Do you need to leave the Steam Deck open to download something on i.e. Firefox in desktop mode or will it just download perfectly in standby mode? I know that it’s basically a PC and it should work but since I’m planning to get one I want to be sure.
No PC can download anything in standby mode. Only RAM gets power. So no, it cannot download anything while in standby.
I meant "on lockscreen" mode…sry
Yeah, that shouldn't be a problem. I don't bother with a lockscreen because the device is unencrypted and it never leaves the house anyways. But if you were to set one up in desktop mode all the programs would continue running normally in the background.
A lockscreen does prevent a thief from using your Steam account… unless you can boot to desktop mode before typing in the password, haven't checked that.
Quick question: does the Steam Deck go into "auto-sleep"?
This can be configured to your liking. Especially in desktop mode.
Thank you
You can trivially set your own password when you take out the SSD or boot from an external medium.
I'm not 100% sure about lock screen behavior since I don't have one set myself but I know it doesn't go to sleep as long as you keep it in the downloads page and it still has pending downloads, so I'd guess the same applies there.