A PC in your hands
The Steam Deck has an AMD processor and graphics in one chip, a screen and controls like a console. You can connect a monitor, keyboard and mouse; it is a full computer.
Proton
Valve invested years in Proton (built on Wine), a translation layer that lets Windows games run on Linux. Thanks to the Steam Deck, Linux became a real gaming platform.
Competition and prices
After the Steam Deck came Windows handhelds such as the ROG Ally and Legion Go. In 2026, however, they became much more expensive because of pricey memory, and the most powerful models now cost nearly as much as laptops.