Not saying the OLED probably isn’t great. I’m sure it is. Congratulations to the OP on enjoying their new OLED Deck!

I’m a “first-timer”. I’ve had my deck for like 2-3 months. I got the LCD on the last big sale they had before announcing the OLED. I’ll admit that it stung at first when the thing was anounced - it took months of saving and budgeting to make the deck happen at all for me… so it was sort of dirty move there, Valve… but I understand liquidation and marketing…so forgiven I guess… ANYWAY -

In hindsight, I don’t feel like I NEED an OLED when it’s all said and done.

I do play daily, but while I do play some newer games I’m mostly tackling my backlog or running rounds in a fighting game like Killer Instinct, MvC3 or Injustice 2. Nothing that needs an absurd amount of power or graphical output.

Screen/Graphics - As I said I’m digging into older games right now, catching up on an absurd (200+ game) backlog (and honestly, I fell into an emulation pit for about two weeks early on). Older games on an OLED don’t strike me as a huge deal… and the newer ones that I am playing I’m not super bent to not have a slightly higher resolution on. The larger screen size would be appreciated, but my last emulation handheld was a Retroid Pocket^(2). The LCD Deck is a deity in comparison.

Fan Noise - I have learned when playing more demanding games how to tweak the settings for them to optimize the experience and the fan never really has been an issue since then, nor is overheating a thing I really run into. It may not be running max settings for every game every time but like I said before, I don’t NEED that, personally.

Storage & Processor Speed - This is the ONE area that I’m a bit sore on with the OLED. As I said I have a huge backlog, no amount of storage is too much as far as I’m concerned. I have a 1tb micro SD card and I bought the 512 model originally. The thought of having almost an additional 500gb is HUGE for me, especially with games like BG3 and MK11 rolling in at over 100gb each. That said - I know I can upgrade my SDD and I probably will after my warranty expires… it would just be awesome to have it out of the box at 1TB. Also the processor speed would always be welcomed. My deck isn’t slow by my summation but there are some times when I’m downloading in the background that a game cinematic will hiccup or freeze - it only happens when I’m doing multiple processes at a time though… so I could tweak settings around that as well. Just nice to know there’s an option where that probably doesn’t happen.

All that said if the OLED had launched at the same time as that sale I would’ve dipped for the OLED no questions asked. I’m sure it’s amazing, but also it doesn’t have to be a thing that people feel like they’re totally missing out on, either. In the current market, sure go for the OLED especially if there’s no real price discrepancy… but if you’re like me and you got the LCD right before OLED dropped… it’s not the end of the world.

Picked up 6 at the 11th hour:
- MK 11 Ultimate + Injustice 2 Legendary Edition (Bundle)
- Castlevania: Lords of Shadow 2
- Doom Eternal Deluxe Edition
- Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3
- The Tarnishing of Juxtia

I will play all of them. Actually I have played over half of them already just since I got them yesterday.

I was trying to hold out for MK1 on my steam deck but 11 is a solid option until a complete edition is released… and including Injustice 2 with all DLC as a bundle at a 90% discount all-in was just waaay too good to pass up.

I recently started playing CV: Lords of Shadow so the sequel just made sense to load up in the backlog for when I’m done there to keep the story rolling. Then of course I’ve been dying to try Doom Eternal on my Steam Deck w/o needing to remote play it from the PS5. Will just be better to have it loaded native anyway. MvC3 w/ all DLC was a solid fighter option for some diversity from the MK/Injustice vein and The Tarnishing of Juxtia looks like a solid metroidvania title to tackle once I wrap up The Last Faith.

You’re right. Ninja Gaiden is pretty brutal.

Takes me back to when my first kid was born. Steam Deck didn’t exist 13 years ago… I was in the hospital room w/ my wife and a laptop playing Terraria and Portal until my son arrived. Fun times.

Congrats and good luck, OP!!

Valve customer support is generally pretty nice about swap outs when things that you buy JUST go on sale after you buy it. This feels similar to that, so it can’t hurt to see since the prices are moderately comparable between some of the old models vs OLED ones.

I waited FOREVER to get my steam deck. I got it on the most recent sale. I don’t regret it, but I do think they should allow options to make the existing decks out in the wild more easily upgradable - especially in terms of things like processor specs, storage and battery life. OLED always seems like a gimmick to me. It’s certainly not essential for what I end up usually playing on my Steam Deck. It’s a nice flashy carrot to dangle in front of a consumer, but I don’t need it.

I honestly just want to be able to upgrade my deck at some point to have better storage and battery life w/o totally destroying it in the process.

Was talking with a friend last week about this. He’s had his SD for about a year and he also got the ROG Ally. I just got my SD about a month or two ago… both of us basically just build libraries and jump from game to game without really finishing much.

My Steam library is 230 strong, plus I can remote play into my PS5 and there’s probably 200-300 there plus PS+ games available from that library… and then there’s emulation on the SD as well. He’s in a similar situation only with GamePass instead of PS+. It’s a TON of content.

We were discussing how part of this, especially regarding emulation is that there’s this thing about being able to get things to work and then moving on to the next thing, but never really playing the games much.