Most {hardware} hackers don’t want an excuse to tear their tech aside, however this complete Steam Deck conversion may be a step too far for many. A modder has taken a Steam Deck, eliminated the display screen and controller, and compressed it down right into a single box-like chassis referred to as the Steam Brick. Not within the identify of science, however simply in order that the hand held can lastly match into their backpack.
The Steam Deck is among the greatest gaming handheld PCs you should buy, kickstarting an entire trade of transportable PCs with their very own screens. This explicit modded Steam Deck now has extra in frequent with a set-top field than a handheld, and whereas we wouldn’t advocate you attempt it your self at house, it’s definitely a singular strategy to downsize your gaming setup.
The small print of this explicit construct had been shared on GitHub by crastinator-pro. Describing himself as “not a sensible man” and confirming that it positively isn’t Valve endorsed or accepted, crastinator-pro confirms that whereas the Steam Deck provides nice portability, they discovered “as a rule” that they had been leaving it at house as a result of it didn’t match of their bag.
In fact, most avid gamers may simply purchase a brand new backpack as an alternative, however crastinator-pro had a special method. As an alternative, they took a 1TB Steam Deck OLED and tore it down, ensuring that the hand held would boot with out options such because the show or battery hooked up.
With this confirmed, crastinator-pro made a number of customizations to the inner aluminum motherboard body earlier than 3D-printing a customized plastic chassis (the so-called brick) to put it in, reusing the unique battery pack and fan, whereas ditching the show and controls, leaving only a USB port and energy button. The all-new Steam Brick is “a few third of the scale” of the unique, whereas additionally being 24% lighter, in accordance with crastinator-pro.
With out the display screen, the Steam Deck is usable by way of an exterior monitor, though crastinator-pro prefers utilizing XReal Air 2 Professional AR glasses whereas he’s on the transfer. To interchange the Steam Deck’s built-in controls, the modder additionally makes use of a wide range of completely different third-party controllers, together with an 8BitDo Professional 2 and SN30 Professional. Crastinator-pro is even contemplating a number of extra further enhancements, similar to a USB hub and a secondary battery, to enhance on the unique Deck’s design.
This isn’t a mod we advocate as such, nevertheless it’s intriguing to see how adaptable the Steam Deck’s elements might be. If you’d like a handheld gaming rig your self however don’t fancy tearing it aside like this hacker did, you may try our Steam Deck OLED assessment to see our ideas on the unique.
