This week, gamers enjoyed a welcome surprise: The announcement of Valve’s new Steam Deck OLED. On top of offering the same great software system as the OG Steam Deck, the new Steam Deck OLED offers some minimal (but also important) upgrades to Valve’s handheld. Here are the major takeaways.
Steam Deck OLED specs
The biggest difference between the Steam Deck OLED and the LCD model is, unsurprisingly, the display. The new Steam Deck OLED offers the same 1280 x 800 resolution as the original, but that comes from an HDR OLED panel, which provides brighter colors and deeper blacks than the optically bonded LCD display in the original.
Additionally, Valve has expanded the Steam Deck OLED’s panel slightly, taking it from a 7-inch diagonal display to a 7.4-inch screen. It isn’t a huge difference, but it does provide a bit more screen real estate for gamers to make use of, without impacting the console’s overall form factor.
Here’s a look at the full specs Valve has offered for the Steam Deck OLED:
- Display: 7.4-inch, 1280 x 800 HDR OLED display, with 90 Hz refresh rate and 1,000 nits peak HDR brightness (600 nits typical)
- Storage: 512GB NVMe SSD or 1TB NVMe SSD (depending on the selected model)
- Chip: 6nm APU
- Connectivity: Wi-Fi 6E
- Battery life: 50Whr battery; 3-12 hrs of gameplay (content dependent)
- Size: 298mm x 117mm x 49mm
- Weight: 640 grams
What else has changed?
It’s not all about the display: The Steam Deck OLED has also received a other tweaks and updates that should help provide a more efficient gaming experience.
First, the company says the new 6nm APU is more efficient, while the updated memory should help improve latency and power management (of course, we won’t really know how the improved specs will translate to real world use until we actually get our hands on it).
The increased thermal module should also help with the console’s heat distribution problem. The original Steam Deck tends to get quite warm very quickly, especially if you’re playing a more processor-intensive game like Starfield or Red Dead Redemption 2. The company has improved the charging speed of the OLED model, promising you can charge from 20% to 80% in 45 minutes.
Valve also increased the refresh rate on the OLED to 90Hz, from 60Hz, and updated the peak brightness to 1,000 nits for HDR content, making the screen easier to see in bright light. (The original only reached 400 nits.) The touchscreen is also improved, with an increased polling rate. Upgraded Bluetooth and wifi support should also mean less latency when connecting controllers and other peripherals, and Valve claims you should see increased download speeds as well. That last point sounds like a nice upgrade from the original, as the Steam Deck LCD often takes hours to download games that would only take 20 to 30 minutes on my PC.
There are a slew of smaller changes, too, including the fact that the new model is slightly lighter (there’s a 29 gram difference in weight). One negative: Valve will not produce a 256GB version of the Steam Deck OLED—the Steam Deck now starts at 512GB, which means the entry level model costs more than it used to.
To buy the Steam Deck OLED…or a discounted Steam Deck LCD?
While the Steam Deck OLED is unquestionably the preferred version of Valve’s handheld console going forward, the company is still selling the Steam Deck LCD—at least until supplies run out. Steam is even offering the older system at a discount right now. If price is the most important factor for you, you can save $150 versus the cost of the Steam Deck OLED by going with the LCD model.
The Steam Deck OLED will officially release on Nov. 16. A 512GB edition will be available for $549, and a 1TB version will list for $649. If you live in the United States or Canada, you’ll also have the option to purchase a Limited Edition 1TB model for $679.