The haptics in the trackpads for the Steam Deck are pretty good. They manage to communicate textures and boundaries on the trackpad. They're not magical, but they are a bit step above anything I've used anywhere else.
What makes the Steam Deck so much more versatile IMO are the touch pads. I use the touchpads on my Steam Controller to play a few games that are 95% mouse-driven (simulators for a trading card game) and they're a joy.
The touchpads really are incredible on the Steam Deck. So much less awkward than twin stick, as someone who grew up playing on PC. That alone is reason to stick with the Deck.
I LOVE the steam controller, and the deck is essentially a steam controller with a computer+screen embedded into it. But the software for customizing the inputs are extremely sophisticated and deeply integrated into Steam. I don't think the deck would have been as good without the steam controller.
One of the steam deck's really underappreciated features is the trackpads. You can use them to play a whole heap of KB+M games that were otherwise off bounds for a handheld.
I've been playing through the Sam & Max episodic games this way: trackpad for pointer, and buttons for clicks. It doesn't need fast-paced interactions so it's very forgiving there. When more speed is needed, I've heard others combine the trackpad with some minor gyro mouse input such that the touchpad does the coarse pointer manipulation and then gyro does the fine detail. Apparently you can get quite fast with this approach.
Out of curiosity, did you personally actually use the steam controller? From what I've read/heard, it was a bit tough to get used to, but appreciated by many. My impression was also that the steam deck touch pads were just the next step in [the steam controller]'s evolution, rather than something else altogether.
All of that being said, I've unfortunately never had the opportunity to try it myself, so I don't really know.
Steam Deck has the little "pads" from the Steam Controller, those make playing games with mouse-based controls a joy with a handheld device (with some adjustment period).
They show this in the video! I actually almost wish the initial Steam Controller had these flat pads instead of the concave circles, it looks like it's going to be a straight up improvement.
The Steam deck is certainly an intriguing device, but it isn't even out yet. It will be interesting to see what can be done with its "native" gamepad input and touch screen, might enable some interesting use cases for actual useful work on the field.
The steam deck has a keyboard that supports input from both trackpads at the same time. Always surprised me this is not really supported by most desktop environments.
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