Steam Deck refreshed with OLED screen, 6 nm APU and more storage

Valve has pulled a Nintendo by announcing an OLED version of the Steam Deck out of seemingly nowhere. The Steam Deck OLED comes with a boatload of improvements, including a mystery "6 nm" AMD APU (as opposed to the 7 nm Van Gogh model on the regular version). It also uses faster LPDDR5 6400 memory instead of LPDDR5 5500. This should give it a significant boost in performance. Everything else about it, including the CPU cores, CPU CUs and TDP, remain the same.

The main upgrade offered by the Steam Deck OLED is its 7.4-inch 90 Hz panel with the same 1,200 x 800 resolution. It has a peak brightness of 1,100 nits and covers 110% of the DCI-P3 colour gamut. Touchscreen functionality is enabled with an advertised response time of <0.1 ms. Other improvements include the addition of Wi-Fi 6E and a larger 50 Wh battery. The latter, combined with the more power-efficient APU, should allow users to get more screen time out of it.

The Steam Deck OLED is also 30 grams lighter than its LCD-toting counterpart. While not significant at first, it will help reduce hand strain during long gaming sessions. Valve has also upped the maximum amount of storage from 512 GB to 1 TB. The Steam Deck OLED will eventually replace the existing model, which will be sold at a discounted price until stocks last.

Gamers can buy the Steam Deck OLED starting on November 14. The 512 GB SKU will cost US$549, and the 1 TB variant US$649. Valve is also selling a limited edition Steam Deck OLED for US$679 in the US and Canada only. It has a slightly different design than the regular version and will be available in limited quantities. Those looking to snag a Steam Deck for cheap can opt for the 512GB LCD version, which can now be bought for just US$449.

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