I got the LED 64GB model last year for like $280 and added a $80 1TB SSD myself, which is an easy 20 minute job. For such a low powered machine, mid 300s is about what it’s worth to me, or otherwise might as well get a gaming laptop. I have a MSI laptop with a RTX 4060, 32GB of RAM that was around $800 on sale, which I mainly use for Blender, so I can’t see paying anything close to that for a handheld.
Steam Deck will not be able to compete with Switch 2 for first party titles since it can barely emulate Switch games at a decent frame rate. Will likely need a proper gaming PC to emulate S2 first party titles. For all other games, Steam Deck wins because the games don’t cost $80, vastly bigger selection, mods work, etc.
That takes away much of the appeal of physical copies since Nintendo can still still control how it’s used after it is sold and will eventually no longer offer it for download while their DRM will make it difficult to make and use a backup copy. Buying would not be owning in that case, so what’s the point?
Either that, or the powerful gaming PC you put the Switch 2 money towards that will eventually emulate the Switch 2. Seems like a better investment than buying a locked down console with a GPU less powerful than a RTX 3050 that can only play $80 games.
I don’t plan to buy one because proprietary, locked down hardware isn’t a great investment compared to PC hardware that can serve a lot of different purposes, but am eagerly awaiting the news of Nintendo’s well-earned pwnage.
I currently use rclone with encryption to iDrive e2. I’m considering switching to Backrest, though.
I originally tried Backblaze b2, but exceeded their API quotas in their free tier and iDrive has “free” API calls, so I recently bought a year’s worth. I still have a 2 year Proton subscription and tried rclone with Proton drive, but it was too slow.
I’m also quite happy with the LCD model myself. Most games are running on medium settings on a low-res screen without RTX, so the eye candy is at a minimum anyway and I never imagined a better screen would make much difference.
The beauty of the Deck is how easy it is to pick it up and play an hour here and there wherever you are, so I’ve played a lot of games I’ve been meaning to play for years that I frankly would’ve not have gotten to play otherwise. Better with less eye candy than not at all.