While we know that Valve have said repeatedly not to expect a faster Steam Deck 2 any time soon, it appears they may still be doing some kind of refreshed Steam Deck.
I find that placing the Steam Deck inside the case for a few hours recharges the smell for a few minutes, as my unit no longer smells like new. It's like a drug, it now lasts so little and is just a little sliver of the wonderful feeling it was the first time.
It kind of makes sense a mid cicle refresh much like Nintendo did with the Switch Oled or Sony made in the past with the slim and pro models. But that would imply that we are at mid circle in this Deck gen life. It’s only have been around 18 months since it released, right? If they are planning for 3-4 years cycles then this could make sense.
While we know that Valve have said repeatedly not to expect a faster Steam Deck 2 any time soon, it appears they may still be doing some kind of refreshed Steam Deck.
This isn't all that surprising though as Valve have been doing a number of tweaks to the internals of the Steam Deck since the original release.
We've seen the different fans with one having that annoying high-pitched whine, different types of SSDs, and even adjustments to the internals.
Now as noted on X by Brad Lynch, Valve appears to have gone through approvals for a change to the WiFi chip inside the Steam Deck with one that supports WiFi 6E with Dual Band Simultaneous (DBS) and Bluetooth 5.2.
There's so many ways that Valve could refresh the Steam Deck, without changing the main performance profile with the APU that would be worth upgrading.
Imagine a better WiFi chip, a better screen, better battery, updated thermals and more — so many areas Valve could improve on for a mid-gen refresh that would be worth picking up.
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