this post was submitted on 10 Sep 2023
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Steam Deck

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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?

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[–] [email protected] 57 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (3 children)

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.

[–] Anonymousllama 10 points 1 year ago (1 children)

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.

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[–] [email protected] 33 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Things I don't need:

  • OLED

  • Smaller bezels

  • 1080p

  • More advanced controller buttons (DS5 triggers)

Things I want, in priority order:

  • Higher efficiency everything (mostly SoC) for better performance, lower battery drain or both

  • FreeSync

  • Bigger battery

  • Two M2 slots

[–] BloodSlut 6 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Two M2 slots isnt something Id even thought of, either that or 2280 form factor support would be great

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[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago

On the bottom, for better/easier docking.

[–] Anonymousllama 3 points 1 year ago

Battery life / capacity would be great upgrade.

[–] [email protected] 30 points 1 year ago (1 children)

The dream? User swappable battery. I would gladly trade up for that

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago (2 children)

That'd be so nice. With a very small internal battery so you can swap batteries without turning it off

[–] smajl 7 points 1 year ago

That sound nice on paper but reality is different. I have had two laptops with double (24Wh)batteries (Lenovo T450 and A485) and batteries in both of them degraded fairly quickly compared to other single-battery models.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

Or even just living on charger then, but yeah that would be sick!

[–] [email protected] 15 points 1 year ago (1 children)

an upgraded Wifi chip, the deck's kinda sucks

id also like either VRR or OLED

[–] mordack550 7 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Why does it suck? Asking because i wanted to buy a deck and i will definitely use it for streaming.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

it doesn't handle 5ghz very well, which leads to insane artifacting and input lag spikes

[–] mordack550 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

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

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[–] twistypencil 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

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

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[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 year ago

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

[–] CosmicSploogeDrizzle 13 points 1 year ago

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.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (3 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 year ago (1 children)

For the filesystem, I would recommend checking out this btrfs filesystem conversion for Steam Deck.

I've been super happy with it.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Never new that was a thing. I was gonna just install the fedora based alternative.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (2 children)

How much space gains do you get?

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago

On my SSD, I have 517G of files using only 410G of space.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

On my desktop using a compression level of 3 ark with all the dlc and mods went from 300GB to 186GB

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

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

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

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.

[–] eek2121 11 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Strip it down and make a Steam Machine out of it. Valve could likely sell a tiny set top box for under $100.

[–] [email protected] 17 points 1 year ago

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.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 year ago

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.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago

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.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago

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

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

2280 nvme slot

OLED screen

Bigger battery

More efficient APU

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)
  • 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.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago

An OLED display with slimmer bezels, and a battery that uses more user serviceable glue

[–] woelkchen 6 points 1 year ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago

I'd love a ps vita 1000 sized deck

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I would love adaptive triggers like the PS5 controller

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

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.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

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

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

Better rumble/haptics differentiation

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

A better APU with no Pluton and a Freesync screen are the only things I can think of at the moment.

[–] Lonnie123 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

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
[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

smaller bezels

This would be great, plus a stretch or fill option. Bezels plus letterboxing is so annoying.

[–] morgan_423 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

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.

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