Thoughts On The Steam Deck OLED

I have always loved my Steam Deck. I had planned on writing about it, but I guess I never felt the need to because people who know what the Deck is already know that they want it (or don't). But as a quick rundown: it's probably my favorite console I've ever owned since the PS2. The combination of Steam and Emulation means that it can run pretty much every game ever made. It's shaped to fit my mr. krabs voice big, meaty claws, unlike the Switch. I can dock it and play it on my TV, or chill and play it on my bed. And with Steam Cloud, I can switch over to my PC and pick up exactly where I left on on nearly every game I own.

Long-story short, the thing absolutely slaps. So when the Steam Deck OLED got announced, I went ahead and grabbed it right away, with plans to sell my OG Deck to a friend.

Man. I'm glad I did LMFAO the OLED makes the original Steam Deck feel like a fucking prototype. It's like they took all of the criticisms of the original, already great unit to heart, and set about fixing the problems. The screen is fantastic - this is my first OLED console, and the colors pop off of it and make games like Tevi and even pixelated fare like Coromon look absolutely gorgeous. The screen of the OG Deck was probably my least favorite part of it, which is why I spent more time with it in docked mode. The bezels were so big I hated it. Not nearly as much of a problem here.

Beyond that, the whole system just feels infinitely snappier. Navigating menus is smooth as hell now, pages load about 2000 times faster, and the upgraded networking is super noticeable.

The battery life is much longer, which I'm appreciative of, because I like when my portable consoles are actually, you know, portable, and don't require me to be anchored next to a plug. I don't play more graphically intensive games anyways, but Tevi on the OLED Deck could last me as long as 7h 30m - not that I'd ever play a game that long nowadays anyways, lmao.

The Touch Screen also feels way more responsive, which I didn't even know was a noted improvement. The original Deck's touch screen was pretty clunky - very noticeable in desktop mode. Now I don't feel like I'm fat-fingering keys or buttons, and can swipe around easily.

Okay but the biggest improvement? The weight. I'm genuinely so surpised more official outlets haven't sung the praises here. I held both Decks at once to feel the difference and it was so stark I audibly whistled. I could barely hold on to the OG Deck one-handed for more than a few seconds before my wrist tired out, but the OLED I could for two minutes.^[1] This is a huge plus, because I am old and my body is made of paper mâché. The easier you make it to hold your console, the more I will use it.

Anyways if this reads like a fucking ad I'm sorry, but I really really enjoy the OLED Deck lol. Literally no notes. I can't wait to use it even more in the future.