Steam Deck - SteamOS, Zen2 4C/8T, RDNA2 1.0-1.6 TF, 16 GB LPDDR5 88 GB/s, starting at $399 [2021-12]

I would have been more interested in say a 7.5 or 8 inch 1280x800 oled with variable refresh.

Yes, this! More resolution is not really that valuable. 800p works just fine and is arguably the best resolution given the SOC's power. It's colour /brightness/glare shortfalls that could do with being improved.
 
Yes, this! More resolution is not really that valuable. 800p works just fine and is arguably the best resolution given the SOC's power. It's colour /brightness/glare shortfalls that could do with being improved.
I'm guessing 800p to 1200p FSR wouldn't be the worse thing for most games. But yea a better panel would have been better. But hey its something cool coming out. Soon enough we will all be waiting on a deck 2 lol
 
I guess not, in general. You'd probably run into the issue of folks over stressing performance on titles that are already 480p to FSR2 800p.

I think there are people who are really going to push the steam deck past what it is meant to play. They are going to always exist in the pc gaming world. I am sure in another year we will see them do it to the ROG also. But I think a lot of people will be fine playing slightly older games at native or newer games with FSR. Also FSR keeps getting better. So who knows how it ends up.

I can see people excited for this as they can wait for a sale and get the deck again for $360 + $100 screen mod so $460 + 1TB nvme for $80 so $520 ish all in on that.

But I do wonder when we will see a refresh on the deck. I wonder if the end of the next year with zen 5 rdna 4 might be when they launch. Think that might be too soon but maybe 2025 with zen 6 and rdna 4+ ?

Gotta start buying steam cards at Target when they do the buy one get one 15% and the 5% on top using the red card lol
 
Today my 2tb micron drive came in. The install took about 10 minutes while the software took about another 20 minutes including making the usb image stick
 
It's 20% off for the 512GB version only.

Discounts are 10% 64GB, 15% 256GB, and 20% 512GB. Which means the 256GB and 512GB are cheaper than the last sale (which was 10% across the board). But aftermarket SSD prices are now lower and more available. Also there is that Deck HD after market display as well.

The Dock is also on sale slightly.
 
Last edited:
It's 20% off for the 512GB version only.

Discounts are 10% 64GB, 15% 256GB, and 20% 512GB. Which means the 256GB and 512GB are cheaper than the last sale (which was 10% across the board). But aftermarket SSD prices are now lower and more available. Also there is that Deck HD after market display as well.

The Dock is also on sale slightly.
Oh thanks for the correction

Still the $360 for a 64 gig edition is a great deal for anyone who doesn't mind 15 minutes of time. A 1TB 2230 nvme is $80 and a 2TB is 150
 

Deck HD is taking preorders with shipment in 4-6 weeks. $100 cost

I am going to wait on reviews. But if its a good enough upgrade I might grab that along with a new front face plate instead of trying to remove the old screen from the front plate. Really wish someone had done oled along with a smaller border for the screen giving us more screen sapce

enjoy a breathtaking 1200p resolution upgrade from the standard 800p, combined with vastly expanded colours.

  • 1920x1200 Resolution
  • 7" IPS Display
  • 87% sRGB Coverage
  • 400 nits Screen Brightness
  • Anti-glare Coating
 
Steam Deck is on sale 'cos of Steam's 20th anniversary.

 
They didn't take the opportunity to upgrade the internals?
They promised there wouldn't be "Steam Deck 2" anytime soon, upgrading CPU/GPU would count as that in public eyes. There's other internal upgrades though, like Wi-Fi 6E, BT5.3 with dedicated antenna, 6nm soc, 6400 Mbps LPDDR5 over 5500 Mbps etc
 
No VRR (I think? I don't agree with their reasoning/viewpoint on this, especially for a company that otherwise seems to encourage power users/customization) still and only 90hz instead of 120hz is a bit disappointing and perplexing.

Otherwise overall this seems like the low hanging fruit revision that solves a lot of the first gen woes and came out slightly sooner than I expected (was expecting the 2 year mark).
 
Last edited:
Rich at Digital Foundry has a quick look. Quieter thanks to the new process and larger fan and about 3-8% faster thanks to 10% more bandwidth. He says it's the best handheld out there. I assume that includes the ROG Ally. I don't think he mentioned if the display had VRR, but apparently Linus's video mentioned it can't because of the display connector they used.

$30 extra for the limited edition one seems like a no-brainer if you're going for the 1TB model.
 
Norm from interviews a couple of Valve hardware bods after his review. As they've talked about before, V2 will only happen when there's a meaningful improvement to be had within the same battery/heat/form factor.

 
Otherwise overall this seems like the low hanging fruit revision that solves a lot of the first gen woes and came out slightly sooner than I expected (was expecting the 2 year mark).
Exactly what I was thinking, Valve had a list of common criticisms,problems and improvements and ticked off a lot of those boxes. OLED so reduced backlight bleed and much more accurate colours, improved contrast etc, slightly larger display/smaller bezels, higher refresh rate, improved touch screen, slightly improved efficiency with 6nm, larger battery, better wifi, more storage, slightly improved performance with faster RAM

No VRR isn't ideal because that's very useful to have but the rest of the upgrades are very good. This makes me want to wait for a deck 2 because they're serious about improving the device, even for a refresh
 
Back
Top