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this post was submitted on 18 Aug 2025
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Steam Deck
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A place to discuss and support all things Steam Deck.
Replacement for r/steamdeck_linux.
As Lemmy doesn't have flairs yet, you can use these prefixes to indicate what type of post you have made, eg:
[Flair] My post title
The following is a list of suggested flairs:
[Discussion] - General discussion.
[Help] - A request for help or support.
[News] - News about the deck.
[PSA] - Sharing important information.
[Game] - News / info about a game on the deck.
[Update] - An update to a previous post.
[Meta] - Discussion about this community.
Some more Steam Deck specific flairs:
[Boot Screen] - Custom boot screens/videos.
[Selling] - If you are selling your deck.
These are not enforced, but they are encouraged.
Rules:
- Follow the rules of Sopuli
- Posts must be related to the Steam Deck in an obvious way.
- No piracy, there are other communities for that.
- Discussion of emulators are allowed, but no discussion on how to illegally acquire ROMs.
- This is a place of civil discussion, no trolling.
- Have fun.
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Eh, I'd say it's a mixed bag.
The Triggers? Yes, I'd say they are tied for the best option right now.
The sticks? Also yes. They are positioned great, feel great, work great. As someone who likes both the Dualsense and Xbox sticks a lot, the Steam Deck is even better. It's worth mentioning that even after 2 years I still haven't found a use for the capacitive touch pads. They're a neat idea I suppose, but it seems like you need a VERY specific scenario to make it work. Even the one I see most often- gyro - I'd rather just use a button to toggle it than use the capacitive sensor on the right stick.
The face buttons? They're okay. Not the worst I've used, but too rounded for me. They can really wear on your thumbs in games where you mash. I'd prefer the Dualsense, but this is better than the Xbox.
The Shoulder Buttons? Pretty garage actually. They work, but feel really mush and awkward to use. Give me a Dualsense, or most other controllers instead.
Start/Select? Fine, but placed in places that are difficult to reach without actively stretching. Like they often are on controllers anyways, so not a big deal.
D-Pad? Serviceable. It feels similar to the PS Vita of all things. It's nowhere near the crisp, precise, harsh microswitches of JoyCons. It's also nowhere near the fluid, smooth motion of the Sony style D-Pad. It's somewhere in-between. It's also more precise than traditional Nintendo d-pads. I'd say it's fine, but I prefer Sony's. My thumb gets tired easily from D-Pad heavy games on the Deck.
Back buttons are a nice bonus, but they don't feel super great. They all feel more like toggles than buttons you are expected to constantly be actuating.
The track pass are great at first, but my right track pad wore out VERY quickly and it feels terrible. Clicking on it now is very unpleasant, to the point where in some games I map R2 or R4 to click just so I don't have to use the track pad for it anymore. Hopefully Valve improves that. I'd absolutely love to see those track pads on standalone controllers.
The Back Buttons on their own are not great.
IF you are going to do some customization - I highly recommend swapping them out.
I only did the back plate and I keep it in a case so I barely notice the clear purple back but I Do notice the new triggers. They feel so much better.
https://jsaux.com/products/transparent-back-plate-for-steam-deck-pc0106
I’ve used the right trackpad as a mouse. I haven’t tried it for an FPS, but it works well for menus, inventory management, or for lower stress mouse games like city builders.
In Valhiem, at least, I’ve configured the left track pad as an 8 position radial menu to quickly activate to any hotbar slot.
Your touchpad issue may be a fluke, both the steam decks in my house (one original, one OLED) still work great with both trackpada
I use the touchpads constantly, mostly for Rimworld, but also desktop usage and other games, and I find them to be outstanding
My right one worked great to start, and my left knee still does. Over the past year I could feel it slowly get worse. It feels like normal wear and tear to me, just that I used it hard with a few mouse-centric games.
I did look on iFixit but they don't have replacements. I'm not too surprised, and I'm not really upset with Valve, because it's a pretty new thing and they are still way better than their competition. I just hope that eventually they release an improved version.