I enjoyed my SD LCD but found it lacking in several areas. Yes, the OLED screen gets a lot of the spotlight, but there’s much more going on with this new model and overall it feels like a massive upgrade to me:
- OLED screen: it’s beautiful, significantly better than the LCD, 90Hz and fast OLED response time is very noticeable and makes even browsing around the menus much smoother. The increased screen size is more apparent in person than you’d think too and feels more appropriate to the overall size of the device.
- The -30g weight: I really didn’t think this was going to be noticeable but wow am I wrong. You immediately notice the weight reduction upon picking it up and the whole unit feels a lot more balanced and comfortable to hold.
- The buttons: every single button feels better, crispier, and more tactile to use. D-pad feels amazing, bumpers and triggers are wonderful, even the “Steam” and “***” buttons are so much nicer with noticeable tactility now. These two buttons were one of my big gripes before as they felt mushy and inconsistent.
- Trackpads: much, much improved, haptics are strong, the usability has been improved, they’re more enjoyable to use now.
- Joysticks: no more need for an extra cover or anything, stock they feel really great.
- Materials: Maybe they didn’t change the plastics or anything at all but it certainly feels like it. Something about this SD OLED case/shell just feels more premium than the original. Call this one placebo/honeymoon effect but the device feels nicer in the hands than before.
- Fan: this is so quiet compared to the original, even the Huaying fan.
- Charging cable: that extra 1m length is so nice.
- Audio: I had no issue with the original SD speakers but this is just nicer, no doubt about it.
- WiFi 6E is such a noticeable boost in speed and performance.
The list can go on and I’m sure I’m going to get some eyerolls for this post. But the SD OLED feels like a way bigger upgrade than I expected. The whole device just feels more premium, more comfortable, snappier, smoother, etc.
My expectations were already super high with this device and somehow Valve exceeded them.
brother forgot the battery upgrade
lol
I agree with a lot of what’s on this list, but yeah battery would be my #1 here. It went from very bad to pretty okay.
I don’t think I would care for it… tripple a games pull so much battery so it wouldn’t even matter, you’ll need a plug anyways and everything else it’s good enough for.🤷♂️
Sure they pull a decent amount of power but how many hours are you actually away from a wall socket? Like if 3-4 hours of non stop gaming isn’t enough for you then I dunno what to tell ya
I played almost 4 hrs of Control last night on a full tank. I shut it down with 5% battery. I really should’ve stopped earlier
I get 4.5 hours of Mass Effect LE at 90 fps, it’s insane.
🔋🔋🔋
and 6nm soc instead of 7nm
That’s the main reason why I got rid of my launch Steam Deck. This improvement has me potentially reassessing
If you’re not trying to play super graphically intensive games then the battery life is fine on the Deck. The only time I ever had issues with it was when I was playing Tomb Raider because apparently I don’t play too many graphically intensive games.
I have a Switch that just works better for playing Indies and games on low settings. I got the Steam Deck largely to play the “console quality” modern games that Switch can’t handle. And for those games I was getting like 1.5-2 hours (tops). That was fine for around the house use. But I realized very quickly that the battery drains really quickly when you’re trying to keep yourself entertained on a flight over seas (and the AC doesn’t work or doesn’t have the juice to charge or keep a charge).
That was when I finally bit the bullet and upgraded from a launch Switch to an OLED.
Also not immediately apparent but the faster charging and better ram speed
Yeah, I tested the charging speed using a Jackery (with a display). It shows the OLED Deck pulls almost 50W when charging now. Typically about 47W.
Wish my flagship smartphone would charge at 50W!