Steam Deck Prototype Disassembled – Concept Units Featured $3,000 Price, Discrete GPU Support, Smaller Joysticks, and Circular Touchpads

Sure, let’s dive in, a bit all over the place but, hey, that’s life, right? So, imagine finding one of those cool old gadgets—a YouTube dude did just that with a Steam Deck prototype. Seriously, it’s like holding a piece of gaming history. Someone known as SadlyItsDadley—what a name, right?—let Bringus, from Bringus Studios, take it apart on camera. He’s like, “This guy can keep this piece of gaming evolution alive for us.”

Okay, picture this: Bringus gets his hands on this thing, rips it open on his channel. It’s got this paper on it saying “POC2-34 Control 163” or some such thing. Basically, ancient gaming treasure #34. He tries to game on it, too, showing us the awkward baby steps Valve took towards the handheld console we all drool over now. Weird paper and all, but hey, it’s proof the thing is real.

Anyway, where was I? Right, the thing doesn’t exactly look like the Steam Deck sitting on your shelf now. The touchpads? Huge, like coaster-sized. It’s a bit…awkward? And the joysticks, tiny little things compared to today’s beefier versions. Plus, the palm rests didn’t have that comfy contour we’re used to. Pop open the BIOS, and boom, there’s an AMD Ryzen 7 3700U chip in there with 8GB of RAM, which is kinda neat. And 256GB SSD, Intel Wi-Fi, plus rumors of discrete GPU support—didn’t get to test that, sadly.

Some tidbit here—Bringus swapped out the SSD to keep the original safe, right? Pops in a clone drive and, surprise! Early SteamOS. Three accounts sitting there! Couldn’t log into the ‘34’ account though, bummer. Dates back to September 30, 2020, wayyyyy before the Deck hit shelves. Gives you an idea of where Valve’s head was back then.

Zooming out a bit, Steam Deck kinda sparked this whole handheld renaissance, right? Nintendo laid that handheld blueprint with their Switch in 2017, but it was really the Deck that got big PC hardware guys fired up. Suddenly everyone was on the handheld train, like Asus ROG Ally and that whole gang, each trying to toss a contender into the ring.

Oh, and before I wander off—if you’re hungry for gaming hardware news, give Tom’s Hardware a follow on Google News or something. That’s it…I think? My head’s a bit tangled from bouncing between all these thoughts.