Why I Want a Steam Deck Mini

Summary

• Modern PC gaming handhelds like the Steam Deck aren’t pocket-friendly, making on-the-go gaming quite inconvenient.
• A pocketable Steam Deck would allow me to carry it everywhere with me without having to haul it in a backpack or a carrying case.
• Design challenges and performance limitations make a pocket-sized Steam Deck unlikely, as larger devices with massive screens dominate the current PC handheld market.

I love my Steam Deck even though my primary PC handheld is a Windows machine. What I’d love even more would be a more compact, pocket-friendly Steam Deck made for gaming on the go that didn’t feel like you’re carrying a small laptop with you. A Steam Deck Mini, if you will.

The Steam Deck Is Kind of Unwieldy

Back in the times of yore, portability was one of the main aims when designing handheld consoles. Ever since the Microvision and Game & Watch, handheld consoles have been made with pockets in mind.

Even the powerhouses during their heyday, such as the Sega Nomad, Sony PSP, and PlayStation Vita were compact enough with you. All you needed was a normal-sized pants pocket, and you were golden. The first forays into handheld PCs, such as the original GPD Win, were also condensed enough to be considered pocketable.

But then the Nintendo Switch happened. While Nintendo’s hybrid console is, without a doubt, portable; it’s not pocketable unless you’re a fan of baggy cargo pants. Even then, it’s cutting it close.

PC handheld brands had seen what Nintendo did and went with it, with virtually every PC handheld after the GPD Win 2 growing in size, allowing for better gaming performance but also making PC handhelds too unwieldy to carry around in the back pocket.

Valve took this philosophy to the extreme with the Steam Deck. While undoubtedly a marvelous piece of engineering and by far the most popular PC handheld ever, the thing’s unwieldy. Despite rocking a relatively compact 7-inch screen, it’s larger and thicker than most other PC handhelds, even devices with larger screens, such as the 2nd-gen MSI Claw 8.

• 

  Steam Deck
  

  The Steam Deck LCD is, hands down, the best budget handheld gaming PC you can get, thanks to its phenomenal price, top-notch build quality, excellent software support, and pretty solid gaming performance. 

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  Steam Deck OLED
  

  Elevate your gaming experience with the Steam Deck OLED. Immerse yourself in stunning visuals on the vibrant OLED display, while enjoying powerful performance and portability.

Other PC handheld manufacturers have embraced the trend, with Acer being the most egregious example with its Acer Nitro Blaze 11. The current PC handheld market is mostly made of handheld behemoths that you need to tuck inside a backpack or a carrying case if you want to take them with you.

The end result is a range of technically portable consoles that aren’t portable enough to take them with you on a stroll, to the park, or anywhere else you go without a bag. For instance, I love playing games on my handheld PCs in the nearby park, but I just cannot take them with me on a whim every time I go outside.

If I want to take a handheld PC with me, it’s a whole ordeal. Both my Steam Deck and ROG Ally are huge compared to classic handheld consoles. I have to carry them in a backpack or in their respective carrying cases, which defeats the purpose of being portable.

I won’t go out hauling a backpack or a massive carrying case with me every single time, just in case I get the itch for some gaming while on a stroll or chilling with friends outside. My handhelds are technically portable, yes, but they aren’t pocketable, which is the route I’d like to see explored by future PC handhelds, including the Steam Deck 2 and any potential variants.

I Want a Pocketable Steam Deck

Out of the current crop of PC gaming handhelds, the Steam Deck would be the prime candidate for pocketization.

It runs a controller-friendly SteamOS out of the box, it’s got a 15W SoC that’s pretty easy to cool down, and that packs a solid punch even at 10W and lower power envelopes, it’s one of the most affordable PC handhelds, and it would work great in Game mode even without trackpads.

Just imagine a teeny tiny Steam Deck made for proper gaming on the go. Not when traveling, camping, staying at a hotel, or being “on the go” while hauling a backpack or something larger with you. I mean “on the go” while out on your evening walk, chilling on the riverbank, hanging out with friends at your favorite coffee place, or just taking in a beautiful day on a park bench.

This would allow me to carry a Steam Deck anywhere I go without having to plan for it beforehand. Hey, it’s a beautiful day; let me get some fresh air and stretch my legs, and then perhaps I can sit down for a bit and play some games on my Steam Deck Mini. I yearn for a PC handheld I can carry around in my pocket without taking the pants to a tailor to retrofit them with shopping bag-sized pockets.

Or instead of building a pillow fort in my bed to support my elbows each time I want to game on my PC handhelds in bed (holding my Steam Deck or my ROG Ally for longer than half an hour without elbow support completely numbs my elbows and hands), I could game on my Steam Deck Mini without worrying about such issues.

Sure, I can get a similar experience with a Switch Lite. But as cool as the Lite is, it’s far behind any PC handheld in terms of game library size and overall performance, and it also has those awful thumbsticks.

On the other hand, something like the AYANEO Air 1S is virtually impossible to find brand-new nowadays. Even if you snipe a used Air 1S on eBay, chances are it’s going to be prohibitively expensive. Besides, the Air 1S is hardly pocketable, and it runs Windows, not SteamOS. The same applies to similarly compact PC handhelds such as the GPD Win Mini.

At the end of the day, a Steam Deck Mini would be just what the doctor ordered, even with form factor-related drawbacks.

I Wouldn’t Mind a Smaller Screen, Either

Having a pocket-friendly PC handheld would mean a slew of compromises, the biggest being a tiny screen. Considering the potential size of the thing, a 5-inch, 16:9 screen seems reasonable.

The thing is, many gamers find the 7-inch screens found on many PC handhelds too small. But I wouldn’t mind a smaller display if it meant I could take the device anywhere with me without having to carry it around in a case or backpack. If people had used the PSP, PS Vita, and various Nintendo handhelds without issues for decades, I’d manage to get by with a 5-inch screen.

Luckily, my eyesight is still good enough to be able to play richly detailed, super-busy 3D games on a 5-inch screen without them turning into a blurry mess.

Besides, I’d mostly play handheld-friendly games on the thing, games that look great even on a tiny screen. Stuff like 2D platformers, Tetris and Lumines, or older 3D games that don’t include tons of particles and other post-processing effects that turn the screen into a mess of visual noise as soon as the action starts.

Unfortunately, a Steam Deck Mini Probably Won’t Happen

I’d buy a Steam Deck Mini in an instant, but I’m aware that I’m in the minority. Similarly to compact phones, pocketable PC handhelds would be a niche within a niche that probably wouldn’t generate lots of sales. Manufacturers just don’t have any incentive to tackle the challenges of designing a proper pocketable PC handheld.

Further, the regular Steam Deck is, hands down, the most popular PC handheld out there. It’s still selling great, even though it’s a bit long in the tooth. Valve just doesn’t have any reason to design a compact version of the handheld.

PC and handheld gamers have embraced the “bigger equals better” philosophy, with new and upcoming devices packing 8-inch or larger screens, huge batteries, and being anything but pocketable. If anything, the Steam Deck 2 might even get larger instead of more pocket-friendly.

Creating a Steam Deck Mini that would carry on the legacy of the PS Vita and Nintendo 3DS would mean nerfing performance to a level that would likely make any newer triple-A game a no-go from the start. This would make things even trickier for Valve and the company’s Deck Verified program, which isn’t that great to begin with.

There’s also the battery life issue. Most PC handhelds suffer from poor battery life. Just imagine how atrocious battery life would be on a tiny, pocket-friendly PC handheld, even if its power were capped at 10W.

At the end of the day, designing a Steam Deck Mini would include lots of (unnecessary) headaches for Valve. Perhaps the current trend of supersizing gaming handhelds will take a U-turn sooner or later. Perhaps NVIDIA, AMD, or Intel will create a PC handheld APU capable of delivering playable performance in newer triple-A games at 10W or less.

The Switch 2 kind of does that since its APU delivers Steam Deck-like performance in handheld mode while allegedly using less than 10W of power. There are also rumors about Xbox and PlayStation handhelds coming, both surpassing the PS4 in terms of gaming performance.

Add an advancement or two in battery density and capacity, and we could see a proper, pocket-friendly PC handheld capable of offering playable performance in most triple-A games further down the road.

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The 2020s are shaping up to be a decade of handheld gaming. The 2030s could be the decade that we finally downsize PC handhelds and make them pocketable. Who knows, maybe I’ll see a Steam Deck Mini after all.