Changing Up "Productivity"

I've indulged myself last week.

I looked at my finances and realized that there was no way I'd be able to afford a new laptop that could fulfil all of my requirements by the end of the year. So I've given it up as a bad job. I need a new machine, and I can't wait for the stars to align just right.

I don't want a desktop. There was a time when I preferred desktops, but I don't anymore, because I don't like the idea of mixing and matching components, and patching, and drivers and the continuous upgrading. And if I buy something off the shelf, why not just get a laptop?

For a while, I thought I'd get a Razer. But they're ridiculously expensive. So, I thought I'd get something without a discrete video card, but that's Thunderbolt-compatible, and get an external GPU enclosure. But y'know what? That's also expensive, and it also means that you can't game on the go. Well, you can, but not well.

But then, someone on Facebook was selling a 256GB Steam Deck (with a 512GB MicroSD card), and I thought to myself, "Eine minute bitte." Doesn't it run Linux? A few searches online told me that it has a USB-C port. You can connect keyboards and mice and monitors and headphones through USB-C. And charge it at the same time.

So I forked out 800 New Zealand dollars and bought it. And it's perfect.

I can run Steam games on it, obviously, and not just the ones that are "verified and playable". It'll run most things, and it'll run them pretty well.

You can get a whole slate of emulators, and so I can run a few older Sega and Nintendo games as well.

Switch it to Desktop mode, and it's just Linux. I can run any browser (I'm using Edge because it supports the add-ons I need, and is not by Google), and I can do my word processing from inside the browser.

Unplug it and I can use the small screen and joysticks to play my games, no worries. There's a touchscreen as well, so I can use the on-screen keyboard if I really need to. It's a bit chunky, but still so much smaller and lighter than a laptop. Most AAA games will run the battery out in 2 hours, but I've been able to browse the internet or run lighter games for a lot longer than that between charges.

Now all I need is to replace my phone with a Samsung that'll run Dex, and I'll have another thin and light device that precludes the need for a full computer.

Who needs Windows or Mac?