This SteamOS update promises a new future for non-Steam Deck handheld PCs – and I can’t wait | usagoldmines.com

• Valve’s SteamOS 3.7.0 Preview comes with “beginnings of support for non-Steam Deck handhelds”
• Non-Steam Deck handheld PCs could soon use SteamOS instead of Windows 11
• Such a move could unleash more power from handhelds made by the likes of Asus, Lenovo and MSI

I’d be lying if I said I’d not been wishing for ages that Valve opened up SteamOS to other handheld PCs and machines beyond its excellent Steam Deck. And after some waiting, that looks to be finally happening with the recent SteamOS 3.7.0 Preview coming with the “beginnings of support for non-Steam Deck handhelds.”

Now that’s not a vast amount to go off given it’s only for a preview version of SteamOS. But with a model of the Lenovo Legion Go S being powered by SteamOS and set to arrive in May, we could see the advent of a new range of SteamOS-based handheld PCs.

There are already ways to run SteamOS on non-Steam Deck machines, but support for them is unofficial and they lack the slick handheld integration of Steam in the same vein as the Steam Deck. The best handheld PCs tend to run Windows 11 with a form of handheld interface on top of the operating system and then tap into Steam’s Big Picture Mode to enable a console-like handheld gaming experience.

Having native SteamOS support would surely make all this slicker for new handheld PCs and those that could be retrofitted or dual-booted with Valve’s Linux-based operating system. In our hands-on time with the Lenovo Legion Go S, we were certainly sold on the idea of the SteamOS version.

Steamy dreams

While I still want Microsoft to work on refining Windows 11 to work more smoothly on handheld PCs, especially if it does indeed make a form of Xbox handheld, I feel SteamOS is more up to the task of supporting handheld PC gaming, especially given it’s had some three years to mature.

What excites me further, is that by dropping Windows 11 reliance, handheld PCs from the likes of Asus, Lenovo and MSI could tap into an operating system that requires less overhead resources and can thus unlock more power out of the chips on handheld PCs.

The Steam Deck’s AMD Zen 2 and RDNA 2-based APU isn’t as powerful as other chips in other handhelds, such as the Asus ROG Ally X that sports a more powerful AMD Ryzen Z1 Extreme processor and RDNA 3-based graphics. But the Steam Deck arguably offers the slickest and smoothest gaming experience when one takes into account software and hardware in tandem.

Letting SteamOS take care of the operating system and interface could be the best of both worlds, with, say, a next-generation ROG Ally sporting a powerful APU with silicon horsepower that can be readily accessed thanks to a smaller need for overhead compute resources.

All this could open up a new avenue for handheld PCs that could finally challenge the Steam Deck, at least in my eyes.

The only caveat would be access to third-party game services. SteamOS and the Steam Deck were been built around users tapping into the wide array of games supported on the Steam Store, rather than enable easy access to Xbox Game Pass or the Epic Games Launcher.

However, there are already workarounds to get the likes of Xbox Cloud Gaming running on the Steam Deck; Valve doesn’t appear to discourage this. So I’d not be surprised to see hardware makers work to build on SteamOS to integrate other launchers in a neat, easy-to-use fashion.

It’s hard to say when we could see more SteamOS-based handhelds. But given we’ve just got the latest SteamOS preview, it shouldn’t be long before a full version is let out into the wild; that could come in April.

If that happens we could see a bunch of handheld PCs that eschew Windows 11 for SteamOS this side of 2025; I’m crossing my fingers.

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