The Steam Deck is Valve‘s handheld gaming PC that lets you play your Steam library on the go. With its 7-inch touchscreen display, many wonder if the Steam Deck utilizes a touchscreen for navigating the device‘s interface and playing games.
Overview of the Steam Deck
Released in 2022, the Steam Deck is a powerful handheld gaming device created by Valve, the developers behind the popular Steam PC gaming platform. It allows you to play games from your Steam library on a portable device.
Some key features of the Steam Deck include:
- 7-inch 1280×800 LCD touchscreen display
- Custom AMD APU with Zen 2 CPU and RDNA 2 graphics
- 16GB LPDDR5 RAM (upgradeable to 32GB)
- 64GB eMMC storage (upgradeable to 256GB or 512GB NVMe SSD)
- Built-in gyroscope, accelerometer, ambient light sensor
- Dual trackpads, analog triggers, grip buttons
- 40Wh battery with 2 – 8 hours of gameplay
- SteamOS 3.0 operating system (Arch Linux-based)
- Bluetooth 5.0, WiFi 5, USB-C with display out/charging
- Compatible with Steam Controller accessories
The Steam Deck aims to provide the PC gaming experience in a compact, portable design. Its powerful hardware can run many of the latest AAA games at 720p resolution when docked or on the go.
Steam Deck Display and Touchscreen
The Steam Deck features a 7-inch IPS LCD display with a 1280×800 pixel resolution and 16:10 aspect ratio. This makes it well-suited for gaming in 720p when docked or handheld.
Importantly, the Steam Deck‘s display is a fully-functional touchscreen. The touchscreen allows you to navigate SteamOS, launch games, browse the web, and more using touch gestures like taps, swipes, pinches, and zooms.
The touchscreen uses capacitive touch technology, meaning it responds to the touch of your fingertips and does not require a stylus. It supports up to 10-point multitouch for responsive tracking of multiple fingers at once.
Valve optimized SteamOS 3.0 and the Steam Deck‘s user interface for touch input. The touchscreen allows for quick navigation of the various menus, settings, and library views in SteamOS.
When launching games, you can use the touchscreen to interact with text fields, buttons, and other in-game UI elements. It works as a supplemental input alongside the physical controls.
Certain games like turn-based strategy and puzzle titles can even be played entirely using touch gestures on the Steam Deck. So the touchscreen expands the variety of gaming genres suitable for the handheld device.
Touchscreen Usage in SteamOS
SteamOS 3.0 provides a console-like interface optimized for both touch gestures and physical controls. Here are some ways you can use the Steam Deck‘s touchscreen when navigating SteamOS:
Scrolling – Smoothly scroll through game libraries, settings menus, web pages and more by swiping up/down with your finger.
Tapping – Launch apps and games, select menu items, activate buttons with a tap of your finger.
Gestures – Swipe horizontally to switch between SteamOS sections. Pinch to zoom into text and images.
Typing – Bring up the on-screen keyboard to type in text fields using your touch.
Web Browsing – Use the touchscreen to interact with web pages and hyperlinks when browsing online.
Settings – Adjust preferences and settings via tapping icons and touch sliders.
Text Entry – Enter WiFi passwords, account info, search terms using the on-screen keyboard.
So in summary, the touchscreen allows you to smoothly navigate SteamOS, launch games, browse the web, and enter text conveniently with your fingers. It mirrors many of the core functions of a smartphone or tablet touchscreen.
Using the Touchscreen for Gaming
While the Steam Deck‘s physical buttons and trackpads handle most gaming actions, the touchscreen offers some handy supplementary inputs when playing games:
Menu Navigation – Navigate in-game menus, settings, inventory screens and more using touch.
Quick Access – Tap icons to quickly access maps, inventory, or other informational screens as needed.
Gesture Shortcuts – Configure gesture shortcuts like a two-finger swipe up to pause the game.
Virtual Buttons – Some games optimize UI with extra virtual buttons only accessible via touch.
Point & Click – Play point and click adventure games intuitively through tapping.
Touch-Friendly Genres – Play turn-based, puzzle, casual games designed uniquely for touchscreens.
Camera Control – Use touch gestures to smoothly control in-game cameras and viewing angles.
So while intensive action and gameplay will rely on physical controls, the Steam Deck touchscreen provides supplemental inputs that prove handy for navigation, shortcuts, menus, and touch-friendly games.
Not all games will make full use of the touchscreen, but developers can optimize their games for touch gameplay on Steam Deck if desired. And some existing touch-centric games like Civilization VI already work well on Steam Deck using touch.
Touchscreen Specs and Technology
Here are some key technical details on the Steam Deck‘s 7-inch LCD touchscreen:
- Display Size: 7 inches diagonal
- Resolution: 1280 x 800 pixels
- Aspect Ratio: 16:10
- Display Type: LCD TFT
- Multi-touch: 10-point capacitive touch
- Glass: Corning Gorilla Glass (for durability)
- Touch Sensor: On-cell touch layer
- Refresh Rate: 60Hz
The LCD display provides good vibrancy and responsiveness for a handheld gaming device. And opting for an on-cell touch layer rather than a less responsive screen protector simplifies the screen construction.
The 16:10 aspect ratio strikes a balance between ideal width for gaming and enough height for touchscreen functions. And the Gorilla Glass protects the touchscreen from scratches during travel and everyday use.
Overall the specs allow the Steam Deck to have a highly functional touchscreen well-suited for quick touch interactions alongside gamingvisuals.
Developer Support for Touch
Valve provides Steam Deck developer kits and documentation to help game creators optimize their titles for the device‘s unique controls. This includes supporting the built-in touchscreen in games.
Developers have a few options for utilizing the Steam Deck‘s touchscreen:
Full Touch Gameplay – Design games around touch as the primary input, like puzzles,strategy games, and board game adaptations.
Hybrid Control – Use touch alongside traditional controls for menus, shortcuts, maps and camera control.
Context Actions – Program touch buttons that dynamically change based on gameplay context for quick actions.
Touch Menus – Implement extra touchscreen menus, buttons, and indicators not shown on the main display.
Optimized UI – Adapt in-game text size and button layouts for easy touch interaction.
While many older Steam games lack touch support, newer and future titles can add touch gameplay features to take advantage of the hardware capabilities. Valve‘s APIs and input handling tools like Steam Input simplify implementing hybrid touch/controller controls.
And games not explicitly programmed for touch can still benefit from players configuring touch shortcuts and bindings via Steam Input settings if desired.
Touchscreen vs. Switch & Other Handhelds
How does the Steam Deck‘s touchscreen compare against other handheld gaming devices like the Nintendo Switch and smartphones?
The Steam Deck touchscreen is on par with the Switch‘s 6.2" capacitive multi-touch screen in terms of responsiveness and gesture support. Both allow for tapping, swiping, pinching and other actions as supplemental inputs alongside physical controls.
However, the Steam Deck touchscreen is higher resolution at 1280×800 vs. the Switch‘s 1280×720 screen. And it has a 16:10 aspect ratio that provides more vertical height for touch interactions compared to the Switch‘s wide 16:9 screen.
Compared to mobile devices like smartphones and tablets, the Steam Deck touchscreen is moderately sized at 7 inches. It lacks some of the perks of a high-end OLED screen you‘d see on a flagship phone or tablet. But it‘s perfectly responsive for quick touch interactions within SteamOS or games.
The Steam Deck achieves a good balance between screen size, resolution, and aspect ratio to deliver solid touchscreen capabilities without inflating the device‘s size or weight too much. It hits a nice sweet spot between mobile and home console handheld experiences.
Common Questions About the Steam Deck Touchscreen
Here are answers to some frequently asked questions about the capabilities of the Steam Deck‘s built-in touchscreen:
Can you use a stylus on the Steam Deck touchscreen?
No, the Steam Deck‘s touchscreen does not support stylus input. It uses capacitive touch technology that only responds to fingertip touches.
Does the Steam Deck have multi-touch support?
Yes, the Steam Deck touchscreen provides 10-point multi-touch, meaning it can recognize the input from up to 10 fingers touching the screen simultaneously.
Can you type on the Steam Deck using the touchscreen?
Yes! The Steam Deck supports an on-screen virtual keyboard for typing with touch input. This allows you to conveniently enter passwords, search queries, messages and other text.
Does the Steam Deck touchscreen work with all games?
It works as a basic input for any game, but games have to be specifically programmed to make full use of touch gameplay and controls. Many newer titles are starting to add touch optimization.
Can you use the touchscreen without looking at the display?
Limitedly – there are no touch buttons with tactile feedback. But with some memory of button layouts, you may be able to use muscle memory for certain basic taps without looking.
Overall the touchscreen adds some great supplemental interaction options to this powerful handheld gaming PC.
Conclusion
The Steam Deck does indeed come equipped with a fully working touchscreen that allows you to navigate SteamOS, interact with games, browse the web, and more using intuitive touch gestures.
The 7-inch multi-touch screen uses capacitive touch technology for precision finger tracking. While the physical controls handle primary gameplay on the Steam Deck, developers can optimize games to make smart use of the touchscreen for menus, maps, shortcuts, text entry, and even touch-focused gameplay genres.
Compared to other handhelds, the Steam Deck touchscreen is reasonably sized and specced to balance utility with portability. For a powerful PC gaming handheld, it‘s great to see Valve include touch capabilities for added convenience and control options while interacting with this unique device.
