Steam Deck Dock - My Opinions


So, Valve released their official Dock for their Steam Deck, and I got my hands on one to try out. So, let’s talk about it. First the good things, its small looks great and ironically fits in the dent with the strap on the Steam Decks case (can't be coincidence). It works great with the Steam Deck (right now we will talk about that) and even gets firmware updates from the Steam Deck to add more features as time goes on. I use it to dock my Steam Deck below my main monitor and connected it to it so it’s easy to switch inputs and play on the Deck while sitting back in my chair. However, for all the good parts I must talk about its issues.


The first big thing I want to say is the $99 price tag, really. It’s a generic dock why is it $99. There where docks released BEFORE the official one for CHEAPER and with equivalent features and not like $80 or something but like $50, literally half the price. After the amazing work getting the Deck to $400 its insane that the dock would be priced so high. I could be wrong and maybe it has something about it that makes it that much such as those firmware updates I said before, but I don't know, for me $99 seems way higher than it should be.

Second thing, the display issues and issues with said firmware updates. When I first got my dock, I bricked it when it was first updating, I plugged my Steam Deck into the dock and turned it on. It showed a notification over the lock screen saying that I needed to update the docks firmware, so I did. Then it did nothing, the notification vanished, and nothing happened. I checked notifications list, and it was still there, so I clicked it again, nothing. After that I restarted the Steam Deck and when I got back in it said I needed to update the firmware again on the dock. This time a screen did come up but said something failed. After that the dock was useless. It would not charge, display, or do anything with the Deck or connected devices. I ended up fixing it by unplugging everything from the dock, including power and shutdown the Steam Deck. Then plugged in the Deck to the dock and turned on the Deck. After it started up the update notification showed up again which this time worked and got the dock up and running again. This is just terrible first experience, this happened fresh out of the box and using it the first time. I can't imagine what someone without some experience with general debugging would react and from the forums on Steam about the dock it seems way more people than just me have the same experience. However, for me I had no display issues like a lot of other people are saying so I am unsure of what's going on there. Also, this is mostly all software issues, so it is likely to be fixed with updates.

Do I hate the dock, no. Do I like it, ehhhhhh. At the price and what it provides you I just cannot recommend it, there are cheaper options out there that offer the same or better experience. But if you want to keep an all Valve setup then go right ahead.

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