Still waiting for a good deal on the OLED model to convince myself to upgrade from the LCD. I'm hoping the holiday sale this year might bring some deals.
I upgraded to the OLED model when it came out. The screen looks much nicer, has a faster refresh and longer battery life. I definitely recommend it over the original, but it is a steep price when you already have one that works fine.
Last I heard was that the steam deck wasn't getting a version 2 update until there was next gen hardware to match it. Gaben isn't a big fan of regular sub five percent hardware refreshes that other companies are happy with.
Might be a name thing though. They did the OLED update, but it's not called the steam deck 2.
If they want Steam Deck to be a legitimate platform to target for developers - which seems to be the case and which seems to be working - they practically need to make sure they’re not refreshing it every 2-3 years with a spec bump. I’d personally be very surprised if Valve releases the next generation Steam Deck before 2026.
God, if this ends up with the steam deck 2 powering a standalone index 2 with redesigned knuckles 2 that can be used standalone as a Steam Controller 2...
It's a fantasy, absolutely. The controller part especially probably wouldn't work. But... I can dream.
If they want to keep the Deck's reputation of being able to run "most" PC games, they'll have to make a new model sooner rather than later. I'm guessing they're waiting for AMDs beefier RDNA 3.5 iGPUs. Pair that with more and faster memory and they should be good to go.