Valve very sneakily announced a brand new Steam Deck today by way of the early reviews from a variety of TechTubers. It is officially called the Steam Deck OLED and as its name implies, the revised console features one of several long requested improvements by the community: an OLED panel instead of an LCD.
And it’s not just your bog standard OLED panel either. The new display also has a higher refresh rate of 90Hz, versus the 60Hz that the original Steam Deck’s LCD display was limited too. It’s also bigger than its predecessor at 7.4-inches, but the console isn’t any bigger, nor does the new OLED panel take up additional space. How did Valve do this, you ask? By reducing the size of the bezels and increasing the display’s real estate. Physically speaking, the chassis of the new Steam Deck OLED is basically identical to the launch model, as proven by Linus Sebastian of Linus Tech Tips, who gave a demonstration of the fact by fitting dbrand’s casing for the original Deck. On that note, he also showed that the same screen protector would also fit by cocking up the installation process.
But as our sub-header says, it’s not just the display that has been updated with the Steam Deck OLED either. Beneath the hood, the handheld houses a new 6nm custom AMD SoC, presumably made by TSMC, and is an upgrade over the original 7nm chipset used in the original Deck. Like the original, the new console still comes with 16GB LPDDR5 memory but unlike its predecessor, the new memory modules are clocked at 6,600MT/s, compared to the 5,500MT/s on the progenitor handheld.
There’s also the new battery inside the Steam Deck OLED too. Valve’s bumped the capacity up to 50WHr battery that it says should charge faster and lasts up to 50% longer than the original 40WHr in the original Deck. That being said, the new Deck OLED will still ship out with same 45W charger that Valve usually bundles with its console.
Then there are the Quality of Life (QoL) updates on the Steam Deck OLED, both internally and externally. Beneath the hood, Valve has updated the Wi-Fi module to support Wi-Fi 6E, which again is a bump up from Wi-Fi 5. Oh, and there is also a new antenna for Bluetooth 5.3. On the exterior, the new console comes with newly designed thumbsticks that features both a new texture and profile for your digits. For those who are wondering: no, they sadly aren’t hall effect joysticks. As explained by Linus, Valve told him that the reason they aren’t using hall effect joysticks is because it was “unsatisfied with their reliability at this time”. Valve also says that cooling has been improved, thanks in part to the new and more power efficient 6nm chipset, and a new cooling solution that is inside. Oh, and the power button is now bright orange.
As for the SKUs available, Valve is still providing three option but there is no longer a 64GB option. Instead, the based model now start at 256GB, with a 512GB model and new 1TB model variant. That being said, The base model is essentially the last generation’s model, and doesn’t come with any of the new features, while only the higher capacity models will.
Pricing starts at US$399 for the 256GB model, US$549 for the 512GB OLED, and US$649 for the 1TB OLED models. There is also a highly Limited Edition Steam Deck OLED that comes with a transparent casing and orange colourway but that will only be available for purchase in the US and Canada. And on that note, the console still isn’t officially available for purchase in Malaysia, meaning that we will have no choice but to wait for 3rd party resellers to bring the handheld in via the grey market.
(Source: Valve, LTT, Digital Foundry)
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