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.
this post was submitted on 10 Sep 2023
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Steam Deck
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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
I dunno, the Deck is already getting slightly negative press for being behind spec-wise compared to the other portables out there. Might not be worth increasing worldwide availability if everyone already thinks its about to become outdated. Maybe they can have Deck 1 and Deck 2 in parallel just at different price points, kinda like how the Series S and X does it.
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.
The dream? User swappable battery. I would gladly trade up for that
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.
Increased serviceability, especially when it comes to the battery.
Dual USB ports, one on top and one on bottom.
Hall effect controllers.
Increased efficiency/performance of course
Maybe a slightly bigger/better screen
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.
2280 nvme slot
OLED screen
Bigger battery
More efficient APU
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.
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.
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
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.
- 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.
An OLED screen and a more efficient APU (I don't care for more performance, seeing other handhelds, better performance for 15W is still some years away), that way it can either provide more battery life or the same with an slimmer battery
Deck lite.
My personal and never-asked-for wish is fairly small - Backlit buttons. Id like the ABXY and Steam/start/select/Menu button to have a faint glow to them with a toggle on/off/dim in the menu. Maybe even the analog stick could glow where the current sticks are white.
For the gen pop I think the low hanging fruit of upgrades people would actually be interested in would be:
- Battery upgrade, or some kind of switch-like efficiency upgrade that makes the battery much more effective
- Some kind of screen improvement, be it smaller bezels or an OLED option or even both.
- A general change in the ergonomics based on user feedback. I personally like the deck as is but Ive been surprised by stuff I didnt notice before
Beyond that its going to be niche improvements that some people may find interesting and others not so much:
- SD and USB slot changes (additions, change in position)
- Various internal changes with the hard drive or upgradability options
smaller bezels
This would be great, plus a stretch or fill option. Bezels plus letterboxing is so annoying.
Better rumble/haptics differentiation
Hall effect sensors, and I want to be able to pair the deck with my computer and use it as a controller.
You can sorta already use the deck as a controller iirc. You can stream a game to your deck and still have it display on your PC. Just turn your deck screen brightness down and play.
Another m.2 and an optional 5g modem would be choice to me.
Assuming this is a refresh of the Steam Deck (Doubtful) or a Steam Deck 2 (If this happens, Ill eat a slice of pizza with double olive and double pineapple), I’d like the popular ones here, and A DECENT BLUETOOTH CHIP!
I'll take a larger screen, the 7" is far too tiny for me for almost any game with text or captioning. Something in the 9" or slightly larger range would be golden, and you could get most of the way there by getting rid of the bezels. The actual Deck itself wouldn't have to be that much bigger to accommodate the rest.
I don't think it'll ever happen, but I'd love to see the right side trackpad and thumbstick swap places. I use the trackpad 95% of the time and I keep wishing it was in the better spot.
At the very least, a weight decrease and a bit of a more comfortable ergonomics for long term play sessions, really tired of handhelds that end in a straight vertical line that make you have the wrists in tension instead of having a similar end to controllers like the one from xbox where your wrists can be without that much tension.
I would say a APU with some RT Cores, and maybe 1080p. If not 720p OlED will be fine. I know this is likely to compete with the ROG Ally and Lenovo Legion both of which have 1080p screens
I don't think raytracing on a 15w power budget is going to happen anytime soon.
The APU thats in the deck already has "RT cores". At least, inasmuch as any RDNA2+ device has them.
Though I really doubt this is an updated deck, and much more likely to be "Deckard".
What is Deckard?
The rumored standalone VR headset from Valve
1080p is so unnecessary at this size IMO.
Better display, better form factor/ergonomics.
Current ergonomics are pretty good in my experience, but I do have larger hands. How would you like to see them changed?