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

Sure thing, let’s dive into this wild ride. So, there’s this guy on YouTube, right? Managed to snag an early version, like a real-deal prototype, of the Steam Deck. Yeah, we’re talking engineering sample 34 or something. This dude, who goes by SadlyItsDadley on Twitter—yeah, Twitter’s something else now but I digress—connects with Jon Bringus from Bringus Studios, like he’s the ultimate archive guy or something.

Anyway, Jon gets his hands on this mysterious device and decides it’s teardown time. Just ripping the cover off for the world to see. And what do you know, there’s this weird paper inside marked “POC2-34 Control 163” — like a secret label or something. It’s kinda cool ’cause this is proof-of-concept 34. Seems Valve was just playing around with making a portable console back in the day. So Jon fires it up — tries a few games to see how it ticks, like testing an ancient artifact.

Visually, this prototype is a trip. The touchpads are these big circle things, unlike what we have now. And those joysticks? Tiny compared to today. It’s got these funky-shaped palm rests too. Oh, and the specs? Think an AMD Ryzen 7 3700U with 8 gigs of RAM, which is honestly decent for a test unit. It also boasts a 256GB SSD and some Intel Wi-Fi magic. It supposedly supports discrete GPU, but Jon couldn’t really check that out.

He does this whole cloak-and-dagger routine, copying the SSD to keep it just right. Sticks in the copied drive and bam! Early SteamOS and accounts already there, but that slippery ‘34’ account won’t open. Still, neat fact: this system was born on like September 30, 2020. Ages before the Steam Deck hit stores, so we’re peeking way back into its history.

Then comes the parade. Valve didn’t just make a cool console; they stirred up the whole handheld gaming scene. Sure, Nintendo laid down the law in 2017 with the Switch, but the Steam Deck? Yeah, it got the big PC hardware names looking over My shoulder. That’s how stuff like the Asus ROG Ally and Lenovo Legion Go popped up. Even MSI threw in a Claw for good measure.

So, hats off to this Jon guy and his escapade. Meanwhile, are you following Tom’s Hardware for the latest scoop? If not, maybe consider? They’re doing cool things, just saying.