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Can it boot from microSD? Can it be used as a controller? Yes and yes

Valve has published a new FAQ page for the Steam Deck, answering a bunch of the internet's most burning questions about the upcoming portable gaming PC.

Valve says it picked out 20 of the most popular questions about Steam Deck received over the past few months from Reddit, Discord, Twitter, and CEO Gabe Newell's email inbox. Though we had plenty to say in our hands-on Steam Deck preview, there are still a lot of unknowns about the console, and now we have a bunch of fresh answers on key features straight from Valve.

Some of the new information we had already expected, like Steam Deck's ability to run non-Steam games via Proton, but some of what's answered in the FAQ page is genuinely new and exciting. For one, Valve today confirmed that you'll be able to use the Steam Deck as a PC controller via Remote Play, which should please folks eager for a game pad with more features like touchpads, touch-sensitive control sticks, and extra back buttons.

Valve also says Steam Deck will support multi-boot, allowing you to have multiple operating systems installed and to choose which one to boot into whenever you power on the device. Better yet, the device will be able to boot from microSD cards, which means you could technically turn your Steam Deck into a part-time portable retro games console without taking up any space on the actual hardware.

Check out the rest of Valve's Steam Deck FAQ for more detailed info on the machine's specs and features, as well as potential retail availability.

Valve has given a short update on the dev-kits for the upcoming Linux powered handheld Steam Deck, with more developers being able to get their hands on it soon.

Writing on Steam the team said "All packaged up and ready for devs! This is one of the limited batches of Steam Deck dev-kits heading out today for partners to test their games. These engineering verification test builds allow us to connect developers with units that are functionally identical to what will ship to you.

Since we are still in the final stages of development, the dev-kit program gives us the chance to guide game developers through the process of getting their games on Steam Deck while also continuing to gather their feedback as we prepare for the official launch at the end of the year.

Here are a few behind-the-scenes shots of developer units getting their last few updates before making their way out the door."

A few developers do already have theirs though. We've seen that Garry Newman of Facepunch already commented that Rust "runs good" on the Steam Deck and they're working with Easy Anti-Cheat to get it all hooked up, we saw the Phil Spencer of Xbox had access too and commented on Halo, Age of Empires and xCloud working nicely.

Now we've also seen that Terraria developer Re-Logic also has access as they commented on Twitter to say "Terraria + @Steam Deck, perfect combination for your adventures!". What's interesting about this picture is how blue the inside of the case is. We've now seen a white one and a blue one but we still don't know which people will get as all models offer a carrying case but the top-end model has an "Exclusive carrying case".

Valve is having ongoing discussions around the Steam Deck's colors

The Steam Deck could be available in multiple colors, according to developer Valve.

In a new interview this past week with PC Gamer, product designers Tucker Spofford and Greg Coomer dropped a few interesting details surrounding the forthcoming Steam Deck. Coomer says that internally at Valve, there were "even discussions like 'well, can we have lots of colours?'" before adding "we had all those discussions. We are continuing to have those now."

While this isn't confirmation in the slightest that the Steam Deck will be available in multiple colors at some point in the future, it's nice to be aware of the fact that Valve are having conversations on that topic right now. At the present time, the Steam Deck is only available in black, your pretty standard color for any console or handheld device.

In the interview, Coomer goes on to explain that one barrier preventing multiple colored versions of the Steam Deck is logistics, as it's harder to produce more SKUs of the same device in different colors. "We might do a lot more with that in the future," Coomber continues. "If this gets off the ground the way we hope it does, there's just tons of opportunity to do that later." The Steam Deck is due to launch at some point later this year, for the standard retail price of $399/£349. Developers are due to start getting dev kits of the Steam Deck this week, and Valve has previously claimed that the device can handle every game available on Steam right now, although the Steam Deck will target 30FPS at native resolution, depending on the game you're playing.

For what we made of Valve's new device when we got to try it for ourselves last week, head over to our Steam Deck hands-on preview for more.

Honestly, I might be even more excited about this feature than I am about the Steam Deck. I have a preorder for an SD, but the prospect of having suspend and resume built in to PC games so that I don't have to boot through splash screens, go through menus, etc. would be a huge improvement for me. A lot of times I don't bother firing up a game if I only have 15-20 min to kill, mostly because it'll take me at least a few minutes to get it started and then I need to be sure to shut it down when I'm done gracefully. Add on top of that the idea of cloud-syncing those suspend states between devices? Very exciting!

I reserved a Deck day one within a minute and I think I might be in the initial launch (still no expected ship date listed though the payment processed and I got the confirmation email within a couple minutes). Whenever I get it, I'm hyped.

I'm not a typical user. I do enjoy handheld games, but I also am an Arch Linux user (btw), I deploy servers, I write code, blah blah blah. My current personal computer is an old T430, and I plan to use my deck as a daily driver as a desktop at home, a media center on the couch, handheld in bed, and a tablet on the go. To meet those use cases I plan to do a custom Arch install.

Is anyone else planning on doing something similar?

Some things I'm starting to plan out are:

• Some sort of custom lockscreen that can use the deck controls to unlock or an onscreen keyboard.
• E-reader mode
• Audio mode
• Kodi for media center and plex
• RetroArch for retro games
• Steam (of course)
• Removal of telemetry and possibly iptable rules to block Steam telemetry if any
• Graphical interface to do basic maintenance tasks without a keyboard (like a script launcher window). This could probably be the app launcher in gnome with some custom desktop entries