This could be the Steam Deck dock to beat - Chizha Mount Ling Dock review

Valve's Steam Deck needs no introduction. The portable gaming handheld that runs SteamOS, offering a console-like experience with access to Steam's vast library of titles, is a fantastic little unit. Its popularity has even led to the current rise of PC gaming handheld devices, such as the ROG Xbox Ally, as well as paving the way for Valve's next big thing - the Steam Machine. Ever since its debut, the 'Steam as a console' quality of the Steam Deck has made it feel as close to something like the Nintendo Switch as it has a portable gaming PC.

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However, unlike the Switch, the Deck doesn't ship with a dock, so if you're looking for a place for it to sit to charge or connect to a TV for some big-screen gaming over HDMI, your only option is one of the countless Steam Deck Dock products on the market. As expected, these come in all shapes and sizes and price ranges, but if you're after something premium with innovative features, style, and the capacity to install a 4TB M.2 SSD to have your library ready to go, look no further than the Chizha Mount Ling Dock from Dockcase.

Yes, it's a weird name, and yes, it has RGB lighting (which you can adjust or turn off if it's a distraction, but the Chizha Mount Ling Dock is an impressively designed but not perfect piece of hardware. From the full-featured display and touchscreen interface to the active cooling and broad support for features like controllers and wired Ethernet, let's take a closer look.

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The Chizha Mount Ling Dock Up Close

The Chizha Mount Ling Dock is a sleek unit with an angular sci-fi-inspired design that draws inspiration from the world of Night City and Cyberpunk 2077. The broad base offers ample room for the Steam Deck (seen here with the OLED model), with its rubberized and grippy texture allowing you to tilt and place the handheld in a range of different angles. The vents on the back of the Steam Deck are always kept clear of obstruction. In the box is a single high-speed cable for connecting the Dock to the Deck, with the option to use Valve's official USB-C charger or another third-party 100W PC charger for power.

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This leaves you with an HDMI port, a USB 2 port, a USB 3.2 10Gbps Type-A and Type-C port, Gigabit Ethernet, and an Optical port for connecting the dock to an amplifier or speaker system. Having wired Ethernet and Optical connections is great, and not something you often find on other docks like this. Ethernet, in particular, is great for streaming from your desktop gaming PC to the Steam Deck with minimal latency, allowing you to play titles that the Deck's hardware might struggle with.

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There's also a dedicated power button on the Chizha Mount Ling Dock, with the vents delivering cool air to the Steam Deck thanks to the built-in high-speed up to 5000 RPM fan. Yes, the Chizha Mount Ling Dock features active cooling, which is a great way to run the Steam Deck at full power when gaming without relying on the Steam's internal cooling at 100% capacity. Although a dock like this doesn't make gaming on the Steam Deck faster, it does make it cooler and quieter.

Storage Expansion and a Touchscreen That Works

On the underside of the Chizha Mount Ling Dock, you'll find the storage expansion slot, which allows you to install up to 4TB of M.2 SSD storage in the standard 2280 form factor. The cover plate features vents for airflow, eliminating the need for cooling concerns. With the included screwdriver, this process takes just a few seconds. For this review, we installed an older WD_BLACK SSD and were impressed with how quickly it copied games and installed new titles, with around 100GB copied in just a couple of minutes.

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Which brings us to the centrepiece of the Chizha Mount Ling Dock, the display. Nestled between the RGB prism lights, the tempered glass touchscreen not only offers detailed information on HDMI connections, network traffic, and SSD stats, including data usage, temperature, and even health information, but also provides access to the dock's many features. From the touchscreen, you can easily adjust the lighting, fan speed, or cooling profile, and check the status of the various USB ports. The only thing missing is the ability to display data from Steam, such as download progress, which we believe is a missed opportunity. That is, if that's even possible.

Ultimately, having a touchscreen on a dock for the Steam Deck could have been a gimmick, but the clean UI and detailed information you get (which is to be expected from Dockcase) make it a welcome addition. Is it something we could live without? Probably, but we're glad it's here nonetheless.

Best of All, It's Plug-and-Play

The Chizha Mount Ling Dock simply works. As soon as we installed the SSD and connected everything up (the Steam Deck, a USB controller, and an Ethernet cable), we were good to go. On the SSD front, if your drive isn't formatted for the Steam Deck, there's a chance it might not show up on the handheld's settings to format, which is a minor hiccup requiring you to shut down into Linux on the handheld or reconnect it directly to the handheld with an external SSD enclosure via USB-C. Other than that, it's smooth sailing, and with the Chizha Mount Ling Dock, we spent several hours playing Hades II, Megabonk, Hellclock, Deep Rock Galactic Survivor, and other games from the comfort of a couch. All the while, keeping tabs on the display, the active cooling remains relatively quiet (using the more balanced profile) unless you're really close.

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The Chizha Mount Ling Dock is currently available at a discount via the dock's Kickstarter page - with Early Bird pricing starting from as low as $109. For this review, we were provided with the Chizha Mount Ling Dock by Dockcase for the purposes of evaluating it and sharing our thoughts. With the crowdfunding campaign (it's already smashed through its initial goals) closing in a week, if you're a Steam Deck owner in the market for a premium feature-packed dock, you can't go wrong.