Everything you've said is true, but I don't think it really applies to this case where they're asking about officially refurbished Decks being sold directly by Valve. The price of a standard Steam Deck is well established here, and any discount will be an actual, real discount on the product.
A bank I used for a mortgage has mandatory text message 2fa if they think you're on a new device (won't allow google auth/etc). And web browsers like firefox/brave block enough cookies/etc that it requires the "new device" authentication everytime I log in.
Problem is, for a couple months there was some delay with their text messages. It would take 10-20 minutes to send your 2fa code, and the code would expire after 5 min, meaning that by the time you got the code it was always expired and unusable.
Made it completely impossible to log in to pay my mortgage payments. Led to some really frustrating talks on the phone about how I didn't want to pay with a credit card over the phone, I wanted them to fix their damn system so I could log in and pay via bank transfer like usual.
I did know that. I usually use the "gyro + flickstick" combination for fps games on the deck though, so the lack of a right thumbstick on the original steam controller means I still can't use my preferred gyro control scheme.
My biggest frustration with the original steam controller thought is that I can't get the BLE firmware update to work properly. I can use it with the original firmware, but trying to install valve's BLE update (so that the controller can wake the steam deck from sleep) results in a non-functional controller until I downgrade.
They're pricey for sure, but they have a lot of unique options and I imagine the production numbers are pretty low, so high prices are to be expected unfortunately.
The metal buttons in particular can have the surface finished in different ways to match your desired texture.
Yeah seriously. I have an original steam controller, but I want something that has the full layout of a standard controller plus track pads/back buttons/gyro.
You should check https://deckbuttons.com/
They have a bunch of different buttons from different manufacturers, and a good variety of materials.
Tbh I only bought this trackball because it was super cheap, and I wanted to evaluate if I could get used to a trackball. I can check the brand/model when I get home, but it's a thumb-ball. Main nice feature with it is that it supports both bluetooth and usb wireless.
I'd like to try a fingerball as well sometimes, I find thumb ball plenty useable, but I don't think I could do nearly as well at FPS games with it vs a traditional mouse (I might just need more learning time though). I think a fingerball might be better for me.
Probably not what you're looking for, but I recently picked up a cheap bluetooth trackball mouse for my Deck. I already have good controllers, so I was looking for something that would let me play mouse heavy games while the deck was docked.
When did you try it? The experience is much better now (imo) than it was at a launch, but it still doesn't run as well as I would like.
Real steam controller needs more buttons and another joystick though. When many games are designed around a standard controller, the steam controller can be awkward to use.
I haven't really seen it on Lemmy as much, but Kamala losing to Trump has led to a lot of incredibly racist discussions on Reddit and Twitter. There was a very popular reddit thread the other day discussing how to best get Hispanics deported to punish them for voting for trump.
Feels like there's an increasingly strong idea that racism is ok as long as it's targeting at undesirable people, as if that's a new concept and isn't how racism has always been justified.
I think there's a good chance that we'll see an official sale on Steam Decks for black friday. If you're wanting a good deal on one, I would consider looking at the discontinued LCD models during the next sale.