CIV 5 is also on Switch, that handheld also got praise for good on/off UX.

Curious, does anyone own both devices? Is there any noticeable difference in device sleep support between Steam Deck and Switch?

Switch's sleep is probably a little better. I think waking up is slightly faster, and it discharges less battery while it's asleep.

The main feature I notice to be lacking on Deck in this regard is that you can't download updates while the device is "off." This doesn't really affect me personally because I can do background downloads with the kind of games I play without issue, but if I played AAA FPS type games I would probably find this quite annoying, since those games generally have large downloads and also require as much disk performance as you can muster.

I've been on the fence about getting one. The one thing that's slowing down my decision making is whether or not the matte anti-glare screen is worth the premium price, or if the regular screen glare is fine enough inside. Also seen some people say a screen protector works, but can bubble with the heat.

Happen to have any insight on this? $360 vs $540 on sale right now is tempting. Upgrading the storage to a larger NVMe is likely to happen either way, so the premium price would just be for the screen.

The screen on the 512GB model is glossy, not matte, but I haven't had any issues with glare on it. IDK about the 64GB and 256GB screens though

The 512GB comes with a “micro-etched” screen for glare reduction. It should definitely not be a regular glossy screen.

I'm about to disagree with another user. The 512GB version (The one I own) is best described as 'semi-matte'. You can use it inside and not worry about 90% of potential glare. Outside use: depends/sometimes able to use.

Based on videos I have seen online, the 'glossy' version is almost mirror-like. So ANYTHING would be an improvement over that.

I’ve had a good experience with an anti-glare screen protector so far. And there’s also the possibility of swapping the screen later, as it’s only something like $100. Although changing the screen is a bit of work, I think.

I have the 256GB version which has regular screen. Glare hasn't bothered me inside at all in the year and a half I've owned it. However, I have not played it outside - in the shade / twilight it may be OK depending on your personal threshold. In sunlight, forget about it :)

FWIW I've added a microSD card and it's fine. Updating the internal nVME is not on my radar, because the whole point of SteamDeck, for me and my personal use, is for it to be "play and forget", as opposed to a hobby in and of itself :). YMMV :-)

Note that there’s something like 30x difference between SD and NVME performance. Not an issue for smaller games, but definitely something to keep in mind for games that stream data. On the other hand you’re likely not using the largest textures and models games come with anyway.

That was my understanding as well of the upper limits of bandwidth of the two technologies.

But several folks around the interwebs have done practical tests of loading actual games from internal nvme vs external microSD in steam deck, and actual differences were far lesser than specs would indicate.