The Steam Deck is one of the most pop hand-held gambling PC on the grocery , allowing you to play the Brobdingnagian absolute majority of your Steam game on the go .

Valve has now launched a newSteam Deck OLEDvariation , which is n’t technically a successor to theoriginal Steam Deck , but take in alternatively as a gamey - remainder alternative .

Many assume that theOLEDscreen is the only discriminator between the portables , but this is not the case . We ’ve test both the Steam Deck and Steam Deck OLED , and so have highlighted all of the primal differences in this equivalence guidebook .

Price

The newer Steam Deck OLED is useable in the 512 GB and 1 TB models for £ 479/$549 and £ 569/$649 respectively . They will become the nonremittal models at those storage size .

The 256 GB LCD version has dropped to £ 349/$399 and will rest on sales agreement . The 64 GB and 512 GB LCD model have been phased out , although you may bump them discounted in third - company stores .

Screen

As the name suggest , the Steam Deck organic light-emitting diode has a display based upon theOLED technology , rather than the LCD in the original . The OLED panel allows the screen to display true blacks , rather than the glowering dreys you ’ll find with an LCD . This also further the contrast , lead in a more lifelike moving picture .

In the moving picture below , you’re able to see that the OLED silver screen ( bottom ) produces a clean image and more accurate colours , both for the yellow background and the contingent on the part . It makes a big dispute to the timber of the display .

What ’s more , the Steam Deck OLED supports HDR , with a top brightness up to 1000 nits . The original Steam Deck is restricted to a 400 - nit brightness instead . A vivid screen can not only result in a more vibrant motion-picture show , but also makes the screen easy to view in coarse sunlight .

Valve has also increase the screen size from 7 inch to 7.4 inches for the Steam Deck OLED . That is n’t enough of an upgrade to make a meaning divergence to your experience , but it does at least shave away the chunky bezel . The 1 TB model of the Steam Deck OLED also adds glare - resistant drinking glass to the equality .

The final raise for the screen involves a encouragement to therefresh charge per unit , jumping from 60Hz to 90Hz . This can help make gesture appear more fluid , but only for games where the public presentation is high enough to beget enough frames . Valve has n’t improve the screen resoluteness though , which stay at 1280 x 800 .

Design

At first glance , the Steam Deck and Steam Deck OLED appear identical , but Valve has in reality added some minor improvements . The new Steam Deck OLED is actually 29 grams idle than its predecessor . That does n’t sound like much , but we could tell the devices aside from free weight alone with our optic shut .

Valve has also tweak the controls , with the parallel stick now boast more rubbing to prevent your fingers sliding off . The triggers now also have improved feedback for more satisfying propulsion . We also noticed that the haptic feedback on the trackpads has been tone up , making them more enjoyable to use .

by from a new orange - paint ability button , the rest of the blueprint remain the same . The Steam Deck OLED utilise the sameUSB - Cpower port , while all of the same push make a return .

Specs and performance

The Steam Deck OLED has been treat to a processor raise in the form of a 6 nm AMD APU compared to the 7 nm variation of the original Steam Deck .

However , do n’t expect that to affect the performance , as our benchmark tests showed there to be a negligible difference . rather , the improved chip has been design to maximize battery living , but more on that by and by . On the upper side , there ’s a larger fan inside the handheld this time , which we found to keep it cooler than the master .

The new AMD poker chip does at least enable Valve to upgrade wireless support from Wi - Fi 5 toWi - Fi 6E. Valve enjoin this could be 3x faster for downloading content and could unlock more stable on-line shimmer with lower reaction time and increase bandwidth . There ’s a gravid fan inside the handheld this time , which means it ’ll run a little cooler .

The OLED manakin also comes in a new 1 TB storage capacity . antecedently , the largest usable Steam Deck was 512 GB , which greatly cut back the turn of game you could install without have to endue in a MicroSD placard .

Battery

One of the biggest acclivity for the Steam Deck can be found with the battery life , as Valve has not only increase the sizing of the cell but also slapped a more efficient central processor inside .

While the 40Whr stamp battery on the original Steam Deck suggest 2 - 8 hour of run - time depending on the activity , the 50Whr Steam Deck OLED promise 3 - 12 hours in total .

This guard up in our testing too . When dimming the brightness and confine the figure charge per unit to 30fps , the Steam Deck OLED was able to last over three hours when running Horizon Zero Dawn . In the same test with the old Steam Deck , the portable could only last up to two minute .

We also found that bet less intensive secret plan , such as Stardew Valley and Football Manager , saw the assault and battery lifespan last much longer .

Verdict

We were very impressed with both theSteam DeckandSteam Deck OLED , both excelling as affordable hand-held systems that can take on almost any microcomputer game .

The Steam Deck OLED is empty the ranking twist of the two , not only sway an OLED screen , but also seeing more storage , long barrage fire life and a light design . However , these upgrades are arguably reflected in the price , as it costs £ 130/$150 more than the LCD model .

If you may stretch out your budget , we recommend you opt for the Steam Deck OLED model . But if you ca n’t justify that much money on a gaming arrangement , then the LCD example remains a great leverage .