Heads up, $5 Steam Deck reservations are now live on Steam

While Valve says it's putting in special measures to prevent bots and resellers getting their hands on its new handheld PC, the Steam Deck, if you want to get your hands on one this year you're likely going to have to move swiftly. Reservations are now open for the portable PC, and we don't reckon they'll stick around for long.

You can reserve a Steam Deck from today, July 16, at 10 am PT / 1 pm EDT / 6 pm BST / 7 pm CEST via the Steam Store. However, this only applies to people with Steam accounts that have made a purchase prior to June 2021.

For everyone that hasn't made a Steam account yet, or hasn't made a qualifying purchase, reservations will be available from Sunday, July 18.

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You'll need to pay a $5 (£4) reservation fee, which will place you in a queue for a Steam Deck. Once there's a Steam Deck available, starting December, users will be emailed in the order in which they placed their reservation. First come, first serve, hence why it's best not to dawdle

Who knows how long it will take Valve to work through what's sure to be a lengthy list of reservations.

Reservations will only be available for customers from the United States, Canada, European Union, and UK at first, with availability starting sometime in 2022 for the rest of the world.

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Jacob earned his first byline writing for his own tech blog, before graduating into breaking things professionally at PCGamesN. Now he's managing editor of the hardware team at PC Gamer, and you'll usually find him testing the latest components or building a gaming PC.