Patience is a virtue, because somehow the PlayStation 5 is still hard to find nearly two years after its release. But fortunately, if you’re in the market for a Steam Deck, there’s no need to chase after a far-reaching pre-order: Valve now ships it right after purchase. No waiting, no queues, no $5 to book. Moreover, it now also sells an official docking station.
Valve announces ease of ordering and availability of new docking station accessories via Twitter And the steam. On top of that, Valve has announced “lots and lots” of software updates for SteamOS, which it says will greatly improve the docking experience. The keyboard is also updated, as in offline mode. (The latter should help alleviate a common pain point for Steam Deck users, as many Steam games require an online connection for authentication.)
You can check out the news in Valve’s announcement video here:
The official Steam Deck Docking Station will set you back $89. And while there are a few third-party docks, and some are cheaper, it’s hoped that Valve’s Docking Station will set a new standard for connectivity. For example, the affordable JSAUX dock comes with USB 2.0 ports, while all of the USB-A ports in the Valve dock are version 3.1. It also offers Gigabit Ethernet connection, which will greatly help in downloading big games. There are DisplayPort 1.4 and HDMI 2.0 ports, which will allow Steam Deck to output to multiple monitors with a choice of 4K 60Hz or 1440p 120Hz along with the usual FreeSync support.
While I’d be curious to see if the official docking station fits in with peripherals like go-to decmatiThe upcoming keyboard improvements are very welcome. I found the keyboard to be a little tricky, so it’s great to see Valve making the typing experience on a touch screen or touchpads more reliable. The keyboard is also expected to get additional language support, with Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese, Japanese, and Korean coming soon.
Read more: Yes, You Can Use Steam Deck as a PC (Here’s How)
Valve has been light on the details when it comes to offline improvements, though. This mode basically does what you’d expect, but it wasn’t the best feature of the Deck. As pointed out by many users, the . file Unreliable offline mode Kinda kills the portability of something like a deck. Such problems not only affect multiplayer games; Many users have found problems with Single player games tooHeaven helps you if the game has it denovo. As if we needed another reason to be annoyed by the infamous DRM software.
But the offline hard mode is just a bump in the otherwise fun way that Steam Deck has experienced so far. It’s good to see Valve clearing production kinks.
