So much good hardware, but lazy obsession to enshittify them with Windows.
Some of that reflects poorly on the hardware too. With a few exceptions, they’ve shipped a mouse-based operating system on hardware that lacks a good way to control a mouse. If they know that the hardware is running windows ahead of time, wouldn’t it make sense to give users some good options for using windows?
There’s also more obvious hardware issues like the ROG Ally burning up MicroSD cards.
NONE of them have the dual touchpads the steamdeck has either. Fucking seriously… Even if having to deal with windows wasnt a dealbreaker for me, having only thumbsticks to control a computer with is a hard pass for me
Other companies are fools for not almost directly copying the steamdecks control scheme, it should be a standard, that is what the deck is, a standard setter.
I think the Windows thing is spot on. You’re going to be using a handheld gaming device for gaming mostly (if not entirely). You don’t need to run Excel.
I think the justification for Windows on a gaming device though is kernel level anti-cheat. The problem is that you are chasing a pretty select audience. People who will play one of those games on a handheld, and will also only buy a handheld that can pay those games. Also won’t install Windows on a Deck either.
An aside, I probably use Desktop mode more than average, and I have LibreOffice installed on my deck. Jokes on Microsoft though, I’ve been using Linux primarily for ages anyways, so I don’t even need Windows for that.
Only reason I have overclocked Raspberry Pi 400 for net, office and bank stuff are those shitty spyware anti-cheats. This way I don’t have to worry what kind of monstrosities are installed on my deck, because it’s only used for gaming, but you are right, you can manage with just the deck, unless you need some high end proprietary windows software for your self-employed work.
