$3,000 Steam Deck Prototype Teardown Reveals Discrete GPU Support, Smaller Joysticks, and Circular Touchpads

Sure! Here’s a rewritten version of the article:

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So, there’s this YouTuber who somehow got a hold of an early Steam Deck prototype. Not sure how they convinced someone to part with it, but here we are. The prototype, known as engineering sample 34—sounds fancy, doesn’t it?—was taken apart by this guy, Jon Bringus from Bringus Studios. Side note: I don’t know why someone named SadlyItsDadley (formerly on Twitter, now on X) thought Jon was the best guy for the job, but sure, let’s roll with that.

Anyway, Jon opened up this thing on his YouTube channel, right? And what does he find? A paper labeled “POC2-34 Control 163.” I guess that cements its prototype status. Beyond just tearing it down, he played a few games on it. You know, just to flex how Valve has come a long way with their portable gaming dreams.

Visually though, this beta version looks kinda funky. The touchpads were big circles—honestly, they reminded me more of saucers than anything else. Compare that to the rectangular ones on the consoles we have now. And those joysticks? Teeny-tiny compared to today’s standards. Plus, those palm rests were, hmm, different. Digging into the specs—’cause who doesn’t love a little nerdy detail?—there’s an AMD Ryzen 7 3700U, 8GB RAM, and a 256GB SSD. Plus, an Intel Wi-Fi chip! Oh, and it supposedly supports a discrete GPU, but Jon didn’t get around to checking that out. Saved the suspense, maybe.

Jon’s adventure didn’t end there, though. He cloned the original SSD, just in case? Plugging it back in revealed a vintage SteamOS version with three user accounts pre-installed! Felt nostalgic, not gonna lie. Sadly, he couldn’t access the “34” account. (Can you imagine the mysteries in there?) This version of SteamOS dated back to September 30, 2020. I’m thinking that’s about 18 months before the Deck hit the shelves, so it gives a pretty good idea of its timeline back then.

Valve really stirred the pot when the Steam Deck hit the scene. I mean, sure, Nintendo did the whole console-handheld combo thing with the Switch in 2017, but the Steam Deck? It changed the game. Suddenly, every major PC hardware company was like, “Oh, hey! We need one of those!” Cue the Asus ROG Ally, Lenovo Legion Go, MSI Claw, and who knows how many others.

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