There are some key little differentiators that Steam Deck competitors have that the Steam Deck doesn’t. Removable Joy-Con-like controllers (and a kickstand). More powerful internal hardware. Higher resolution screens. And variable refresh rate (VRR).
As it turns out, that last one is something of a sticking point for Valve, which was recently revealed in an interview with Reviews.org to announce the official launch of the Steam Deck in Australia. In that interview, I spoke with Steam Deck designers Lawrence Yang and Yazan Aldehayyat, both of whom were visiting PAX Australia. When I asked about what Yang and Aldehayyat would’ve loved to have included for the Steam Deck OLED, the answer was the same: VRR.
“With the LCD [Steam Deck], it was obviously the display. We really wanted a better display and, thankfully, we got that. Maybe I shouldn’t say this, but VRR is a thing that we’ve been asked a lot about and I can say that we also wanted it really badly for the OLED ones. We just couldn’t get it done on time. So that’s probably a feature that is on the top of our list of things that we would like to do,” said Aldehayyat.
Yang echoed Aldehayyat’s sentiment alongside a reminder that the Steam Deck OLED shouldn’t be viewed as the Steam Deck 2.
“What we said when we launched the OLED was that this is not a second-generation device. This is what we would say is what we wish we had shipped originally for Steam Deck [LCD], and I think that has been borne out,” said Yang.
Aldehayyat re-emphasised the desire for VRR in the Steam Deck OLED models while touching on a pain point likely shared by other gaming handheld manufacturers: battery life.
“The battery life on Steam Deck, I think there’s a general consensus that’s the best in its class, but I would really love to have it be better. There’s a lot of things that just physics was not on our side for, but I would say VRR was the one that was just more about, we just could not get technology done in time for the product launch, but it was something that we really wanted in,” said Aldehayyat.
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