Overnight, Valve announced a new and improved version of its hugely-popular portable PC gaming handheld, the Steam Deck, not with a full-fledged successor (though it says it’s still working on a next-gen version to launch in a few years) but with a Nintendo Switch OLED-style upgrade featuring a bigger, better screen, improved efficiency and battery life and faster Wi-Fi. It’ll be lighter and cooler, too.
It’s also called, somewhat unoriginally, the Steam Deck OLED.
Along with the introduction of the new OLED version, Valve is seemingly phasing out its current 64GB and 512GB options by offering them up at discounted prices, leaving the future line-up to be the 256GB “OG” Steam Deck, and then the OLED version in both 512GB and a new 1TB option. Here are the specs on each for comparison:
STEAM DECK
- 256GB NVMe SSD
- 1280 x 800 optically bonded LCD display
- 7″ Diagonal display size
- 7 nm APU
- Wi-Fi 5
- 40Whr battery; 2-8 hrs of gameplay (content dependent)
- 45W Power supply with 1.5m cable
- Carrying case
- Steam profile bundle
STEAM DECK OLED
- 512GB or 1TB NVMe SSD
- 1280 x 800 HDR OLED display
- 7.4″ Diagonal display size
- 6 nm APU
- Wi-Fi 6E
- 50Whr battery; 3-12 hrs of gameplay (content dependent)
- 45W Power supply with 2.5m cable
- Carrying case
- Steam profile bundle
The Steam Deck OLED goes on sale on November 16th but, of course, when you navigate to Steam’s store page to look at purchase options from Australia you’ll see this:
Sad times.
That said, there likely will be options to buy this through less-official channels much like the current Steam Deck, so if you’re keen to drool over this shiny new version of Valve’s portable powerhouse, here’s a slick video:
