I was convinced for me it would be the 90hz refresh rate, or the improved touchscreen/haptics - but the moment I picked up the new OLED I knew my answer straight away:
The 30g they removed from the weight.
I’m sure that sounded minimal and inconsequential for a lot of us when we heard about it, but when you pick it up, you feel it immediately.
The original steam deck was always a bit too heavy for me to hold comfortably. Especially as I struggle with a disability which makes me pretty weak in general.
Now the device is so much more comfortable to hold. I can actually pick it up and hold it with one hand now, whereas before it would always overbalance and I could never keep it straight.
What’s the best upgrade from your experience so far, if any of you are lucky enough to have an OLED now?
Does that not introduce significant input lag when playing action games? I haven’t tried streaming anything from my PC yet.
With my PC always connected to our router via ethernet I’ve measured about a frame of lag at 60 FPS. Streaming at 90 FPS will definitely help mitigate that but there will always be some.
I’m really sensitive to input lag and I find it more than playable for anything I’ve thrown at it so far. I probably wouldn’t play CS or Halo on it though.
I’ve played Nier Automata, Spider Man, and Assassin’s Creed Odyssey for hours streamed to my deck and not once did I ever feel frustrated by it. It’s astonishing really.
I’ve even read that an even snappier experience can be had with Moonlight, a third-party streaming app so I’ll have to give that a try.