In the leaked info, we know that Valve has an upcoming device that will use the same APU as the current Steam Deck. We don’t know if this will be a new VR headset or a Steam Deck hardware refresh. Even though using the same APU means there won’t be a performance increase, there could be various other improvements in an upgraded Deck like a better screen, etc. What would you like to see in a partial hardware upgrade?
Unpopular opinion but I’d rather see wider worldwide availability before having a hardware refresh. Getting more Decks out there should be on top of the list before trying to sell upgrades, specially when the current deck does so much already.
Still always supprised when I see Australia getting shafted when it comes to initial product launches. It’s fine though, it just means I won’t buy your product, no ones out there except for enthusiasts are doing to gray import these things.
I waited patiently for about 6 months then I said fuck it they’ll never open shipping for nz and aus so I brought it from Europe and got it shipped. Cost me 3x the price lol.
It is a bit head scratching, but I have no idea what goes into world wide logistics. And now in the states they are even offering refurbished Decks, so they certainly appear to have enough product at this point to open things up. But maybe they dont have enough to open them up without creating another multi-month long backlog they dont want?? Who knows
Things I don’t need:
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OLED
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Smaller bezels
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1080p
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More advanced controller buttons (DS5 triggers)
Things I want, in priority order:
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Higher efficiency everything (mostly SoC) for better performance, lower battery drain or both
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FreeSync
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Bigger battery
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Two M2 slots
Two M2 slots isnt something Id even thought of, either that or 2280 form factor support would be great
Just switching to 2280 would be enough and would take the same physical volume as a pair of 2230s.
Also another USBC port
On the bottom, for better/easier docking.
Battery life / capacity would be great upgrade.
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an upgraded Wifi chip, the deck’s kinda sucks
id also like either VRR or OLED
Why does it suck? Asking because i wanted to buy a deck and i will definitely use it for streaming.
it doesn’t handle 5ghz very well, which leads to insane artifacting and input lag spikes
This is sad to hear. What streaming app do you use? Steam Link or Moonlight? On my Shield TV moonlight is insanely better than steam link
I used xCloud actually. It handled Moonlight/Sunshine moderately well but steam link sucked
Compared to my laptop or phone, when I’m in the furthest spot away from the AP, it will drop out. Other devices stay connected, just slow down
I noticed that yesterday with my deck, I was a bit far away from the AP yesterday and while my phone was connected fine the deck wasn’t able to connect at all; it put a pause on me trying to resume AC6 on the deck until I could get it back in range to update.
My guess is this will be a hybrid VR headset that can play games standalone a la the quest, as well as via PC via tether or wireless.
I don’t really want a steam deck refresh if there is no performance improvement tbh.
That being said, 8"+ 1080p HDR screen with more nits would be nice. Maybe some dual stage/adaptive triggers.
VRR would be the #1 upgrade. A mobile chip with mobile thermals and a mobile battery cannot consistently keep ahead of the screen refresh. The screen has to be the one to step down to where the APU is at.
Hall effect sticks, mandatory. My factory sticks started acting up after about a year. The Dreamcast could do it, don’t tell me that they’re too bleeding-edge expensive.
Squeeze a 2280 SSD in there instead of the 2230. I would give up SD and move the radios to a soldered miniboard for this.
Stop gluing the battery down.
I know HDR is in the works on Linux same with VRR but that’d be nice to see sooner rather than later.
Just a little bit more RAM. I know 16GB is a good amount but it is shared with the on-board graphics so at least 4 more gigs should help a lot
I think using a filesystem that supports transparent compression would be nice to as well as zram but that might hurt battery life.
For the filesystem, I would recommend checking out this btrfs filesystem conversion for Steam Deck.
I’ve been super happy with it.
Never new that was a thing. I was gonna just install the fedora based alternative.
It works really well, and it will convert your main filesystem without you having to reinstall or anything.
In addition to compression, it also will deduplicate files and set up a scheduled deduplication process.
Apparently, you’re getting both HDR and VRR on the current Steam Deck soon. Currently, in the Preview version, soon-ish in stable.
Announcement: https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1675200/view/3686804163591367815
I’ll be honest, I’m still having a problem understanding the draw of HDR. In about 99% of the places I watch…anything…there is ambient light which increases the black floor to a dark gray. I’m already losing the bottom 2-4 bits of depth to the room lighting and screen glare, giving me more fine control of gradients just makes for a slightly more nuanced (but still indistinguishable) dark gray (assuming I don’t readjust my gamma every time I play, or when the train turns and the lighting is now coming from another direction) . The wider color gamut could be nice, but it would require a much, much better screen.
I know it’s not happening, but a more powerful APU is probably my number one.
OLED screen would be my second. I don’t really care about a higher resolution though.
2280 nvme slot
OLED screen
Bigger battery
More efficient APU
There’s nothing that would make me get a half upgrade like that. But I would like to see improvements toward a steam deck 2. If this gets an oled screen, I’d like to see a model in number 2 with an oled screen
Strip it down and make a Steam Machine out of it. Valve could likely sell a tiny set top box for under $100.
The motherboard alone supposedly costs Valve somewhere around $270, so even with them selling the hardware at a loss I don’t think there’s any chance of getting a set top box for $100.
An OLED display with slimmer bezels, and a battery that uses more user serviceable glue
- Larger, OLED screen
- Hall effect sensor sticks
- Better rumble
- Support for 2242 m.2 drives
- Second SD card reader
- Better cooling (I’d gladly have a lump in the back middle if it allowed for a quieter/better fan)
- Better accessory connection options (eg a standard for attaching stuff like extra batteries to the back) - I would prefer this to adding more battery (ie weight) to the unit itself.
- Tweaks to the back buttons so they work no matter where on the button you press
- Some sort of charging dock connection standard to avoid the manual usb connection. Maybe just a usb-c on the bottom
- Small case design change to prevent sd cards being snapped when opening (I haven’t done it, but only by luck)
- Replace the carry case with a plastic cover to protect screen/sticks like dbrand’s (or at least make it a lot smaller)
Better performance/more ram would be good too I guess but honestly having a unified platform with fixed specs to target has a lot of benefits.
I would love adaptive triggers like the PS5 controller
I was very surprised it didn’t ship with those at launch, so there’s likely some licensing or patent issue with Sony over them. I wouldn’t expect to see them outside of Playstation controllers anytime soon.
Deck lite.
I’d love a ps vita 1000 sized deck
A better APU with no Pluton and a Freesync screen are the only things I can think of at the moment.
