I doubt this is news to anyone here, but always good to see positive coverage of the Deck
While the Steam Deck deserves a lot of praise for the things it does right, like SSD upgrades and Valve’s warranty policies, we should absolutely not take it as an example of the perfectly repairable device.
The battery is glued with super strong adhesive, and it’s an absolute pain to take out. In fact, you’ll inevitably bend it which permanently reduces capacity. If you soak everything in isopropyl, you now risk damaging the screen and a few other components, and the adhesive still won’t fully give out. In 2003, the GameBoy Advance had easily replaceable battery packs.
Also, parts being available on iFixit is a major step forward. iFixit’s arbitrary internacional shipping policies are a major step backwards. Parts should be available on multiple sources, just like the device itself is sold from multiple sources.
Also, if the Dreamcast used hall effect joysticks in 1998, the Steam Deck should’ve used them in 2023 when virtually all game controllers are suffering from drift. Speaking of drift, do you know how many issues on the Deck are caused by not up to standard tolerances when assembling the shell? Several of them: from failing analogue triggers to screen bleed.
I absolutely love my Deck, and in the world of consoles, it’s a miracle just how open it is. But it still is far from what we used to expect from PCs and other consumer goods.
Valve employees have said in interviews that they didn’t want the battery glued down, but that with the battery expanding and shrinking during use they couldn’t keep it from rattling around unless they glued it down. Other companies have managed this, so it’s not an impossible issue. However it wasn’t something valve was able to easily solve.
As far as hall effect joysticks go, I’m not going to complain when none of the modern first party console controllers come with hall-effect. Microsoft and Sony have pro controllers for $150-200 that don’t come with hall effect sensors. Valve making the thumbsticks easily replaceable is enough imo. Things could be much worse, the Asus Ally uses the same type of thumbsticks as Nintendo Joycons for example.
I’m not going to complain when none of the modern first party console controllers come with hall-effect
I will, when there are cheap third party controllers that have hall effect, and some random company managed to make them for the Steam Deck itself.
There’s a massive difference between being able to get the quantity to serve the small number of people willing to tinker and buy niche controllers and being able to get the quantity to serve a mass market.
with the battery expanding and shrinking during use they couldn’t keep it from rattling around unless they glued it down.
I’ve never designed mobile hardware, but it seems like the easy fix for that would be to glue the battery to a thin backplane and then screw the backplane down; then people could just replace the battery+backplane as a single unit…
(ETA: but I’ll take a Steam Deck with a non-replaceable battery over any of the existing competition any day.)
You know what can handle expanding and shrinking and hold things in place? Foam, or I’m sure a dozen other solutions engineers have come up with for this problem over the last 50+ years.
Let’s also not forget that PCBs were supposed to be available, but Valve never released the calibration tools, so they were never offered.
My understanding on why the motherboard was never made available is because it was going to be sold for $350, and it wasn’t worth selling a repair part for that much when you can buy a new 64GB deck for $50 more.
Good points and well taken. For what it is worth I have probably 1000 hours on my Deck since purchase and the springs in the sticks seem a little worn (subjective feel) but I haven’t had any drift issues yet.
If it becomes an issue I will get hall effect sticks and replace them as a wear item like tires on a car.
I want to start out by saying I agree with everything you said, but I want to clarify by pointing out that Valve did trying to have a free floating battery but didn’t like how the console felt during testing. While they could have made a compartment I imagine the added weight and bulk (due to the battery shape) would not have been worth it.
I’ve replaced the screen and the fan. Both were pretty simple. I did fuck up with the screen replacement (didn’t reconnect the audio jack I think?), but you can disassemble and reassemble the whole thing pretty quickly. And the ifixit guides are really good.
I just got mine last week and have been playing it non stop. I had so many games that I wanted to play, but hate playing on a desktop since it’s more enjoyable to play when I’m with my wife and her switch or as she watches tv.
Such a big backlog.
I got the 64gb version and plan to upgrade the ssd at some point.
This. This is the main reason i bought mine, to just isolate myself less and play near my wife while she watches TV.
As someone who ordered the 64GB version, they never should have sold that thing. The entire thing gets filled with shader cache so fast. Not to mention any software you actually want to run on the device like EmuDeck, Chryoutils, Heroic Launcher, etc. etc.
That was my concern at first, but I figured it can be upgraded easily enough.
I used to do computer repair, so I’m not worried about doing to upgrade.
If it would just default this stuff to the SD card, I’d be able to hold out for much longer.
I got the 64gb version and just got a 1tb micro SD. It’s slightly slower but once everything loads it’s not noticable.
How easy are we talking? I have literally 0 experience doing anything like that. I do have basic tech knowledge, but I haven’t customized any sort of computer since the early 2000’s (and even then we’re talking simply installing a new graphics card).
I want a steam deck, but I want more, and faster storage.
It’s very easy if you’ve done anything like this before. I would definitely follow a full guide, but the basic process is that you have to remove the microSD, take a few tiny screws out, pop the back open, unplug the battery, take a few more screws out, remove the heat shield, swap the SSD, and then put it back together.
After that you need to reinstall steamOS on the new drive, so you need a way to plug a USB drive into the deck (a dock, type-c adapter, or a type c USB drive). You can install the steamOS recovery software to it following the online instructions, boot the deck into bios with the USB drive plugged in, pick to boot off the USB drive, and then hit reinstall steamOS once the recovery desktop loads up.
Only part where I’ve seen people have problems is by stripping out the screws on the back of the deck. You have to make sure you are using an appropriately sized screw driver and that you have it fully inserted into the screw before turning. This usually isn’t hard to do, but if you strip a screw it can be hard to remove it.
I upgraded mine before I ever even turned it on. Now I just wish I’d gone with the 1tb instead of 512gb. I did get a hub, that allows me to connect external drive enclosures. A recent update just enabled auto-mounting external drives, which is nice.
I checked and the 1tb is only about $30 more than 512, so I think I’ll go that route so I can just dump things without any consideration.
Right now I’m using a 256sd card and mostly playing roms, and a few oldish games so nothing too large in size.
Agreed. I love how moddable and repairable the Steam deck is.
I would like it to beasier though. I hope that one modular laptop takes off enough to become a widespread thing.
they are being bought fast enough that you can’t get them without pre-order so far
I imagine part of that is low production as well since they don’t strike me as a huge company by computer manufacturing standards.
