Surprising probably no one, most people use the Steam Deck as a handheld

Recently, I ran two different polls to find out how people with a Steam Deck used their device (or if they didn't much) and the results are out now.

The key thing about the Steam Deck, is that while it is a handheld it's also a full Linux PC with a desktop mode. Many docks are available for it from different brands now and even the official Docking Station from Valve is out and has been for about a month now.

So I was keen to find out how what percentage of people actually used it mainly docked, partly also because I use now the vast majority of my time with it docked. Turns out, not a whole lot of other people do.

From over 4,000 votes on our YouTube Channel:

While on our Twitter from over 1,000 votes paints a very similar picture.

What a shock, over 70% of people using a handheld use it as a handheld. I know, it's not breaking news but I found it interesting, because of how much I use it docked myself and how I've seen a lot of comments of others doing the same. Turns out though, it's a really small amount of people overall.

I suppose it didn't help that the docked experience wasn't great at release, and it still has plenty of issues now, like I noted in my article on the official Docking Station not always displaying on my TV.

Another bit I wanted to highlight, was a really interesting comment on the GOL YouTube Channel about this from user "MechanicalMonk", which I can't link to as the original poll was removed to add an extra missed option. Anyway, they mentioned that people buying the Switch would have done so anyway because it's Nintendo and many people use it exclusively docked as it just happens to be a handheld (although, there is the newer handheld-only Lite). On the other hand, people would have been far less likely to buy the Steam Deck if it wasn't a handheld and so it favours that. Just an interesting thought.

What do you think? How do you use it?