ive fucked up both my shoulders at work and holding anything longer than half an hour gets painful. the deck is the best device ive found in that regard. i love my deck. i 100% say get one, well as long as its officially sold there or if you can get a good portion of the cost back by selling it.

Something that can help is a nursing pillow. it wraps around your front and acts as an arm rest.

I will touch on heat here. The heat the device produces stays entirely on the main slab, and you can’t feel it where you hold the device. It will throttle pretty hard if it gets too hot. Undervolting can help with this.

Well, most things probably get heavy if you’re holding them for many hours. It all depends on your posture and seating arrangement. Can you lean on a table or desk? Playing on transit? Are you sitting on the couch? Standing somewhere? If you can find ways to lean your arms and hands on something, it can help a lot.

There are also lots of cases and stands that can prop up the Steam Deck so you can play with a controller, which is a bit lighter. You have lots of options.

I sometimes get pain in the palm of my hand. That only happens if I play long enough to plug the steamdeck in one sitting.

It’s definitely heavier than say, a Nintendo Switch. But I got used to it quickly… and don’t have issues holding it. When playing in bed, it typically rests on my chest anyways.

As for heat, I find the fan noise (for demanding games) is more annoying than any heat being generated. And for non-AAA games, you can limit the power to keep it from running loud/warm.

I don’t personally find it all that heavy, honestly. I’ve been able to use it for a few hours on end, namely when I first got it, and I can’t say I had any arm or hand fatigue.

I never really notice it but I usually play it while I’m lying down and using my legs or belly to prop it up. I also have a blanket for support too!

Yes, it’s heavy. If you rest your elbows on a flat surface holding it, you will get numb over time.

If you stop doing that and pay attention to how you’re holding it, it’s significantly less fatiguing than the switch is out of the box.

It’s actually more comfortable to hold than a Switch, in my opinion, and I wouldn’t say it’s too heavy, but I suppose that could depend on how your sitting/laying to play it? As far as the temp/heat goes, some games warm it up more than others, but even when it’s really getting pushed I’ve never been uncomfortable with the heat of the device. As others have mentioned, it’s honestly a fantastic handheld. ALL of my time has been dominated by Tears of the Kingdom lately, but I’m looking forward to getting back to the Deck soon(lol, it probably won’t be that soon, TotK is a massive game)

I’ve found that the ergonomics of Deck really help to make it feel lighter than it actually is. I’ve happily held mine for ~45 minutes at a time with my elbows resting on my chair arms. As another commenter mentioned, it’s worth keeping an eye on your posture (I’m definitely really bad with this - leaning over playing my Switch, Deck or reading a book)!

I think the main limiting factor here is battery life. But nowadays I’m never that far from a plug point or battery bank to be fair.

The only time I find it kind of cumbersome is when I’m trying to kind of lounge or slouch out on the couch and I’m propping my elbows up against something. That’s because the propping combined with the muscles in my arms gripping the thing is causing poor circulation.

Simple fix, don’t do that.

Otherwise the biggest issue is posture. Hunching over a screen for prolonged periods is gonna be bad no matter how light the thing is.

To put it another way, I have a gaming pc and I haven’t used it to game since I got my steam deck a couple months ago.