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MagyarCertifications indicate imminent launch of refreshed Valve Steam Deck
It appears that Valve is preparing to release new hardware. Last month, the company certified a device with the model number 1030 at South Korea's National Radio Research Agency. For context, Valve assigned model numbers 1007 and 1010 to the Valve Index and the Steam Deck, respectively. Thus, it was unclear whether Model 1030 was a new gaming handheld, VR headset or something in between.
Now, a new Federal Communications Commission (FCC) certification has confirmed Model 1030 as an updated Steam Deck. For reference, Valve has not certified the device itself. Instead, details about Model 1030 have been revealed by Quectel, the manufacturer of the original Steam Deck's Wi-Fi and Bluetooth module. As the screenshot below shows, Quectel has updated its certification with the FCC so that Valve can sell a Steam Deck with its FC66E module.
According to Quectel's website, its FC66E module supports Wi-Fi 6E (6 GHz) and Bluetooth 5.2. For reference, the original Steam Deck makes do with 2.4/5 GHz Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 5.0, despite its release little over a year ago. In other words, it would appear that Valve plans to bring connectivity improvements to the Steam Deck at the very least, although Model 1030 is only certified for 5 GHz Wi-Fi in South Korea.
While it would be easy to imply that Model 1030 is a Steam Deck 2, Valve has repeatedly stated that it has no plans to release a more powerful Steam Deck until 2025. However, Quectel's certification negates full radiation emission retests, which implies that Valve is keen to push Model 1030 out soon. To that end, SteamDB now contains three Steam Deck IDs, likely 64 GB, 256 GB and 512 GB SKUs. In short, Model 1030 is a refreshed Steam Deck of some kind. Unfortunately, there is no suggestion that Model 1030 is anything other than a minor update at this stage.
