The ‘Steam Brick’ Is A Steam Deck With No Screen

The Steam Deck is arguably one of the best PC gaming inventions of the last five years, the Steam Brick on the other hand might be another story. What’s a Steam Brick, you ask? Well, it’s not a new piece of hardware coming from Valve. It’s actually a mod that was created by a Steam Deck owner who just wanted something lighter and more portable. Crastinator, the self-proclaimed “random guy on Reddit” lays out the entire process of turning their Steam Deck into the Steam Brick over on their Github page.

The whole thing actually seems rather genius. Crastinator states that while the Steam Deck has been a game changer for travel, it came with a lot of inconveniences. According to them, it often wouldn’t fit in their backpack and it was usually a hassle to pull it down from the overhead bin on planes. So they cooked up an idea to remove the screen and built-in controllers to make something that was much smaller.

The result is the Steam Brick, a smaller, and thinner housing that is about the size of the Steam Deck’s display. A rectangular Deck that has no screen or built-in controller. Crastinator also admittedly says they “are not a smart man” and that this is a really terrible idea. Primarily because there’s a good chance users could actually “brick” their Steam Deck for good.

You may brick your Steam Deck in the process

While Crastinator lays out how they managed to get this thing going, they’re also advising that if people choose to follow in their footsteps, they’re doing so at their own risk. He says that he’s also “surprised it works” and that he has no idea how long the Steam Brick will survive.

Case in point, maybe don’t do this. Even though you could follow Crastinator’s process. Because who knows if you get the same results. That being said, there’s nothing wrong with admiring Crastinator’s work. It’s a pretty cool concept. Especially since it does work and the setup for playing games is handy.

Without a display or a built-in controller, playing games is still possible. Crastinator plugs in a pair of Xreal Air 2 Pro AR glasses and hooks up a wireless controller. So they end up with the screen and controller needed.

Battery life is very similar

Crastinator admits that proper testing still needs to be done. Having said that, they state that playtime with the AR glasses seems to be pretty similar to the regular Deck with the screen on. So, that’s kind of a win. Although, the ROG Ally X still likely has the best battery life of all PC gaming handhelds. Additionally, Crastinator mentions that the Steam Brick is about a third of the size of the Deck, and it’s about 24% lighter.

All-in-all, this is a cool mod that’s fun to read about. While it’s not recommended that others try this, it can still be admired. And admire it you should.