The Steam Deck 512GB. It gave me a realistic pathway to replay classic games I love, while bringing AAA titles to a playable state on the go. As someone who travels pretty regularly both for work and personally, having a portable way to play games like Cyberpunk 2077, Stray, etc. as well as run emulators for Skies of Arcadia, Chrono Trigger, et al was a huge step up. The ergonomics are great, it gets fair battery life, and it works exceptionally well docked in Desktop Mode. The Steam Deck made it possible for me to reasonably game again after having missed having a proper gaming PC for a number of years.
M1 Macbook Pro 14". I don't know how to entirely put it into words, but this recaptured what I loved about my MBP from 2015, and did it better in every way. I'm truly impressed with the engineering and the form factor, it just "feels right", in a way that my 2017 and 2019 MBPs do not. A big piece of this is a return to the prior keyboard design, getting rid of the unnecessary touch bar, and bringing back useful features like the SD card slot (this replaced my 2015 MBP as my carry along during travel for photography). And, maybe the surprise for me above all else, is it has EXCELLENT battery life. Realistically using it for 11-14 hours on a single charge, and it's been great at playing Mac games off Steam.
IV-Works AV3 Custom Ergonomic Keyboard (AV4 is now available). Getting ergonomics right for my home office has been literally life changing. On the previous thread I mentioned the Evoluent vertical mouse, and with this keyboard and that mouse, I was able to pretty much solve my thumb and wrist pain without requiring surgery. I bought into both after finally going to see a specialist about my hands and wrists, and after an adjustment period my typing speed is back to what it was beforehand, and I was able to avoid the recommended surgery. I essentially have no pain anymore, and I still get to use the heavy mechanical switches I'm used to.
You don't need to emulate Chrono Trigger unless you want to play the SNES version (fair enough if you do). The Steam version itself is fine nowadays. Same with a lot of Final Fantasy games. Obviously, emulating is cheaper due to not buying the games, which tend to be expensive.
I actually own all of them through Steam as well. I just find the emulated experience to be better. In the best case, many of the PC ports were simply an emulator with a wrapper anyway, in some of the worst cases they subtly broke the controls. Most of the PC ports from Square have been horrific historically, and while I do own all of them, I massively prefer playing in an emulator.
Seconding the Steam Deck - it's surprising how many games work well on it, and as a hobbyist game developer, it's great to run my own games on it. The fact that it makes a perfectly acceptable Linux desktop with zero tinkering blows my mind too.
Plus one on Deck. Fantastic product even though I was skeptical from the start. I’ve finished multiple games on it while on vacation that I wouldn’t have been able to otherwise.
I would definitely recommend the new M1 (and maybe soon the M2) Pro/Max MBPs. Thanks to work, I've gotten to experience first hand basically each generation of MBP, and 2016-2019 are hot garbage, IMO. I opted for an M1 Max and managed to snag it through Microcenter for $800 off MSRP, and it is everything my 2015 was and more, and smaller more manageable form factor (went from the 15" 2015 MBP to a 14" M1 MBP, which is effectively the size of the 13" from 2015).
If you haven't had a chance yet, try to get your hands on one just to try it out. You'll immediately see what I mean. It has both an SD card slot and an HDMI port built-in, which I think were two things that were inexcusable to remove from a "Pro" device in the 2016-2019 generations, and yet it doesn't feel clunky or bulky.
It must be the influence of losing Jony Ive who strove for minimalism. While I'd like a world where we could only use USB-C for everything, the reality is that this is not the case in the vast majority of areas.
I bought the cheapest steam deck and a 512GB SD card.
Turns out I use my steam deck for watching movies and as a portable linux handheld. I do play some games, but it's such a great form factor for a small beefy, uh, pocketop?
What's smaller than a laptop, larger than a handheld? Is that a pocket-top?
M1 Macbook Pro 14". I don't know how to entirely put it into words, but this recaptured what I loved about my MBP from 2015, and did it better in every way. I'm truly impressed with the engineering and the form factor, it just "feels right", in a way that my 2017 and 2019 MBPs do not. A big piece of this is a return to the prior keyboard design, getting rid of the unnecessary touch bar, and bringing back useful features like the SD card slot (this replaced my 2015 MBP as my carry along during travel for photography). And, maybe the surprise for me above all else, is it has EXCELLENT battery life. Realistically using it for 11-14 hours on a single charge, and it's been great at playing Mac games off Steam.
IV-Works AV3 Custom Ergonomic Keyboard (AV4 is now available). Getting ergonomics right for my home office has been literally life changing. On the previous thread I mentioned the Evoluent vertical mouse, and with this keyboard and that mouse, I was able to pretty much solve my thumb and wrist pain without requiring surgery. I bought into both after finally going to see a specialist about my hands and wrists, and after an adjustment period my typing speed is back to what it was beforehand, and I was able to avoid the recommended surgery. I essentially have no pain anymore, and I still get to use the heavy mechanical switches I'm used to.