Valve Steam Frame Review: Costly and Inconsistent

It’s aesthetically pleasing, with a sleek black shell and glossy front that have given it a futuristic look. More importantly, it’s comfortable to wear, weighing 440 grams—75 grams lighter than the Quest 3. Valve smartly moved the 21.6-watt-hour Lithium-ion battery to the rear of the head strap for better balance, and thanks to cozy padding, it doesn’t feel hot against your head, even when running demanding games. The cable linking the battery to the headset makes adjusting the elastic straps a little fiddly, though.

The only real comfort drawback is if you wear glasses. While the Steam Frame comes with a spacer to add more depth (which easily clips on magnetically between the inner headset and the padded face gasket), the internal dimensions were still too narrow for me to wear with any of my spectacles. Custom Zenni prescription lenses are available if contact lenses aren’t an option, but it’s a pricey add-on.

Once it’s on your head, dual speakers push audio down the arms directly to your ears, with physical volume controls easily accessible on the left side of the headset. The audio lacks bass but has good directionality, bringing those immersive VR experiences to life. Dual microphones let you use voice controls, while outward-facing cameras enable positional tracking and provide a pass-through view—albeit monochrome with everything looking bluish. A dial at the top lets you adjust lens spacing to your required interpupillary distance, and an inner switch locks it in place.

The lenses themselves are decent, but again not spectacular. Valve uses two LCD pancake lenses (though rumors already hint at a revised OLED model), with a per-eye resolution of 2160 x 2160. That means sharp visuals and legible text—I could easily read fine details on notepads in Half-Life: Alyx, for instance—but you can discern pixels if you peer closely. The real win comes with a 110-degree field of view, enabling wide spans of virtual real estate, and refresh rates ranging from 72 to 120 Hz, with an experimental mode boosting it up to 144 Hz. As a result, games can look incredibly smooth when running on the Steam Frame.

The controllers might be the best part of the package. The dual grips mimic the Quest 3 controllers but outdo them with a full controller layout spread across the pair. They boast the same highly precise Tunneling Magnetoresistance thumbsticks as the regular Steam Controller, along with a full D-pad on the left, four ABXY face buttons on the right, two shoulder triggers and an underside button on each—squeeze that in, and the grip switches from controller mode to laser pointer to make selections in VR.

Position detection is great, with full six-degrees-of-freedom tracking, while excellent haptics deliver solid rumble and per-finger capacitive sensing for nuanced, precise interactions with virtual objects. You can also pair a regular controller to the Frame via Bluetooth, but the included ones are so good you likely won’t ever feel the need to—these are now the pinnacle of multipurpose VR controllers.

What Will Play?

Photograph: Matt Kamen

After setup—a now-familiar routine for VR gamers that includes running necessary updates and drawing safe boundaries so you don't knock into furniture—you’ll sign in to your Steam account directly on the Steam Frame. It runs SteamOS 3 just like the Steam Deck or Steam Machine, the familiar home screen now floating in a VR void. Navigate to your library, and you can install whatever you like directly onto the Frame.