Steam Machine

Very weird USB-C port placement choices...

- 2 USB3-A on the front

- 2 USB2-A on the back

- 1 USB-C on the back

If you want to plug an external USB hard drive or SSD at full speed, you'll need to plug it at the front? Or use up the only USB-C port...

I suspect most joysticks sold today come with a USB-C to USB-C cable, so if you want to charge your controller you either need to plug on the back, use an adapter, or get a USB-A to USB-C cable?

Also the single USB-C port isn't Thunderbolt/USB4, and they're only including gigabit ethernet, which is disappointing but perhaps understandable if they're trying to keep it at a low price.

You'd be wrong C to A is still pretty standard for controllers in my experience.

As for gigabit fewer and fewer people have ethernet routed to their office/TV area much less >1gig networking to take advantage of anything better than a 1 gig.

I agree that gigabit Ethernet is adequate for the type of product this is. But I do find it funny that the Wifi chip on this is very likely capable of 2Gbit. We somehow entered a world where WiFi is typically faster than Ethernet.

What do you mean some how?

Most people can't or wont retrofit their homes with wired networking. Those that did in the last couple decades likely used cat5/e.

The demand in the consumer space definitely favours advances in wifi.

For pretty much all computing history wired has been faster than wireless. And it seems reasonable that high speed wired should be simpler and easier than wireless. It's only just in the last few years the speed of wifi in devices has overtaken wired.

It almost seems silly to even include a wired port when the wifi chip is faster.