying around from when the next generation of Switches inveitably comes out....
What people still don't understand about computers and people is that whoever introduces kids to computers capable of doing complex work in a fun way will shape the future, because those kids will grow up into adults who create, use and design tools that do cool amazing things. Nintendo needs to wake the fuck up and realize they are selling a handheld computer that is very good at playing games, the world desperately needs another company with vision, good UI design, and the capability to bring hardware and software together into a competent computer experience (Microsoft cannot do this, and undermines all its hardware partners that actually try to do this with their own incompetence).
- I don't think that will happen. I share your vision, but that's not how "Nintendo people" reason.
  I have a few Nintendo friends and all of them share two reasons for going Nintendo:
  Great games
  No tinkering
  
  Yep. Old Nintendo you would buy the thing (cartridge/disk/ect) and with no fiddling the game runs. It used to be its best quality. That and most people don't buy them new, they would get games used. It was "cheapish" and you knew you were going to have fun.
  Nowadays it's not so black and white. I have long term Nintendo fan friends that for the first time are thinking of skipping this generation. Or in one case waiting a couple of years. But we shall see. More options are good for all us users, so I'm happy we have these two companies vieing for our time/$.
  
  That doesn't make much sense to me. The games part okay, kinda, since Nintendo games aren't easily available on the Deck.
  But tinkering? I've had a Steam Deck since it first launched, and the only tinkering I've done is because I could, and wanted to. Never because I needed to. All games I've played work perfectly out of the box. Even games marked as 'unsupported'. All of my tinkering was completely unnecessary and done for additional fun, e.g. modding, which is one of the best things about PC gaming, and will most certainly never be a thing on Nintendo's platforms.
  As far as I can tell, "Nintendo people" don't really 'reason'. More like, they follow their uninformed preconceptions, and reject anything that doesn't fit with them. My gf has been a Nintendo fan for a long time, and she was convinced other platforms aren't that simple and offer a worse experience. I introduced her to PC gaming, and showed her how the Deck works. Now she's forgotten about her Switch and isn't going to buy Switch 2. It seems to me that all these people need is somebody to show them what gaming really is. Because whatever Nintendo is, it certainly isn't gaming. Just a small glimpse into gaming, maybe.
  As for Zelda, Mario or whatever fans - guess they'll have to stick with Nintendo. Personally their games never appealed to me enough to buy a console specifically to play them. I'd like to play the new Zelda games, but I have a lot of other games to finish first. And then again, Switch emulation is incredibly easy. Took me like 10 or 15 minutes to get BotW working last time.
  
  Great games
  Oh, bollocks to that. All it took was one serious competitor to Pokémon to make Nintendo shit the bed. Excepting Zelda, most of the pathologically Nintendo games are shovelware-tier trash. If the current iteration of Mario or Mario Kart were released today without the nostalgiabait and brand recognition, they'd be the laughing stock of the industry.
  All Nintendo has is quirky gadgets, a closed ecosystem, and notoriety.
- Nintendo could have grown into an entire operating system and computer culture and there would be WAY less needlessly obsolete handheld computers laying around from when the next generation of Switches inveitably comes out…
  This isn't and has never been Nintendo's desired goal. Needless obsolete handheld computers laying around is a feature not a bug. Nintendo wants to sell more hardware. If you're able to use your hardware longer, it means lost sales. Nintendo also doesn't want to be a general purpose OS. There's all kinds of things you have to do as a company for a general purpose OS you don't have to do as an embedded system as they are today.
- Your assertion that Apple, Microsoft, and Android are all unpopular with everyone seems like it might actually be a personal opinion rather than a fact.
  I know people who enjoy all of those.
  
  Lol those poor lost souls
- It is nintendo. After a success they need a fail. At this point it seems like one of the underlying rules of our universe.

Memory is not storage.
- Not with that attitude! swapon!
  
  Bro why you gotta remind me of the swap file nightmares with w98 ha
- In the end everything that is storage can also be used as memory. You could print it to paper and scan it back in when the cpu requires it (and write a memory interface to do so).. It would just be terribly slow if you don't use something like DRAM
  
  Sure but that's the opposite of what was mentioned.
  Storage can be memory.
  Memory cannot be storage.

I have both. So far the only advantage the Switch Lite has is that is lighter and pocketable. The Steam Deck is not just about gaming which it does so well, it has also become my main and only PC outside of work. I have it hocked up to my TV more often than use it in handheld mode.
- I'm very sure you can even run blender on it

Funny because nintendo buyers are not even part of this conversation LMAO 🤣

Also there's no such thing as indie switch games. Which limits the market and means that all the really interesting games aren't even on the platform.

I just wish the Deck was a bit lighter.
- My primary concern, too. It's fine for my man-hands but my wife and children still would rather use a switch (or literally have to, as I try to get my 3 year old to reach buttons). A deck lite would be lovely.
  
  We just use a neck roll placed in the lap or on the stomach to rest it on while playing. It is a bit on the heavy side, but it is the first generation consumer handheld with that kind of power so I can excuse that.
- I wish the steam controller wasn't discontinued, IIRC it was some patent bullshit. But you could use one of you have it or get any other controller and use it with the steam deck
  
  I have one, and plenty of controllers, but I'd trade a bit of battery life and horsepower for weight. I don't play AAA games on mine, and I know I'm not alone, so they'd be smart to release a lite version.
  And it's not just the weight. My wife has small hands and can't play it comfortably because it's so large. I bought her a WIN400 and threw SteamOS on it and that works alright. Something that size would be amazing from Valve (but without the really fucking stupid control placement).
  Small form factor handhelds with power under the hood are definitely a thing, but they're like $1200. I bet Valve could drop the power by 40% and sell it at a reasonable price point.
- My one complaint is that the shape is kind of awkward and I've cut off circulation in my fingers holding it
- A deck the size of a miyoo mini plus would be awesome. But very impractical. I want it.
- With the KillSwitch case from dbrand, the Deck is both heavy AND sturdy feeling. The grips on the case are AMAZING though, and really help with the heaviness. I bought the entire kit for mine, because I thought it looked sick, but I can highly recommend the case to anyone who would like the protection and ergonomics that the case can give you.
  I like the heaviness, personally. Gives it a "premium" feel to it, but that is my opinion of course!

The mod abilityof the deck and the openness is a killer feature of the deck. It's an excellent device.

Don’t they have different screens too though?
- From the original decks, the top tier screen can be achieved with a matte screen protector
- Exactly. The two higher editions are OLED, 7.4”, 90 Hz, which is a huge plus, vs the LCD, 7”, 60Hz display of the old/cheaper one. Plus the battery has 25% more capacity for the OLED editions. But between the top two, it’s just storage and cosmetics/accessories.
- They do, but usually have the older/less good screen on at a fairly steep discount (presumably until they run out of stock of it)

I recently learned that the eshop on the Switch is a browser and the eshop you buy from is a website which is so funny to me for some reason
- That would explain the slow load times

I am in so much pain that MP4 is finally coming out and it's on this shit.
- MP4 checklist:
  Video format? No, that's old.
  Mass Effect 4? No, that would be ME4.
  ??
  
  metroid prime 4
  
  Mario Party... 4? Aren't they on like 9?
- That and the Air Ride sequel man. All I can hope is that people get emulators going fast.
  
  There's work already being done ;)
- Also on the original Switch, though.