Steam Deck Prototype Worth $3,000 Disassembled: Features Included Discrete GPU Support, Smaller Joysticks, and Circular Touchpads

Sure thing, here we go:

So, there’s this YouTube guy, Jon Bringus, right? From Bringus Studios. Anyway, he somehow got his hands on this early Steam Deck prototype—an engineering sample, they call it. And, okay, maybe it was dumb luck, or maybe it was fate, but this dude named SadlyItsDadley (yep, that’s what he’s known as now since Twitter went X or whatever) thought Jon was the perfect person to, like, document this gizmo’s existence. That’s some trust right there.

So, Jon’s on his channel, just peeling open this console like it’s a Christmas present. And what’s kinda wild? There’s this random piece of paper inside, saying "POC2-34 Control 163." Probably nothing, but it feels significant, y’know? Proof of something—like this ain’t just some average gaming contraption. Obviously, Jon couldn’t resist diving into some gameplay on this thing, probably to flaunt Valve’s progress since their tiny spark of a portable gaming idea.

Oh, and the unit looks funky compared to what we’re used to. Imagine big circle touchpads (really, who thought those were a good idea?), and joysticks that look like they belong to a five-year-old’s toy. And don’t even get me started on those palm rests. Anyway—right, the BIOS—it’s got an AMD Ryzen 7 3700U with 8GB RAM. Pretty neat, except Bringus didn’t quite manage to test the alleged discrete GPU support. Maybe it was there, or not. Who’s to say?

Funny thing, too. Jon duped the SSD, and guess what? Bam, early SteamOS version—circa September 30, 2020. He stumbles upon three accounts, but there’s this tricky ‘34’ account that’s locked tighter than a bank vault. Seems like an intriguing mystery, right? Like, who even crafted this backdoor vault of secrets?

Steam Deck swoops in as a game-changer, no doubt. While the Nintendo Switch set the stage back in 2017, Steam Deck’s the real star of the show now. Suddenly, everyone’s scrambling—Asus, Lenovo, MSI—they’re tripping over themselves to craft something that lets you carry your PC games anywhere. But hey, didn’t Nintendo kind of spark it all? Or maybe nobody really noticed ’til Valve made a splash.

And, yeah, if you’re into tech stuff (aren’t we all?), you might want to latch onto Tom’s Hardware—apparently they’re dishing out these juicy tidbits and reviews straight to inboxes. Could be worthwhile, could be spam. Whatever floats your boat.