Steam Deck

Another big factor with the OLED deck is that it gets significantly more battery life. Especially in less demanding games, you can get 2x or even 3x the battery life of the LCD version (cries in LCD deck).

As for storage size, if you're comfortable replacing the internal M.2 SSD, I believe you can save a bit of money there by buying the smallest size model (+ you get a bonus smaller SSD which can be nice for some projects). There is an ifixit guide for it.

If you're not up for that and still want to save money, the micro SD card support is supposed to really good and practically indistinguishable from the internal SSD from what I've heard, but I haven't yet tried it myself.

Not saying they will be on sale as they are still very new, but the Steam spring sale is in 4 days, so there is a chance they might be discounted a little. I would recommend buying from Valve, they have very good support.

I'd go for the 512GB OLED, but if screen and battery life isn't a problem for you then the LCD version is still perfectly fine. If you plan on using it a lot though, treat yourself to that OLED ;D

You can put a micro SD card in, a good A2 V30 card will be absolutely fine for it, I have a SanDisk Extreme PRO (~$60 for 512GB) myself in mine, though I don't play heavy games on it. You can also replace the M.2 SSD in the Steam Deck itself if you fancied.

I bought the 512Gb OLED, and within two months decided I needed to upgrade the storage. I replaced the drive with a 2Tb drive, and I'm much happier. That said, I download a ton of stuff and keep it on there. I don't often play a single game straight through, so I like having the ability to have a wide variety at any given time. Replacing the drive is trivial if you're handy at all.

I would buy direct, I wouldn't trust getting something second hand. I'm sure plenty of people are selling their LCD for an OLED, but I would rather go direct unless you're getting an amazing deal and have some level of purchase protection.

Yes, I would go for the OLED. There is no OLED with 64 GB, only with 512 GB and one TB. Alternatively, you could go for the 64 GB IPS model, which is quite cheap.

Every Steam Deck can be expanded with micro SD cards. I don't notice a difference where the game is stored, but I also don't track startup times with a stopwatch ;) But please buy a decent micro SD card if you plan to extend your storage.

I suppose I want the OLED one. Is it ok to go for the 64 GB version

Yes you do. But there is no 64GB version. There's not even a 64GB LCD anymore. Minimum for OLED is 512GB.

But honestly the 64GB was a joke, even if you stored games on the SD card, the SSD would fill up with shaders pretty quickly.

I got the 512 OLED and I’m quite smitten with it. It’s actually my very first gaming “pc”.

Just a heads up that CS2 isn’t super enjoyable to play on the steam deck. Unless you’re really good with the gyro aiming, you’re going to get wrecked. I also had some frame drops when playing csgo. It’s possible that that’s gotten better with CS2 though.

I’d stick with the old mouse and keyboard for those games unless you’re somehow playing with folks who also have steam decks.

Get the lowest storage one and replace it with a drive you get from Amazon. My partner did it just by reading a guide online. No special tools necessary.

Check here if a cheaper refurbished model is available in your region: https://store.steampowered.com/sale/steamdeckrefurbished

I have owned both, the LCD and the OLED one and there really isn't that much of a difference.

I suppose I want the OLED one. Is it ok to go for the 64 GB version or should I go for the higher storage tier? It has expandable storage yeah? Or is that not reliable or fast enough?

Depends on what you care about. If you can afford more onboard, it'll be faster than an SD card. Some people say to buy the smallest one and install your own SSD separately, but personally I preferred to just get the first party one.

Also, what’s going on with the pricing? It’s just obviously better to buy direct. Why are people trying to sell it on Amazon? I get people trying to sell on eBay and Craigslist but Amazon? What’s the deal there?

No idea. Maybe those are resellers or scalpers? Just buy it from the Steam Store.

As someone else said, the 64GB model is LCD only, if you want an OLED model you will have to spend at least $550 for the 512GB version.

The main differencea between the OLED and the LCD is the screen and battery life. The OLED gets 30-50+% longer battery which is really nice. More demanding games can go from 1.5hrs on the LCD deck to 2.5hrs on the OLED deck. This is less of an issue on lower battery use games unless you have really long play sessions. The screen looks fantastic, especially on games like Persona 5 that have real vibrant colors. There are also a lot of smaller upgrades

If you do go with the 64GB LCD, understand that the internal space is very limited. You will definitely need more storage. MicroSD cards are easy, but make games very slow to install and make load screens take longer. Many indie games run perfectly fine on microSD cards, but some newer AAA games will have significant performance issues due to the bottleneck in read speeds.

You can also upgrade the internal storage, it's not too difficult. The biggest issue people run into is stripping the screws, but that's not an issue unless you overtighten them or don't use a properly sized and seated screwdriver.

The OLED has a nicer screen. Apart from that they are all pretty much the same performance wise. The expansion via SD card works very well. You can swap the internal ssd but it's not recommended. I'd buy it directly from valve if you don't want to buy used. Their support is quite good.

Don't go for the 64gb because straight away you'll have to buy a new storage drive and take it apart. Doing so will barely save any money compared to buying a higher storage device.