How the Nintendo Swap 2 stacks up to the Steam Deck

The biggest likelihood to the Steam Deck in 2025 acquired’t be the arrival of other Windows-essentially based exclusively exclusively handheld gaming PCs. As a change, it’ll seemingly be the Nintendo Swap 2, which arrives on June 5 for $449.99 — smack dab between the price of the $399 Steam Deck LCD and the $549 Steam Deck OLED.

Ironically, the Steam Deck is also the Swap 2’s biggest likelihood. While Nintendo’s original console may per chance perchance perchance moreover gather Valve’s beat on show conceal resolution, refresh fee, and a custom Nvidia processor able to DLSS and ray tracing, Steam trumps it in ticket, in particular with game costs.

I ranking it, I ranking it. They’re exclusively completely different devices. So even supposing comparing Nintendo and Valve’s hardware and utility philosophies is an apples versus oranges exercise, the two devices — and firms — are more aligned than possibilities are you’ll perchance perchance seemingly convey. And that’s very exact when consumers, whether or now not attributable to tariffs or other financial causes, must prefer from one or the replacement.

You’ve come to the ethical dwelling, as we’ll fracture down all of the specs price caring about to tell how they stack up.

As talked about, the Swap 2 and the Steam Deck gather a chunk an identical costs. The Swap 2 will originate on June 5 for $449.99 to delivery, although there will seemingly be a $499.99 bundle on hand for a restricted time that entails Mario Kart World. Preorders dart stay on Wednesday, April ninth for the console, its accessories, and originate titles.

Valve’s Steam Deck doesn’t contain completely different game bundles, although there are two items to prefer from: the $399 Steam Deck LCD (also known simply as Steam Deck) and the Steam Deck OLED, which starts at $549. A lot of specs, moreover to storage portions, differentiate the two. The Verge’s Sean Hollister has a evaluation of the Steam Deck OLED that neatly sums up their variations. Within the US, the Steam Deck is exclusively on hand thru Steam, Valve’s on-line game storefront. Internationally, it’s on hand thru completely different retail outlets.

Here’s where things ranking actually fascinating. The Swap 2 took many suddenly by featuring a 7.9-chase 1080p LCD touchscreen with a 120Hz refresh fee. No longer only that, it supports VRR and HDR10. Compared to the originate Swap and Swap Lite, both of which had 720p LCDs of completely different sizes (6.2 inches within the Swap, 5.5 inches within the Swap Lite), it’s a huge distinction by manner of added dimension, aspects, more clarity, and smoothness in how games appear onscreen. The identical may per chance perchance perchance moreover very properly be said for the Swap 2’s show conceal improvements over the Steam Deck LCD, which has a 7-chase 60Hz LCD touchscreen (with elephantine bezels) with out VRR or HDR enhance.

Image: Nintendo

The Swap OLED’s 7-chase 720p OLED show conceal may per chance perchance perchance moreover very properly be better than the Swap 2’s show conceal by manner of distinction and viewing angles, but the Swap 2’s is sooner and better in every other metric.

The Swap 2 meets its match within the Steam Deck OLED. Many hoped that Nintendo would come out of the gates with an OLED lisp, but that restful makes Valve’s $549 handheld particular. The Steam Deck OLED has a smaller 800p touchscreen than the Swap 2 at 7.4 inches (but with out the elephantine bezels of the Deck LCD), but provides 90Hz refresh fee and HDR into the mix.

It’s a gorgeous show conceal, with stellar viewing angles and perfect colour copy, making 800p games in a arrangement perceive better resolution. Some may per chance perchance perchance moreover consume the simpler refresh fee and VRR within the Swap 2, which may per chance allow the show conceal to rapid adapt to a fluctuating physique fee with out tearing. The VRR distinction is one thing you gather got to expertise your self, and it’s enormous to assemble within the Swap 2 as now not many handhelds enhance it, put for the Lenovo Legion Paddle S and prefer out others.

There is particular to be more to come inspire by manner of comparing efficiency between the Swap 2 and the Steam Deck. Hands-on time with the Swap 2 has been restricted to some games coming at originate, so that possibilities are you’ll perchance perchance seemingly moreover restful demand more on how games on hand for both evaluation by manner of visuals and physique fee.

We can fabricate some comparisons according to specs. Both the Steam Deck items exercise a custom AMD APU (bundling the Zen 2 CPU and RDNA 2 GPU) that performs a swath of PC games comparatively with out problems at appropriate-to-enormous visual quality with surprisingly appropriate battery existence. No longer every game can prefer stout perfect thing referring to the Steam Deck OLED’s 90Hz refresh fee, but that’s now not a claim Valve makes. Some AMD’s FSR graphical upscaling technology is on hand in prefer out games to reduce inspire the render resolution of the image and upscale it the usage of AI. In a lot of cases, it makes supported games escape better on Steam Deck, but with a indispensable hit to visual quality.

Characterize by The Verge

On the replacement hand, I possess Nintendo’s Swap 2 is more of a spec powerhouse than any individual expected. It makes exercise of a custom Nvidia processor, although almost no runt print about its energy gather been unveiled at the time of publishing. Nintendo is publicly focusing on up to a hundred and twenty frames per second in some games in handheld mode, with a 60 frames per second cap at 4K when docked, indicating that there’s pretty a tiny little bit of seemingly within the Swap 2. Nintendo Swap 2 hardware engineers claim the console makes use of DLSS and ray tracing — key aspects equipped by Nvidia graphics cards. It’s unclear how these aspects will seemingly be unparalleled in titles across the board, and if there are any downsides to its implementation.

Switching over to battery existence, the Steam Deck has the Swap 2 beat, although for both handhelds it’s essential to tell that battery longevity varies wildly reckoning on the games you play. Balatro, as an illustration, is much less taxing on hardware than Cyberpunk 2077. The Swap 2 has an expected battery existence between 2 and 6.5 hours. Valve’s Steam Deck LCD (which has a 40Wh battery) can final between 2 and eight hours, whereas the Steam Deck OLED, due to its more efficient lisp and soar from 40Wh to 50Wh, lasts between Three and 12 hours.

By default, the Swap 2 contains 256GB of rapid UFS storage that presumably can now not be upgraded by the tip consumer. Nonetheless, it may per chance per chance perchance perchance moreover moreover be expanded upon with microSD cards — but now not fair any will invent. It’s one in every of the first devices to enhance microSD Explicit, that are classified as PCIe Three.zero NVMe SSDs, but are only as tiny as other microSD cards. The console supports up to 2TB capacities, although we’ve only viewed up to 1TB items hit cabinets to this level (more will unquestionably lisp up in time for the Swap 2’s June 5th originate).

The Steam Deck offers more versatility. For one, all items contain M.2 2230-sized SSDs that may per chance perchance perchance seemingly moreover moreover be upgraded by opening the gadget. Doing so doesn’t void the warranty, but you’ll are looking to discover out. Once inner, possibilities are you’ll perchance perchance change the SSD with one thing better. It’s unclear currently whether or now not the Steam Deck’s built-in SSD is sooner or on a par with the Swap 2’s inner storage.

If you happen to must complement the SSD with more consumer-obedient expandable storage, every Deck also supports UHS-1 microSD cards. These are slower than the Swap 2’s microSD Explicit cards, but they devise the trick.

Characterize by Owen Grove / The Verge

Both handhelds may per chance perchance perchance moreover moreover be unparalleled as hybrids, both in handheld mode or docked to a TV. Speaking of their handheld exercise case first, the Swap 2 entails a versatile kickstand, whereas the Steam Deck doesn’t.

Placing both on a dock grants you more ports to glue to the console. The Swap 2 dock, which comes with every console, entails an HDMI port, USB-C for energy, plus an Ethernet port for wired cyber web. The Steam Deck docking dwelling is a separate $79 accent that entails more ports, such as HDMI, DisplayPort, three USB-A ports, Ethernet, and a USB-C port for energy.

The Steam Deck and Nintendo Swap 2 gather USB-C ports that send video out to your lisp. Nonetheless, only the Swap 2 aspects a second USB-C port, positioned on its top, which may per chance perchance perchance moreover moreover be unparalleled to inch in peripherals, such as a camera for GameChat, or different other accessories to be launched within the long escape. This Swap 2’s secondary USB-C port doesn’t enhance video out. Within the case of the Swap 2, its dock unlocks more energy capabilities, whereas the Steam Deck’s dock doesn’t expand its energy.

The Steam Deck puts your Steam library at your fingertips. You’ll be in a dwelling to play most of them on the Steam Deck, but how every game performs — including whether or now not possibilities are you’ll perchance perchance originate it the least bit, due to anti-cheat or other incompatibility causes — varies reckoning on the game. Valve attempts to fabricate it straightforward to snatch whether or now not a game will work properly on Steam Deck. If it’s “Verified,” which manner you’ll seemingly gather an exact expertise. If it’s “Playable,” there may per chance perchance perchance moreover very properly be some controller-essentially based exclusively exclusively difficulties which may per chance perchance perchance moreover negatively impact and otherwise appropriate expertise. “Unsupported” games are simply that — they both acquired’t work whenever you boot them, or Valve hasn’t examined them and doesn’t know what more or much less time you’re in for. One defining characteristic of Steam is that the retailer hosts many sales, and Steam games may per chance perchance perchance moreover moreover be legally got thru third-birthday celebration websites at huge discounts. Video games are customarily vastly more cost-effective by comparison to the Swap and other gaming consoles.

The Swap 2 supports in relation to all normal Swap games, although there are some titles which gather points. It supports them thru a mode “someplace in between a utility emulator and hardware compatibility,” according to Swap 2 developer Takuhiro Dohta. This sounds a chunk such as Valve’s Proton, a compatibility layer that lets in Windows games to escape on the Steam Deck’s fork of Linux.

Image: Nintendo

Continuing on the Swap 2, there are “Swap 2 Edition” upgrades to prefer Swap titles that add flourishes allowed by the more phenomenal hardware, ranging from sooner frames per second and better resolution (The Yarn of Zelda: Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom), moreover to other Swap 2-only aspects, like GameChat functionality (Horny Mario Occasion: Jamboree – Swap 2 Edition), or mouse controls (Metroid Prime 4: Previous – Swap 2 Edition). Then, there will seemingly be Swap 2-recent games, like Mario Kart World, that may per chance perchance perchance only be played on original hardware.

Video games aside, let’s be in contact referring to the underlying utility. The Swap 2, great like its predecessor, is centered almost completely on gaming. We don’t yet know whether or now not video streaming services will seemingly be on hand. Nonetheless, on the Steam Deck, you gather got the technique to swap from gaming to “desktop mode,” in actuality turning it into a Linux desktop. From there, possibilities are you’ll perchance perchance set up apps of your picking, escape a browser, connect Google accounts to it to form documents — anything that comes to mind.