Steam Deck OLED announced! Specs, Pricing, Digital Foundry analysis, and more!

Steam Deck OLED got a 9/10 from ign.

Steam Deck people are Spectres.... Not lemmings or Cows or sheep... Nor pure manticore. We can go anywhere and play anything (except really demanding games.😂 Lol) Spectres... please refer to us as such....

@TheEroica:

This is gonna flop so hard. Worst than the original flopped. The original should have had OLED, now that the ones that were tricked into buying one, you want be able to trick that same niche crowd twice. Major miss by Valve.

Should have waited a couple years and done a more powerful one with an OLED.

I agree. The original Switch should have had an OLED screen.

@Pedro: Amen, they would have sold a lot more than 132 million if they did. OLED upgrade came 4 years after release. Steam Deck coming after less than 1. And most Steam Deck orders didnt come till closer till the end of 2022 and still got cooked.

Same here, I would have been all over this had I not already had a SD. Looking forward to see what they eventually do with a proper sequel if the refresh is that good.

@Pedro said:

@TheEroica:

😂

@iambatman7986: "I expect the same upgrade will happen with the PS Portal. PS Portal OLED for $249.99 in 2024-2025."

PSportal should be $50 period. It's does nothing besides connect to PS5.

Edit: Isn't this thing supposed to come out soon? Where is the buzz.

I am guessing the first generation of Steam Decks were more of a market test run to see if there is a viable market for people that want to play PC games portable and on Linux at that. Valve wasn't making much money on the first generation Steam Decks or at the very least the cheapest model. The affordable price of the Steam Deck made it enticing and the user retention and growth meant that there is potential growth and viability in the market for it. I guess Valve decided to invest more into manufacturing and supplies of the Steam Deck since it has received great reception.

Gotta remember Valve isn't a major hardware manufacturer or distributor like other companies so they don't have the resources or connections to get parts at low prices for massive bulks or have their own hardware they can repurpose for another product like PC OEMs do. For example the Lenovo Legion Go is using the screen of the Lenovo Legion Y700 Tablet that they already produce to keep the cost down. Hence why the Legion Go can be the same price as the ROG Ally and only $50 more than original LCD Steam Deck w 512gb SSD but have a significantly better screen when it comes to color vibrancy.

It is also the reason why the crowdfunded handheld PCs like Ayaneo, GPD, and Onexplayer cost a lot more and tend to sell their devices in limited bulk because they aren't large manufacturers or even large companies in general so making one per order on demand can be costly.

The APU of the Steam Deck isn't the newest thing anymore and better tech is out so naturally a more efficient revision will come out for cheaper. Similar to how when the consoles get slim models a few years after at no substantial cost because enough time has gone by to get the tech more smaller and efficient without driving up cost too much.

Where do Windows Handheld users fit in? We are not gonna start another Windows Vs Mac Vs Linux war are we?

I really do not see how some users on this forum believe the Steam Deck, even with the upcoming OLED version, would compete against the Nintendo Switch. Both appeal to different markets.

If Steam Deck is to effectively compete against the Switch, it needs to appeal to the broader gaming demographics that the Switch appeals to. I see the Steam Deck to appeal to PC gamers who do not mind playing on a portable device which represent a minority of PC gamers.

@TheEroica: you can't be called specters that's too cool

You can be Hermit Crabs, or crabs for short

Since Steam Deck makes you a small hermit.

Crabs is good

@Star67: 😂

@TheEroica: Doesn't it make you more of a manticore if you have a Steam Deck? So what's a manticore with a Steam Deck?

Looks like they are phasing out non oled models..$100 off! Soon all you'll be able to get is the OLED models...hmmm

@NoodleFighter:It's all just PC at the end of the day. Separating a PC and a steam deck would be like separating a Desktop PC and a laptop. No one argues that Laptops are a different faction to PCs.

Anyone that argues that the Deck is a console: no. Just no.

@onesiphorus: yeah that was never going to happen. The Deck is in a much tougher sector of the market. People buy Switches to play nintendo games at the end of the day. It's also easier to use. The deck is competing directly against laptops, Desktops, other handheld devices (the deck was not the first of its kind). At the end of the day the deck is a PC. It plays PC games. It uses the same software. As much as I like the deck (and the PC handhelds in general: it's great to have a different way to play PC games) at the end of the day I would never recommend one to someone if they had no use for the portable aspect of it and mainly want to play PC games on the go. You can build a more powerful PC for the same money and a laptop is a more flexible device out of the box. This is even more true if someone is looking at higher end PC handhelds in the 1000 bucks range.

@girlusocrazy: As mentioned above: the deck is a PC (as are all the PC handhelds). If you have a Deck and a desktop PC then you have 2 PCs. So still a Hermit.

@osan0: I see their point, it operates like a console and is straightforward and convenient like a console, but it is not locked down like a console and you can install anything you would to a PC including whatever OS.

It has a console like UI. That's as close as it gets. But windows 8 had a tablet like UI...anyone want to argue that PCs using windows 8 are tablets?

In terms of straightforward and convenient: eh it's solid but no better or worse than a PC really.

we agreed on this, I forget what they were, but I think it was donkeys or something. It has to be an animal

yes, this is good too. I think crabs is a great name

Besides, we can call every handheld pc gamer a crab...theres a lot of factions now, not just the steam deck but the rog ally and legion go, and whatever else is going to release.

Give a Steam Deck and a similarly powered PC to a kid and see how far they get with each, and how many times you have to go back and help with each.

For my own out of the box Steam Deck experience: I started it up, put in my details, ran all updates and restarted. Then i Installed Arperture Desk Job (the tech demo for the deck) and booted it up and....the controls didn't work. Restarted the game. Controls still didn't work. Restarted the system and it was grand after that.

Wireless was also dropping intermittently. Needed to enable developer mode and disable Wireless power saving to keep it stable.

If i was a kid, clueless in the ways of troubleshooting, that would have been a call to the parents pretty quickly.

It's possible to accidentally buy games that won't work on steam OS. It's not even hard to do that. If the parents also don't know much about PCs and dont know about the green tick thing then that would easily lead to a lot of confusion.

Many games still need messing with the settings to get the best balance of visuals, performance and battery life (very very few games have a steam deck pre-set. For those that do, not all of them are optimal).

Valve have done a god job of trying to tame the craziness that is the PC to some extent but there is only so much they can do. The Deck is not console simple. It's not even close. It really is just a PC in a different form factor.

Damn it! I tried sneaking Spectre in there before anyone thought of something better.... Crabs it is.... 🦀🦀🦀🦀

@osan0: I agree that Valve has done their best to tame the PC with the Steam Deck, it's a marked improvement over standard gaming PCs. You're also right that the nature of the PC is a hassle and it may never be hassle free, that's the unfortunate nature of the PC, but Steam Deck is very close, if you can't use a console it's the next best thing. Their first try at first party consumer hardware outdoes the competition.

If you look at any review of the Steam Deck, one consistent note of praise is for the ease of use, even over other handheld PCs that also attempt to improve the standard PC experience.

My kids have access to both, and there is a gulf of difference in the ease of use. They don't need help, but almost every time on the PCs I need to do something for them.

It's so close to console operation that it makes sense to draw comparisons with that rather than comparing to standard PCs.

Steam Deck gamers are still hermits. The thing is a PC.

Honestly, not even trying to be mean now, but why is Valve wasting their time on this? Valve have never had a hardware success story. Most of their success is software based (Steam, Half-Life, Portal, Team Fortress, etc). Sony actually had a successful handheld, the PSP which sold ~82 million, and even they had to bow out of the race when the PSVita flopped with 15 million sales (which is more successful than the Steam Deck will be). So why is Valve wasting time and money on this? Legit question...

Sort of want

The Steam Deck is a resounding success. They wouldn't have made an OLED model if it wasn't.

Your looking at it through a console lens and defining it's success on that. 2 very very different markets.

The steam deck is just another PC at the end of the day. It's a different PC model but still a PC. It competes directly against laptops, desktops and other PC handhelds (not to mention the consoles). It has to sell on the merits of being a handheld gaming PC....that's all it has going for it.

For someone who has no use for a portable gaming device, the deck is a complete waste of time for them. For someone more focused on work and just want's to do light gaming: a laptop with a portable mouse would be a better setup. It has no exclusive games. No one makes Deck software. It just runs PC applications at the end of the day.

Arguing that the Steam Deck is a failure is like arguing that a specific laptop model is a failure because it didn't sell 50 million units. In the PC hardware space, something doesn't need to sell in vast quantities to be a success. Some PC hardware is only made to sell in the 1000s or 10,000s. The PC hardware space in general is a very competitive space.

oh dang

Well said, the Steam Deck is enough of a success that it has motivated big PC manufacturing brands like Asus and Lenovo to make their own handhelds. The Steam Deck likely sold 3 million at least by now since Valve confirmed they sold multiple of millions and the report before that the numbers were close to 3 million. ROG Ally sold 400k units in its first two months. There is already an all intel based PC handheld in the works.

@SolidGame_basic: That's why I didn't get the 512GB OG model. And if you want that etched glass, just put a screen protector that has it on top of your normal Steam Deck ¯\_ (ツ) _/¯

OLED is very nice. Nicer colours, better contrast, better pixel response times. Just all round better in terms image quality. For gaming it's nigh on perfect. It's also a 90Hz screen instead of 60Hz. So a bit smoother motion too (and it makes 45FPS gaming a bit nicer also).

The only downside to them is the risk of burn in and some of the trade offs recommended to mitigate it. For a gaming handheld though it's not really an issue. It will probably take years before that becomes a problem. On the switch the OLED screens have held up well since release. A youtuber call Wullfden or something has had a switch OLED running under the worst possible scenario for OLED (A bright static image constantly on 24hrs a day) and it took, i think, 18 months before some burn in was noticed. That's worst case scenario though. Under normal usage for a handheld it wont be a problem.

The Deck oled does have some other perks. Better battery life. Better acoustics. Generally just more refined all round under the hood. It's not really more powerful though (it has some more memory bandwidth. That's about it).

As I say: i wouldn't upgrade to one if i already had a deck. But if i was in the market for a deck, the OLED model is a no brainer.

@TheEroica: convince me to get the Steam Dead OLED

Convince you? Lol, only you can do that. I don't know that it's the device for you honestly. I guess that if I had to appeal to your sensibilities I'd say, do you remember having that fantastic library on your vita? This is that with a bigger screen, now a better screen, and an even more fantastic library that you'll actually get to keep. Do you miss vita style gaming? Steam deck is your answer. It's all that and more....

F***K yeah. I'm not going to upgrade either as I only play Retro games on my Deck. But, I play most of my main PC games on my LG C2 OLED. OLED is absolutely amazing. Those lovely inky blacks....