Refurbished ones are just as good as fresh ones, and basically always "on sale" since their price is reduced.
Valve seems to be moving towards a very likely Steam Deck Refresh. Very little is known about when or how this will happen. Based on previous comments and data-mining, the refresh will have the exact same amount of gaming-power. It may, however, have a better WiFi-chip, better screen, and stuff like that. Nothing is certain and if you want a Deck soon-ish, I wouldn’t recommend waiting for this.
Given how bad the WIFI chip of the current Steam Deck is (it just doesn't like some access points and has frequent connection losses with them), waiting for an updated one might be worth it.
Refurbished ones are just as good as fresh ones, and basically always "on sale" since their price is reduced.
they are only worth it if you go for the 64gb sale price of the 512gb makes it a much better option than the refurb 512gb
UK PRICE
refurb £459 for 512GB
vs the 20% sale off price of £455.20 brand new, Yes it's not a huge money saving here but it's still a brand new untouched no blemishes minty condition steamdeck for less than the refurb price, but a huge prove saving from a new one of £569 (£113.80) off the new price 👍
Got a 64GB refurb when they were in stock end of September, honestly I couldn't tell it was a refurb. It looked like new, the only thing that might have given it away was the carrying case, had a few small smudges but I got a Tomtoc anyway so it didn't matter anyway.