Submitted 21 hours ago by Someonelol@lemmy.dbzer0.com to steamdeck@sopuli.xyz
A lot of older PC games can run just fine on modern phone hardware. I’d buy a SteamOS version of a phone that has some modular or built-in set of buttons and analog sticks. I don’t know how the app ecosystem would work for sensitive things like banking but it’s mostly a minor issue for me.
So a Linux phone that works?
On one hand I would love that. On the other hand it would have access to my steam games and that might be a problem
Isn’t Sailfish OS already pretty much “a Linux phone that works”?
As someone who’s used a couple phones running SFOS, it’s worked pretty well. it’s not perfect/has some quirks but the UI is really nice and there’s a community of people making apps for it and the like. Plus it’s Linux which is nice.
Yeah this is the important bit to me. Valve does good work and contributes to FOSS, sure, but I’m not going to blindly follow everything they do. Right now the Linux phone space just flat out isn’t viable for daily drivers. If Valve are the first ones to really address this, cool! But I’m not going to put them on a pedestal over any other options.
Considering that they are the only pro-Linux company in a position to start delivering to my country, that might just be my only option.
So, as long as they let me install custom stuff without restriction and have enough Linux support for the hardware they choose, they don’t even need to do any special repairability stuff for me to happily give them my money.
Just to get away from Apple and Google.
I love the trend towards Linux phones. I hope that gets a good enough foothold for me to get one.
If its a viable way to get a linux phone then sure.
Yes but not for gaming, just to get a Linux phone.
That’s actually a great point. If it runs actual Linux, not Android, that’s a decent reason to buy. Valve might actually upstream the patches, if any, so that would enable virtually all Linux distros to run in it.
Absolutely, we need more Linux phone options.
depends.
if it’s basically a continuation of the xperia play, but otherwise a regular modern day smartphone with passing safety net, unlockable bootloader, a 3,5mm jack, sd card slot, stereo front firing speaker, decent camera,
absolutely.
depends, if it’s [continues to describe the most perfect dream phone to ever exist], absolutely.
A Steam smartphone implies to me its main purpose is to play PC games and not caring about the other stuff. And no, for that reason I wouldn’t buy a Steam smartphone. Because playing games on mobile phone sucks, for controls (and I always need a controller in addition), battery life and size. And its probably as expensive as a PC. I would rather buy a dedicated handheld, if its available in this form. And if its based on Android, its a nogo anyway, for privacy reasons.
No, because I don’t care about gaming on a phone. But I’d love to have numerous viable Linux phone alternatives to break the cartel duopoly.
Probably not Steam OS, specially, but I’d love an alternative Linux-based smartphone OS.
I would, yes, if it was not OS locked.
Steam Deck is plenty, I wouldn’t want to try “real” gaming on a phone.
Nah
Need my banking apps and other things for life
I wouldn’t buy it to replace my phone. I want to keep that and my gaming devices separate.
I would buy it a dedicated handheld in a similar form factor to a phone + some controls. I’ve actually been looking at the AYN Thor for this exact use case. It would have to be the right price too.
I just made a similar comment and totally agree on both points. In the past, handhelds were actually this small, like a (bigger) phone with controls attached. Smartphones have bad battery life too and if its based on Android, then privacy concerns too. A dedicated handheld should be cheaper then full fledged power smartphone being able to play those games.
Mobile sucks. Smartphones are just too limited for real gaming. First problem is the hardware; you cant just put a desktop or laptop processors into a mobile device. Second is a small screen, which is very difficult to use for touchscreen controls and simply too small to actually see what is being displayed.
Define “real” gaming.
There’s plenty of excellent games that can run on a toaster, and can run on a tiny screen
By real games i mean pc games. There are plenty of various open source lauchers from github which can run real pc games on android. But the problem remains: either bad performance, as the game is not optimised for mobile hardware, or terrible touchscreen controls, as the pc games might require a lot of keys to play.
For example, i can play minecraft java edition on android using zalith launcher, but some medium modpacks may not work due to lack of memory or unsupported mods, and playing it using touchscreen is very difficult. Unlike some other games, minecraft java edition isnt really designed about controllers, and even with dedicated mods which add support for them, arent really useful.
Absolutely. Can you imagine hearing the big picture mode starting every time you slide out the modern equivalent of this bad boy that was ahead of its time
If it allows side loading and has expendable storage, sure. That’s all I’m looking for.
Not if it used Android, but if they ran like a Linux based OS, yeah, I’d give it a try.
I had a fucking N-Gage at one point.
Never again. Not even from Valve.
nope, I’d rather see steam get into Sim hardware, like Wheels or HOTAS
They don’t update the software on the steam deck frequently enough for me to be confident for phone software where security is more of a concern
It’s fine on a game device, but I have much more personal data on my phone
Is Valve’s update cycle really worse than what the typical Android device gets?
Enable Beta updates.
No, but I am looking forward to try Lepton on my Linux phone.
I already have a smartphone, no intention of buying another one.
This is what is known as a “hypothetical question”, the idea is that your don’t answer based on your actual situation, but based on a hypothetical one.
So, now imagine instead that a wizard teleported your current phone into the plane of fire, and you have a gift voucher that can only be spent on phones that’s “one free phone” and there’s a Steam Phone in the shop. Would you want it? Would you buy it?
I already despise having to charge my phone once a day. I might buy one if it were FOSS, but I don’t think I’d play many games on it.
peacefulpixel@lemmy.world 2 hours ago
no, because having all your eggs in a single basket is a patently bad idea. no matter what brand the basket is