I love my Steam Deck LCD, but I’d be lying if I didn’t admit that I’d prefer a Steam Deck OLED in its place. While performance is practically identical across the two variants, the latter is worlds ahead in terms of the gaming experience it offers. Despite knowing this first-hand, the device’s £479 ($549) price point has firmly tempered any temptation to upgrade. However, with Valve now adding its later and greater device to its ‘Certified Refurbished‘ program at a much lower cost, I’m not so sure how much longer I can resist.
Valve sets the price of refurbished Steam Deck OLEDs at £389 ($439) and £459 ($519) for the 512GB and 1TB models, respectively. For context, that saves you between £90-110 ($110-130). As a reminder, these preloved devices have the same warranty period as their brand-new siblings.
The only caveat to all this is stock levels. As of writing, all refurbished Steam Deck OLED and LCD units are sold out in the United Kingdom. Valve doesn’t typically announce when it has fresh units for sale, making acquiring one something of a lucky draw. Although, exercising an equal amount of patience and persistence should see the discounted device make its way to you sooner rather than later.
If you’re game to wait, a refurbished Steam Deck OLED seems like the best handheld deal around. At the aforementioned prices, they’re markedly cheaper than the likes of Asus ROG Ally and Lenovo Legion Go. What Valve’s pocket rocket lacks in performance relative to its rivals it more than makes up for with its stunning self-emissive screen. I’m a firm believer that once you begin regularly gaming with an OLED panel, it’s difficult to return to the backlit land of LCD. Hence the envy I began this piece with.
While Steam Deck OLED’s screen makes its asking price worth the money alone, refurbished especially, improvements to battery life and cooling sweeten the deal further. In my experience, the larger 50WHr battery combined with the more efficiency gains of its 6nm APU translate to around an additional 1.5 hours of playtime. Your prolonged sessions are quieter too thanks to better fan tuning combined with the less hot-and-watt-hungry chip at the heart of the device.
Some will claim that waiting for Steam Deck 2 is the better play in the long-term, and there’s some merit to this argument. However, until the sleuthy successor shows face, I’ll be keeping my eye out for a refurbished Steam Deck OLED. I was able to resist the allure of the limited edition white model, but nothing talks quite like money.
