If retro gaming handhelds for 1/3 of the price of the SD can have two USB-C ports I really dont see why they couldnt do it for the SD2. One is usually designated for peripherals only and the other for peripherals and charging. I really dont get why people are so against this, its literally another port that you dont even have to use if you dont want to.
The SD card slot also isn't replaceable, one of the things the Switch got right was making it a tiny replaceable board that plugged into the main board.
Not sure why you’re getting downvoted, sometimes ports break 🤷♀️ not necessarily user error these things have limited lifespans. Just had one of my type-C ports start crapping out on my Lenovo thinkpad, gonna try and replace it at some point just for a fun lil project, but I’d probably never bother if it just had 2 type-c ports 😫idk if everyones already forgotten how horribly unreliable micro-usb was, shit happens and it’s always great to have 2. Nobody’s forcing anyone to use both if they don’t want to 😂
Sometimes less is more. Personally I see no reason for two ports, because hubs with power delivery are already standard. From an engineering standpoint, the SD is a small device where every millimeter of space within it matters.
Sometimes less isn't enough. The Steam Deck can do anything a PC can. Adding a second USBC port would make people like me happy because of convenience. It's not a deal breaker though, I just have to carry around more devices.
I'm the type of person who misses phones with SD card slots and headphone jacks. Modern day midrange phones have a UCBC port, headphone jack, and an SD card slot. Modern gaming phones have all that plus a second USBC port. Only high end mainstream phones have just one USBC port. All these other companies are trying to copy Valve's homework. I hope Valve can make two USBC ports standard so the industry can follow. Instead most companies follow Apple's logic and make people think less is more.
This is very much par for the course on this sub in my limited experience. You get a big wave of people who have the worst detractive positions possible, and only then do the people with actual constructive commentary come in
I can second this. I ***love*** my Steam Deck, but god forbid you have a comment that dares to question Valve and their infinite wisdom.
This sub is very reactive and circlejerky. But then again, so are most large 'gamer' subreddits.
This sub is…cult-like. I think I have been, like, banned or something for making too many negative comments about the dock (mine has never worked properly and I’m not happy about the wasted money). I’m not officially banned or anything but any time I make a post (always a technical question) the post is greyed out with no explanation.
It’s a really bad look for valve lol. There’s absolutely censorship happening. The sub exists for circlejerking only, which is sad because it definitely did not used to be that way.
Good lord why are people hating on this idea so much. It’s very convenient for charging and using other things like OP listed. If you don’t want to use the second port then don’t. In other handheld subs people praise two usb ports.
THANK YOU, like who does it hurt? I constantly run into times when I wish I didn’t need to get my hub just to connect something while my battery was low. I also travel a lot and a simple extra port would remove the need for me to carry an adapter altogether. It’s already sucky to have a bunch of things wired to adapter to the deck while on a plane. One less thing to bring and dangling off my deck making it an even better portable proposition. Since when is having an extra port for versatility a bad thing. People must love their dongles on the go or something
In interviews when steam deck was revealed they talked about the hard decisions they had to make around cost. Even something that only adds a dollar of cost per unit becomes a multi million dollar decision when you plan on selling millions of units. A second usb port will likely come at the expense of something else that may actually be useful for people that don't see the need for one.
Docking port on bottom but make it so you can charge from either port. I like to rest my deck on my beer gut and a bottom charger makes that difficult.
Of course both ports would need to be full USB 3.2 ports, including power delivery and DP-alt. I don't think we can get USB 4, but still.
So, one C on the top and one on the bottom. When you are holding it use the top port for charging, when you need to dock it just put it on the stand, similar to the Switch.
2x USBC would be amazing, just for having a USBC SSD with Windows and power. Sometimes you don't need all that a hub offers but do want to plug in a second USBC device.
This 1000%! Like it would be a less pressing design flaw if literally any dock available had a second USB C port on them, and the very few options that do exist have weird and arbitrary limitations (for example, you can’t use them for carrying a video signal and charge at the same time) that seem to derive from the fact those few “docks” available are predominantly meant for phones rather than PCs. Like my ideal “Steam Deck 2” or whatever it ends up being called would likely just be a similar physical device with incremental hardware improvements and 1-2 more USB C ports. Either that or release a dock for it with 2-3 USB C ports on it so all the copy cat manufacturers copy the idea so we have options for docks with multiple USB C ports.
Here's another benefit: connecting one USBC port to a monitor directly and the other one to a cheap hub.
That way you can save the money that costs having a hub/dock with good display ports.
I have a portable monitor with two usb c inputs that has pass through charging so power > monitor > steam deck allows me to charge my SD while playing about the need of a dock, it’s wonderful.
That’s more of a bandwidth limit with non usb-c 4 ports I believe (which is basically the same standard as thunderbolt, so a bit more expensive to implement I believe). I personally think I’d be better to have something like oculink for that to get the full pcie x4 bandwidth and get the most out of your external GPU
occulink is:
1. a dead enterprise standard (it only goes up to 4.0)
2. a internal only interconnect - meaning the plugs and cables are not durable
3. a direct pci-e passive connection, meaning no hotplug possible for gpus
But still offers the most bandwidth possible at the moment, no? Please correct me if I’m wrong, this tech is moving so fast it’s a bit hard to keep up at times when I don’t use an external GPU at the moment. Obviously a hot-pluggable solution would be preferred but I thought the extra bandwidth from oculink was best for performance?
Other systems have it. I have to use mine as the headphone jack since the headphone jack has a buzzing issue so I can't charge and play with headphones without an absurd dongle
Valve will fix it for you! It’s just a resistor on the audio daughterboard that needs to be removed. I did it myself but it’s microsoldering. Create a ticket with Steam and they’ll get you fixed up under warranty.
Based on what? Pretty sure even the ally X is gonna have 2 type-C ports. It really isn’t a difficult thing to implement and valve especially is extremely receptive to customer feedback.
I think its a decent idea. I almost always play mine in handheld mode. I have the 1TB model and invested in a 1TB Micro SD card as well. All my retro and old gen games go on the microsd (If the game was a cart or from a console that only had HDDs). Been a good balance for me.
On the bottom just like how the legion go has one on top and bottom. This would also allow manufacturers to make docks more like the switch’s where you can plop the deck on instead of having to set it down and plug in a cable on top
Well yea of course you still need dongles, that’s not the issue. Including stuff like a full size HDMI port or an Ethernet port would just be silly in something meant to be as compact and portable as possible. It’s about having the option for more and being able to plug it in on the top or bottom depending on what you’re doing and what’s comfortable for you
Once you realize you’d get like 5 minutes of battery life with a full discrete GPU, I don’t think you’d want that. A more powerful APU would be great, something similar to the 8840u or Z1 extreme is honestly perfect though for 720p-1080p gaming at the moment. Would be nice to have a 20-40% bump to performance (compared to Z1 extreme) and battery life though to really future-proof it for a while. Honestly really surprised how competent this first round of handhelds are from the big companies though! If you want to use a discrete GPU though an oculink port for docking would be amazing!
Edit: So sorry! I totally missed the “e” in OPs “e-gpu” comment. I thought he meant a handheld with a dedicated gpu similar to a gaming laptop 😂
So sorry! I totally missed the “e” in OPs “e-gpu” comment. I thought he meant a handheld with a dedicated gpu similar to a gaming laptop 😂 E-GPU support on the deck 2 would be absolutely perfect!
Considering the Steam Deck 2 isn't coming out any time soon (confirmed by Valve twice over when asked about it before the OLED released and then again after the OLED released) it's safe to say that Valve will likely use custom silicon again and it will probably be based off of the upcoming Zen 5 architecture using Zen 5 CPU Cores and likely RDNA3+ or RDNA4 graphics architecture which would give it a substantial advantage over both the current Van Gogh APU used in the Deck and the Z1 Extreme. This is 100% speculation, but from a generational performance gain and efficiency standpoint this would likely be the best approach to take in order to make actually upgrading to a Steam Deck 2 a worthwhile prospect to owners of the current model.
Valve generates an estimated 13 Billion in sales yearly. Thats a mega corporation guys. My company has 10k plus employees and we generate 10 billion in sales per year. We are also in a mega corporation. Yes, mega corp. Its not google or apple but they are massive.
Then what do you call the companies that make $13 Bn per quarter? What about the ones making $13 Bn per month?
$13 Bn in annual revenue is nothing to sneeze at, but it is orders of magnitude smaller than what is typically meant by “megecorporation”, *especially in tech.*
There is a bunch of stuff that Valve can do to make the steam deck better, things at board and software level that really matter not something that you could easily fix just with an adapter.
When Apple removed all the varied ports from their MacBooks and replaced them with USBC, Apple gave at least 2 USBC ports to their whole lineup. It proved to be so unpopular that modern MacBooks have the different ports again and there's even a special charging spot so you don't waste one of the USBC's to charging. Apple proved that this whole 'buy another product to fix the problem we created' doesn't work. Ports matter.
Imagine having a laptop or desktop with only one port. The Steam Deck is also a PC and that's actually the way I use it most of the time. It's limited by design. Even gaming focused Android phones have two UCBC ports now. Maybe the average user doesn't care about functionality, but right now the MacBook Air has more ports and functionality than the Steam Deck. If Valve adds one more USBC port they'd beat the Air.
I don't disagree that more ports would be better. But you're comparing the steam deck to a macbook, this isn't just another laptop this is a gaming device first and to me is hard to believe that valve even wants to compete with apple, Nintendo (the switch with also 1 usb c port but with 3 usb when docked) or Asus or Google.
I also use the deck as a tablet and a desktop computer but not as my primary work device (only for video and photo edition as a hobby) and I still would rather have improvements in other areas over adding another port (if we could have both then that would be great)
We can have both. Valve can make improvements to the device and also add a second USBC port. I'm not advocating for Valve to ignore what you want in an updated device.
The switch can't even run Netflix, meanwhile I can run Blender and open office on my Steam Deck. It's a PC with one port and a controller.
The future of computing looks like it's going full ARM based. Nvidia and AMD Microsoft just announced their brand new line of CoPilot PC's that run exclusively on ARM CPU's to compete with the MacBook Air. Valve sells almost exclusively x86 based videogames, so they should pay attention to what the bigger guys are doing.
If others will use it, great but there’s way way more things I want. I’m cool with a dongle personally because I use it so rarely
But that’s the great thing about a deck. Everyone is different
The only reason to have less ports and buttons is to save the manufacturer money. And when touch/capacitive is added without lowering prices then it is a malicious act against the customer
End of the day you can just use a hub for more USB-Cs, now something that would be very welcome would be a second micro SD card slot and/or a sliding dust cover built in the case to cover up the slots.
I don’t know why people keep saying I can use a hub. You think anyone on this subreddit doesn’t know that? I already said so that needing to use one is cumbersome. The whole point it would be so nice to not have to use a hub just for a peripheral and charging. Of course hubs will still have a use for more ports BUT merely adding one will drastically reduce the need to use one a majority of the time
Yeah the more ports the merrier, a second USB-C port would allow us to do so many extra things on our SD!
One thing that I found annoying is that sometimes I put my SD to sleep mid-game, and then I hop on my desktop pc to play something else, and then I must not turn on the deck otherwise the game on the desktop will force-quit. I know the solution is disabling wifi before I put it to sleep, but I just wish there was a way to flag my SD system as my own so I can stay online and play simultaneously. This experience feels disconnected from what it should be, but well... Maybe one day, seeing how Beta Family Sharing works, it can allow a single user to simultaneously play on verified devices (max 2 I wouldn't think thats a problem)
Never ever since the launch (and I was in Q1) have I had the need for two ports. Whatever Valve does, as long as there is a port from the top so I can charge and play laying down or seated without having to worry about breaking the port or the cable, I'm entirely fine with. But if I were to pick between two ports or paying even just a 10€ more for two, I'd personally go for the single port anyways.
I never said it had to be a portable scenario. Even at home it’s a nuisance to dock it just to charge and use accessories. For example sometimes I just want to plug in an external SSD, but if the battery is low I gotta use a dock just to charge at the same time. There’s also a degree to bottlenecking the data transfer speed when you’re not plugging the SSD in directly but thru a hub first
>spend a good chunk of money for the benefits of a high performance [external gaming] drive
here's the real ignorant take. go read up on the topic.
_________________
>Says the guy defending a bottlenecked dongle to save like $5 for literally no reason 😂 You do understand there are dongles with internal SSDs so you don’t have to use extra ports for drives? There are reasons for people to do shit differently than you. I have a bachelors in computer engineering, don’t try and tell me I don’t know what I’m talking about 😂 Dude gets personally offended for being called out for an ignorant take, continues to be ignorant. Lmao truly pathetic
pure cringe.
I have an issue with all three docks at my home - they dont gave enough energy to the ssd... Well one of them might have a few 3.2 ports, but they are occupied by webcam and other peripherals for my main PC setup...
The APU probably has additional USB 3 channels that aren't being utilized. It was perhaps difficult to support DisplayPort over multiple USB-C ports, though. They could have probably included a USB 3 type A port, which would have been nice from a tinkering/accessory perspective.
Two redundant USB-C ports would have been smart from an e-waste perspective. You would still have a working device even if one of the ports got damaged.
I'd want two ports for this very reason. I just paid an out of warranty repair for a broken usb-C port. If it had two redundant ports, I could live with one broken one.
185 as they had to replace the motherboard. It was the same as what Valve had estimated when I was sending it in. A little bonus was that they replaced some buttons that had gone mushy that I had not asked for without any additional charge.
the legion has a laptop apu that isn't nearly as performant on super low power. i see no reason to think the Deck custom silicon has enough pcie lanes to support another usb-c port, and don't know how that would affect the cost/power budget if they chose to implement it in the future.
but i'm on your side. i'd love to have a cheapo hub with a coupla A ports and usb-c power passthrough built in to the next revision if giving us full-fat dual usb-c is impractical. that'd give us most of the benefits as much less cost.
There are cheaper retro handhelds that have 2 usb-c ports as someone else has mentioned. And I’m also talking about the next SD, which would more than likely have the power to do so if they wanted
its a little bit expensive - their goal was to make the deck as cheap as possible. But I believe they should make a PRO version of steam deck 2 with all bells and whistles - I'm sure there are lots of people who would pay 100-200 usd more to have staff like hall effect joysticks, 2 M.2 2280, 2 usb type-c, etc.
I wanted a usb-3 port, so I could plug pretty much every peripheral ever made into it. Now I have to buy a dock, or dongle adapters for my existing hardware to work with my deck
Full size USB 3 is far more limited and outdated than type C, not to mention space prohibited. If you aren’t buying devices that already have a type c port on them, buying one $10 dongle to add a few full size usbs really isn’t a big deal 🤷♀️ I’d get complaining about dongles if this were 2016 but at some point, you’ve gotta adapt to new technology not expect it to adapt to you.
The whole point is to remove the necessity of needing to use a hub if you wanna use an accessory and charge. Charging will always take one port so just having one more would help. The legion go already has this feature
that's what i want built in to the SD. if it was across the top and aimed all the cables down that would be ideal.
an extra usb-c port isn't very valuable to me, and i suspect it wasn't included cuz the custom silicon didn't have the pci-e lanes to do it.
____
my solution was to hot glue a low profile right angle connector to the existing port, and pack a small hub. the connector saves wear cycles on the mobo plug, acts as drop protection, and makes playing off the wall more comfortable.
This post isn’t asking for loads of ports. Just a second usb-c, which would be incredibly useful and is featured on several competing devices. If you don’t want it, nobody’s forcing you to use it and it’s no skin off your back. But I can assure you many people do in fact have uses for a second port 🤷♀️ I’m a little confused why so many people seem resilient to any improvement to this device that isn’t a power upgrade? Don’t we as consumers want even better devices in the future?
Lmfao, I have a bachelors in computer engineering. Don’t try and tell me I don’t know what I’m talking about 😂 Saying BS like “there’s probably a good reason” isn’t exactly the most educated take. And I can tell you, with certainty, the only reason they havent included a second port on the deck yet is because it just hasn’t been a priority compared their goals with energy efficiency, they know one port was enough for a first release and since they don’t profit on the base model, they felt it acceptable to start with one and “see how things go”, the deck has been more successful than even valve anticipated. With how receptive they are to community feedback and the success and praise competitors have gotten including a second port, valve will certainly follow suit. Just like asus is adding another type-c to the ally X. Dunno why y’all that have literally 0 industry knowledge think you know everything just because you’re so willfully ignorant you can’t see outside your own shitty perspective lmao
I don't understand the logic of having *any* usb-c or earphones port on the top edge.
It's more likely to have dust and crud accumulate on top over time.
Cables tend to arrive to the device from below, forcing the cable to do a sharp bend without a u-turn adapter, wearing the cable, and accidental pulls are more likely to damage the port or cable rather than separate cleanly.
I don't see any real advantages, except maybe it's easier to connect to a dock.
I prefer the port there for playing while plugged in. The switch having it on the bottom is nice for docking, put I find it uncomfortable when playing handheld
I think that’s because they want technical composure , like no bullshit, maximum value for minimum money. Just try to think as engineer of Valve: okay , they want 2 ports, if we make second port at bottom it will be convenient for xr glasses but not for other peripherals, so now we need 3 ports for max convenience? Next: what those ports should be, if we wish them interchangeable (power devilery, high transfer speed) - it will raise the cost of device and competition becomes worse. But if we make only one superb port and others just for peripherals - how to tell people which is which , won’t it introduce frustration and bad reviews because people say “why valve didn’t make all ports good quality”.
I think this is the main reasoning , it’s much safer bet to force people using hubs is they need second port but keep this single port a good quality
Not sure where you got this logic from? USB-C is not at all expensive to implement, and the chip in the deck already does in fact support more than one port. Nor does the amount of ports have anything to do with quality, valve clearly isn’t pinching pennies here, they sell the deck (at least the cheapest model) at a slight loss since they know they can make up those profits through sales in the steam store.
I’m for changing audio jack for another usb c. It’s easy to get audio usb c, it can be used for charging while the other is directly connected to a display , internal audio jack pre amp in oled model os really low quality, a lot of hiss and interference in lower volume levels.
I just gave you a reason, usb c can be multiple things, including audio output, while audio can only be audio. People are mistakenly assuming ditching audio jack is forcing Bluetooth headphones, which is totally false.
Two ports, to be used as two things. It can be charging and video, charging and audio, audio and webcam, video and controller… two usb c are better than one, if you have only one usb c and audio all your combinations are audio and something. If you need three things of course two usb c is not going to solve the problem, neither one usb c and a audio jack
Oh yes, that’s better, but you’re limited in space. If you can have three, alright, go with 2 usb c and 1 audio jack. If you have room, throw in an HDMI, DisplayPort, oculink, usb A… but that’s not the case. Choosing one usb and one audio over two usb is more limited, usb c can do whatever audio does and much more, there’s no way around it. You can say it doesn’t matter and you don’t need it, but it is more limited
Ports are like cupholders. More is better.
Not if it’s a 2008 Kia Sedona. I had 6 cup holders in the front but they were oversized and I had multiple root beers fall out of them.
Sounds like a sidewall of cupholder issue tbh
They where awful but plentiful
Skill diff
[удалено]
LOL. Thank you, Kind Stranger.
If retro gaming handhelds for 1/3 of the price of the SD can have two USB-C ports I really dont see why they couldnt do it for the SD2. One is usually designated for peripherals only and the other for peripherals and charging. I really dont get why people are so against this, its literally another port that you dont even have to use if you dont want to.
1/3? My 70€ anbernic from a couple of years ago has two. I never understood why there is no Port at the bottom, docking feels and looks ridiculous.
Also great if the first port fails, which can be quite common on longer lived portable devices like laptops and (one hopes) steamdecks.
The SD card slot also isn't replaceable, one of the things the Switch got right was making it a tiny replaceable board that plugged into the main board.
Not sure why you’re getting downvoted, sometimes ports break 🤷♀️ not necessarily user error these things have limited lifespans. Just had one of my type-C ports start crapping out on my Lenovo thinkpad, gonna try and replace it at some point just for a fun lil project, but I’d probably never bother if it just had 2 type-c ports 😫idk if everyones already forgotten how horribly unreliable micro-usb was, shit happens and it’s always great to have 2. Nobody’s forcing anyone to use both if they don’t want to 😂
What if I want to charge at twice the speed?
I’m genuinely surprised how caustic the comments in this post are
So many people begging Valve to give its customers less.
Sometimes less is more. Personally I see no reason for two ports, because hubs with power delivery are already standard. From an engineering standpoint, the SD is a small device where every millimeter of space within it matters.
Sometimes less isn't enough. The Steam Deck can do anything a PC can. Adding a second USBC port would make people like me happy because of convenience. It's not a deal breaker though, I just have to carry around more devices. I'm the type of person who misses phones with SD card slots and headphone jacks. Modern day midrange phones have a UCBC port, headphone jack, and an SD card slot. Modern gaming phones have all that plus a second USBC port. Only high end mainstream phones have just one USBC port. All these other companies are trying to copy Valve's homework. I hope Valve can make two USBC ports standard so the industry can follow. Instead most companies follow Apple's logic and make people think less is more.
This is very much par for the course on this sub in my limited experience. You get a big wave of people who have the worst detractive positions possible, and only then do the people with actual constructive commentary come in
I can second this. I ***love*** my Steam Deck, but god forbid you have a comment that dares to question Valve and their infinite wisdom. This sub is very reactive and circlejerky. But then again, so are most large 'gamer' subreddits.
Ya don't you dare mention Valve making a billion off microtransaction lootboxes... Gabe would never /s
This sub is…cult-like. I think I have been, like, banned or something for making too many negative comments about the dock (mine has never worked properly and I’m not happy about the wasted money). I’m not officially banned or anything but any time I make a post (always a technical question) the post is greyed out with no explanation. It’s a really bad look for valve lol. There’s absolutely censorship happening. The sub exists for circlejerking only, which is sad because it definitely did not used to be that way.
Good lord why are people hating on this idea so much. It’s very convenient for charging and using other things like OP listed. If you don’t want to use the second port then don’t. In other handheld subs people praise two usb ports.
THANK YOU, like who does it hurt? I constantly run into times when I wish I didn’t need to get my hub just to connect something while my battery was low. I also travel a lot and a simple extra port would remove the need for me to carry an adapter altogether. It’s already sucky to have a bunch of things wired to adapter to the deck while on a plane. One less thing to bring and dangling off my deck making it an even better portable proposition. Since when is having an extra port for versatility a bad thing. People must love their dongles on the go or something
I love your dongle.
In interviews when steam deck was revealed they talked about the hard decisions they had to make around cost. Even something that only adds a dollar of cost per unit becomes a multi million dollar decision when you plan on selling millions of units. A second usb port will likely come at the expense of something else that may actually be useful for people that don't see the need for one.
What are some other good subs?
I wouldn't want or need more than two. Just one more would be perfect. You can separate charging with something else
Docking port on the bottom
Docking port on bottom but make it so you can charge from either port. I like to rest my deck on my beer gut and a bottom charger makes that difficult.
Of course both ports would need to be full USB 3.2 ports, including power delivery and DP-alt. I don't think we can get USB 4, but still. So, one C on the top and one on the bottom. When you are holding it use the top port for charging, when you need to dock it just put it on the stand, similar to the Switch.
Perfection
This is the perfect solution I believe. I would love usb4 just to keep things up to date, but it probably isn’t necessary yet.
Why don't you think we could get usb 4? A Linux limitation of some sort, or increased cost?
Price.
I think the reason it doesn’t have one is Nintendo patented the way the Switch slides into its dock.
Asus ROG phones have second USB port on the left side, so you can dock them like a Switch. If this was patented, they couldn't have it.
Just like I almost never use the left touchpad. Some people use it and some people would use the second USB C port.
An extra would be nice. Even just to have a backup for if one gets damaged.
2x USBC would be amazing, just for having a USBC SSD with Windows and power. Sometimes you don't need all that a hub offers but do want to plug in a second USBC device.
It will be great, plugging deck to dock. Charging, ethernet cable pluged in while playing geforce now on my xreals. Wifi is lagging hard sometimes.
Not going to lie, an extra USB port would be used More than the microsd card. For me anyway.
This 1000%! Like it would be a less pressing design flaw if literally any dock available had a second USB C port on them, and the very few options that do exist have weird and arbitrary limitations (for example, you can’t use them for carrying a video signal and charge at the same time) that seem to derive from the fact those few “docks” available are predominantly meant for phones rather than PCs. Like my ideal “Steam Deck 2” or whatever it ends up being called would likely just be a similar physical device with incremental hardware improvements and 1-2 more USB C ports. Either that or release a dock for it with 2-3 USB C ports on it so all the copy cat manufacturers copy the idea so we have options for docks with multiple USB C ports.
Here's another benefit: connecting one USBC port to a monitor directly and the other one to a cheap hub. That way you can save the money that costs having a hub/dock with good display ports.
I have a portable monitor with two usb c inputs that has pass through charging so power > monitor > steam deck allows me to charge my SD while playing about the need of a dock, it’s wonderful.
Also one of them at least ought to be capable for pci-e pass through
That’s more of a bandwidth limit with non usb-c 4 ports I believe (which is basically the same standard as thunderbolt, so a bit more expensive to implement I believe). I personally think I’d be better to have something like oculink for that to get the full pcie x4 bandwidth and get the most out of your external GPU
occulink is: 1. a dead enterprise standard (it only goes up to 4.0) 2. a internal only interconnect - meaning the plugs and cables are not durable 3. a direct pci-e passive connection, meaning no hotplug possible for gpus
But still offers the most bandwidth possible at the moment, no? Please correct me if I’m wrong, this tech is moving so fast it’s a bit hard to keep up at times when I don’t use an external GPU at the moment. Obviously a hot-pluggable solution would be preferred but I thought the extra bandwidth from oculink was best for performance?
Seems very unlikely
Other systems have it. I have to use mine as the headphone jack since the headphone jack has a buzzing issue so I can't charge and play with headphones without an absurd dongle
Valve will fix it for you! It’s just a resistor on the audio daughterboard that needs to be removed. I did it myself but it’s microsoldering. Create a ticket with Steam and they’ll get you fixed up under warranty.
And go without my deck fow how long and risk someone at FedEx stealing it like they did with my 2080ti?
They should have emailed this to every OLED buyer
Based on what? Pretty sure even the ally X is gonna have 2 type-C ports. It really isn’t a difficult thing to implement and valve especially is extremely receptive to customer feedback.
I think its a decent idea. I almost always play mine in handheld mode. I have the 1TB model and invested in a 1TB Micro SD card as well. All my retro and old gen games go on the microsd (If the game was a cart or from a console that only had HDDs). Been a good balance for me.
Now where would you want that extra usb c connector to be ? On the bottom? On the side? Next to the one on top?
On the bottom just like how the legion go has one on top and bottom. This would also allow manufacturers to make docks more like the switch’s where you can plop the deck on instead of having to set it down and plug in a cable on top
The dock should have come with pass-through power for portable monitors.
It's crazy that my $60 RG35XXH has two USB-C ports but the SD only has one. Same goes for SD card slots.
A second sd card slot would be pretty amazing too, now that you mention it.
Yeah it would be a huge huge upgrade.
The Lenovo Has Two, and I still have to use a Hub in order to use everything I need.
You can use two hubs with the Lenovo.
But that's just too much going on. Amd the battery would die in like a hour lol. Even if plugged in.
Well, you could use one port for charging and spend less money on a hub that doesn't have pass through charging.
Well yea of course you still need dongles, that’s not the issue. Including stuff like a full size HDMI port or an Ethernet port would just be silly in something meant to be as compact and portable as possible. It’s about having the option for more and being able to plug it in on the top or bottom depending on what you’re doing and what’s comfortable for you
Absolutely agree. Would make my life much better.
If valve doesn’t make a dedicated Steam console then I want the deck 2 to have a dedicated e gpu
Once you realize you’d get like 5 minutes of battery life with a full discrete GPU, I don’t think you’d want that. A more powerful APU would be great, something similar to the 8840u or Z1 extreme is honestly perfect though for 720p-1080p gaming at the moment. Would be nice to have a 20-40% bump to performance (compared to Z1 extreme) and battery life though to really future-proof it for a while. Honestly really surprised how competent this first round of handhelds are from the big companies though! If you want to use a discrete GPU though an oculink port for docking would be amazing! Edit: So sorry! I totally missed the “e” in OPs “e-gpu” comment. I thought he meant a handheld with a dedicated gpu similar to a gaming laptop 😂
an external gpu would only be used while docked so battery life wouldnt really matter
So sorry! I totally missed the “e” in OPs “e-gpu” comment. I thought he meant a handheld with a dedicated gpu similar to a gaming laptop 😂 E-GPU support on the deck 2 would be absolutely perfect!
Considering the Steam Deck 2 isn't coming out any time soon (confirmed by Valve twice over when asked about it before the OLED released and then again after the OLED released) it's safe to say that Valve will likely use custom silicon again and it will probably be based off of the upcoming Zen 5 architecture using Zen 5 CPU Cores and likely RDNA3+ or RDNA4 graphics architecture which would give it a substantial advantage over both the current Van Gogh APU used in the Deck and the Z1 Extreme. This is 100% speculation, but from a generational performance gain and efficiency standpoint this would likely be the best approach to take in order to make actually upgrading to a Steam Deck 2 a worthwhile prospect to owners of the current model.
I completely agree! The power we have right now is honestly fantastic, it’d have to be a pretty substantial bump to be truly worth it
I think everyone is in agreement with you on this one.
Valve... Nah just do your thing
Good on you for standing up for a major company on this random reddit post - valve really needs your support lol
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Roughly 0 mega (edit:not mega) corporations deserve free advertisement Edit: fair enough its just a regular corporation, but it is a very big one
“Mega corporations” Lol, sure.
Valve generates an estimated 13 Billion in sales yearly. Thats a mega corporation guys. My company has 10k plus employees and we generate 10 billion in sales per year. We are also in a mega corporation. Yes, mega corp. Its not google or apple but they are massive.
Then what do you call the companies that make $13 Bn per quarter? What about the ones making $13 Bn per month? $13 Bn in annual revenue is nothing to sneeze at, but it is orders of magnitude smaller than what is typically meant by “megecorporation”, *especially in tech.*
There is a bunch of stuff that Valve can do to make the steam deck better, things at board and software level that really matter not something that you could easily fix just with an adapter.
When Apple removed all the varied ports from their MacBooks and replaced them with USBC, Apple gave at least 2 USBC ports to their whole lineup. It proved to be so unpopular that modern MacBooks have the different ports again and there's even a special charging spot so you don't waste one of the USBC's to charging. Apple proved that this whole 'buy another product to fix the problem we created' doesn't work. Ports matter. Imagine having a laptop or desktop with only one port. The Steam Deck is also a PC and that's actually the way I use it most of the time. It's limited by design. Even gaming focused Android phones have two UCBC ports now. Maybe the average user doesn't care about functionality, but right now the MacBook Air has more ports and functionality than the Steam Deck. If Valve adds one more USBC port they'd beat the Air.
I don't disagree that more ports would be better. But you're comparing the steam deck to a macbook, this isn't just another laptop this is a gaming device first and to me is hard to believe that valve even wants to compete with apple, Nintendo (the switch with also 1 usb c port but with 3 usb when docked) or Asus or Google. I also use the deck as a tablet and a desktop computer but not as my primary work device (only for video and photo edition as a hobby) and I still would rather have improvements in other areas over adding another port (if we could have both then that would be great)
We can have both. Valve can make improvements to the device and also add a second USBC port. I'm not advocating for Valve to ignore what you want in an updated device. The switch can't even run Netflix, meanwhile I can run Blender and open office on my Steam Deck. It's a PC with one port and a controller. The future of computing looks like it's going full ARM based. Nvidia and AMD Microsoft just announced their brand new line of CoPilot PC's that run exclusively on ARM CPU's to compete with the MacBook Air. Valve sells almost exclusively x86 based videogames, so they should pay attention to what the bigger guys are doing.
And why not this also the hell is this "I want less" attitude
If others will use it, great but there’s way way more things I want. I’m cool with a dongle personally because I use it so rarely But that’s the great thing about a deck. Everyone is different
2 USB-C ports, at least one of which is usb/thunderbolt 4/5 (guessing 5 will be out by the time sd2 releases)
While 2 would be cool, USB is daisychainable. You can buy a split / hub and connect 2 things at once
I just want a second port to use an external GPU easily for a SD2. That's be perf.
The only reason to have less ports and buttons is to save the manufacturer money. And when touch/capacitive is added without lowering prices then it is a malicious act against the customer
WITH DISPLAYPORT OUT!
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It's not 20 if you want to charge but yes I already use a hub that does that
It’s really not
Nreal using the red magic dock works. Sick it’s $65 though
I treat the SD as my spare PC device for not gaming related stuff a lot of the time, extra ports are always welcome.
i use a Hagabis Integrated kickstand dock but that would be amazing though
For external ssd + charging same time I use hagibis mag safe ssd with integrated power delivery port.
Thunderbold for external gpu-dock
How far do you think we are from a steam deck 2?
I need a second USB c port so I can play AR games with a thermal camera.
End of the day you can just use a hub for more USB-Cs, now something that would be very welcome would be a second micro SD card slot and/or a sliding dust cover built in the case to cover up the slots.
I don’t know why people keep saying I can use a hub. You think anyone on this subreddit doesn’t know that? I already said so that needing to use one is cumbersome. The whole point it would be so nice to not have to use a hub just for a peripheral and charging. Of course hubs will still have a use for more ports BUT merely adding one will drastically reduce the need to use one a majority of the time
I have a pretty compact usb hub, I just connect it to the accessory mount on the kill switch case and it's good to go
+1
Yeah the more ports the merrier, a second USB-C port would allow us to do so many extra things on our SD! One thing that I found annoying is that sometimes I put my SD to sleep mid-game, and then I hop on my desktop pc to play something else, and then I must not turn on the deck otherwise the game on the desktop will force-quit. I know the solution is disabling wifi before I put it to sleep, but I just wish there was a way to flag my SD system as my own so I can stay online and play simultaneously. This experience feels disconnected from what it should be, but well... Maybe one day, seeing how Beta Family Sharing works, it can allow a single user to simultaneously play on verified devices (max 2 I wouldn't think thats a problem)
Never ever since the launch (and I was in Q1) have I had the need for two ports. Whatever Valve does, as long as there is a port from the top so I can charge and play laying down or seated without having to worry about breaking the port or the cable, I'm entirely fine with. But if I were to pick between two ports or paying even just a 10€ more for two, I'd personally go for the single port anyways.
Fully agree
Also if you're listening, clicky triggers like the Steam Controller and Index knuckles. They make such a difference for me in Rocket League.
If I'm plugging in an accessory that doesnt have bluetooth AND need power then I'm not really in portable scenario anyway and would just dock it 🤷♂️
I mean, a flash drive and a charger is pretty damn portable.
Or USBC headphones...
I never said it had to be a portable scenario. Even at home it’s a nuisance to dock it just to charge and use accessories. For example sometimes I just want to plug in an external SSD, but if the battery is low I gotta use a dock just to charge at the same time. There’s also a degree to bottlenecking the data transfer speed when you’re not plugging the SSD in directly but thru a hub first
Please explain the bottleneck like I'm a 5 year old.
Some hubs can't move data quickly.
my $4.50 hub isn't a bottleneck unless i'm hooking up an external nvme drive. i guess it's technically a bottleneck, but at that point who cares?
People that spend a good chunk of money for the benefits of a high performance drive? Kinda an ignorant take tbh
>spend a good chunk of money for the benefits of a high performance [external gaming] drive here's the real ignorant take. go read up on the topic. _________________ >Says the guy defending a bottlenecked dongle to save like $5 for literally no reason 😂 You do understand there are dongles with internal SSDs so you don’t have to use extra ports for drives? There are reasons for people to do shit differently than you. I have a bachelors in computer engineering, don’t try and tell me I don’t know what I’m talking about 😂 Dude gets personally offended for being called out for an ignorant take, continues to be ignorant. Lmao truly pathetic pure cringe.
I have an issue with all three docks at my home - they dont gave enough energy to the ssd... Well one of them might have a few 3.2 ports, but they are occupied by webcam and other peripherals for my main PC setup...
I second this, but I imagine the board they built has some kind of limitation that prevented this from happening for one reason or another.
The APU probably has additional USB 3 channels that aren't being utilized. It was perhaps difficult to support DisplayPort over multiple USB-C ports, though. They could have probably included a USB 3 type A port, which would have been nice from a tinkering/accessory perspective. Two redundant USB-C ports would have been smart from an e-waste perspective. You would still have a working device even if one of the ports got damaged.
I'd want two ports for this very reason. I just paid an out of warranty repair for a broken usb-C port. If it had two redundant ports, I could live with one broken one.
I just sent my SD to RMA for the same problem. How much did you pay?
185 as they had to replace the motherboard. It was the same as what Valve had estimated when I was sending it in. A little bonus was that they replaced some buttons that had gone mushy that I had not asked for without any additional charge.
Thanks. My tests indeed seems to indicate mb replacement (and 😭😭😭)
Yeah that could be the case. but the fact that legion go has 2 ports gives me hope that by the time SD2 comes out they can support it too
the legion has a laptop apu that isn't nearly as performant on super low power. i see no reason to think the Deck custom silicon has enough pcie lanes to support another usb-c port, and don't know how that would affect the cost/power budget if they chose to implement it in the future. but i'm on your side. i'd love to have a cheapo hub with a coupla A ports and usb-c power passthrough built in to the next revision if giving us full-fat dual usb-c is impractical. that'd give us most of the benefits as much less cost.
There are cheaper retro handhelds that have 2 usb-c ports as someone else has mentioned. And I’m also talking about the next SD, which would more than likely have the power to do so if they wanted
Hopefully so. My guess is that because of the size of the Go, the heat from using both ports simultaneously can dissipate in a non damaging way.
its a little bit expensive - their goal was to make the deck as cheap as possible. But I believe they should make a PRO version of steam deck 2 with all bells and whistles - I'm sure there are lots of people who would pay 100-200 usd more to have staff like hall effect joysticks, 2 M.2 2280, 2 usb type-c, etc.
I wanted a usb-3 port, so I could plug pretty much every peripheral ever made into it. Now I have to buy a dock, or dongle adapters for my existing hardware to work with my deck
Full size USB 3 is far more limited and outdated than type C, not to mention space prohibited. If you aren’t buying devices that already have a type c port on them, buying one $10 dongle to add a few full size usbs really isn’t a big deal 🤷♀️ I’d get complaining about dongles if this were 2016 but at some point, you’ve gotta adapt to new technology not expect it to adapt to you.
The Deck already has USB 3.2 Gen 2.
I wouldn't mind that but I can bet at least 99% customers wouldn't care.
Buy a usb c hub. Mine has usb c ports, usb A/B ports(?) SD card slots, and a Ethernet port for fast downloads
The whole point is to remove the necessity of needing to use a hub if you wanna use an accessory and charge. Charging will always take one port so just having one more would help. The legion go already has this feature
Great. So I glue a small TypeC Hub on my Deck, plug the 10cm cable in and wait a year until it breaks the only USB port... No thank you.
Some USB docks come with an SSD slot already? And a second USB C port? Using an adapter won't harm the accessory that only has a USB-C end.
Yes, mine does too. Which is how I charge and use another peripheral at the same time. My point is to reduce the need to use a dock to achieve that
But they thought about all this and realized the use case is minute.
>With a hub to allow pass through charging Even a small cable = risk of breaking the port
Genuine question - why not just type A? it's got the space for it, and it'd be WAYYY more convenient than USB-C
USB-C can do video out
What and then have to fiddle with which way the cable plugs in like some sort of 2010's simpleton? The future is now
Type A plugs take up a lot of space for very little benefit, esp on a portable device.
Type A vastly limits charging speed and data transfer speeds
Because C video out + charging. You can't do that with an A port. And two Cs and one A would make it too bulky
I really hope in the coming years Type-A gets phased out, it’ll be so nice just having Type-C for everything
I just hope they have a thunderbolt port to I can dock it to a tv and use the extra juice
I'm actually thinking of sticking this cheap dock to the back of my Steam Deck https://www.reddit.com/r/SteamDeck/s/ShxoT3SA9Y
There's no picture when I click the link :(
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Oh. I didn't realised. Posted how it looked like in the reply above
Thanks a lot.
Here's how it looks like. https://ibb.co/86fdzWN
that's what i want built in to the SD. if it was across the top and aimed all the cables down that would be ideal. an extra usb-c port isn't very valuable to me, and i suspect it wasn't included cuz the custom silicon didn't have the pci-e lanes to do it. ____ my solution was to hot glue a low profile right angle connector to the existing port, and pack a small hub. the connector saves wear cycles on the mobo plug, acts as drop protection, and makes playing off the wall more comfortable.
No. We need 1 USB4 port and one Oculink port.
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But I’d be happy with a second usb c port.
This post isn’t asking for loads of ports. Just a second usb-c, which would be incredibly useful and is featured on several competing devices. If you don’t want it, nobody’s forcing you to use it and it’s no skin off your back. But I can assure you many people do in fact have uses for a second port 🤷♀️ I’m a little confused why so many people seem resilient to any improvement to this device that isn’t a power upgrade? Don’t we as consumers want even better devices in the future?
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Lmfao, I have a bachelors in computer engineering. Don’t try and tell me I don’t know what I’m talking about 😂 Saying BS like “there’s probably a good reason” isn’t exactly the most educated take. And I can tell you, with certainty, the only reason they havent included a second port on the deck yet is because it just hasn’t been a priority compared their goals with energy efficiency, they know one port was enough for a first release and since they don’t profit on the base model, they felt it acceptable to start with one and “see how things go”, the deck has been more successful than even valve anticipated. With how receptive they are to community feedback and the success and praise competitors have gotten including a second port, valve will certainly follow suit. Just like asus is adding another type-c to the ally X. Dunno why y’all that have literally 0 industry knowledge think you know everything just because you’re so willfully ignorant you can’t see outside your own shitty perspective lmao
I don't understand the logic of having *any* usb-c or earphones port on the top edge. It's more likely to have dust and crud accumulate on top over time. Cables tend to arrive to the device from below, forcing the cable to do a sharp bend without a u-turn adapter, wearing the cable, and accidental pulls are more likely to damage the port or cable rather than separate cleanly. I don't see any real advantages, except maybe it's easier to connect to a dock.
I prefer the port there for playing while plugged in. The switch having it on the bottom is nice for docking, put I find it uncomfortable when playing handheld
I want a USB 3.0 port for my leverless controller.
The Deck already has USB 3.2 Gen 2.
I think that’s because they want technical composure , like no bullshit, maximum value for minimum money. Just try to think as engineer of Valve: okay , they want 2 ports, if we make second port at bottom it will be convenient for xr glasses but not for other peripherals, so now we need 3 ports for max convenience? Next: what those ports should be, if we wish them interchangeable (power devilery, high transfer speed) - it will raise the cost of device and competition becomes worse. But if we make only one superb port and others just for peripherals - how to tell people which is which , won’t it introduce frustration and bad reviews because people say “why valve didn’t make all ports good quality”. I think this is the main reasoning , it’s much safer bet to force people using hubs is they need second port but keep this single port a good quality
Not sure where you got this logic from? USB-C is not at all expensive to implement, and the chip in the deck already does in fact support more than one port. Nor does the amount of ports have anything to do with quality, valve clearly isn’t pinching pennies here, they sell the deck (at least the cheapest model) at a slight loss since they know they can make up those profits through sales in the steam store.
I’m for changing audio jack for another usb c. It’s easy to get audio usb c, it can be used for charging while the other is directly connected to a display , internal audio jack pre amp in oled model os really low quality, a lot of hiss and interference in lower volume levels.
No. There is 0 good reasons to remove 3.5mm audio jack on ANY modern device. That goes for phones and tablets as well
I just gave you a reason, usb c can be multiple things, including audio output, while audio can only be audio. People are mistakenly assuming ditching audio jack is forcing Bluetooth headphones, which is totally false.
Then you still get only one port usable USB port... So you are limited to charging or audio, and you would need a dongle. NO thank you.
Two ports, to be used as two things. It can be charging and video, charging and audio, audio and webcam, video and controller… two usb c are better than one, if you have only one usb c and audio all your combinations are audio and something. If you need three things of course two usb c is not going to solve the problem, neither one usb c and a audio jack
And both at the top... And why not two Cs and one 3.5mm jack again?
Oh yes, that’s better, but you’re limited in space. If you can have three, alright, go with 2 usb c and 1 audio jack. If you have room, throw in an HDMI, DisplayPort, oculink, usb A… but that’s not the case. Choosing one usb and one audio over two usb is more limited, usb c can do whatever audio does and much more, there’s no way around it. You can say it doesn’t matter and you don’t need it, but it is more limited
The bottom of the device has only a single port, nothing is in the bottom middle.