[Discussion] People who upgraded from a LCD Deck to an OLED Deck, was it worth it?
How would you rate the OLED deck? Did you keep your LCD deck? Have you noticed any of the smaller improvements like a more responsive touch screen? Has the battery life improvement been noticable?
I bought a 512GB LCD on release and barely used it, maybe 50h at most. I just found the fan to be really annoying. Once the OLED was announced and reviewers mentioned it was much quieter, I bought it on a whim and sold my old Deck to a friend for cheap.
The fan noise is massively improved, I pretty much don’t hear it ever. I’m actually using the Deck now, probably already more than I ever did old Deck, and will look at the performance for games on it, before I buy something.
So, even though I’ve had a Deck since launch, I’m still pretty new to it, and can’t say too many other things about the differences. It was still worth it for me.
Not that it does you much good now, but you might’ve had a bad fan. My unit is a preorder one, and the fan wasn’t broken, but it was just… Noticable, when it was on. It wasn’t enough for me to say it was broken or anything, but I could just tell when it was running, especially at full speed.
It didn’t bother me, because I was like wow this game is really pushing the Deck hard, I can really hear the fan. Etc etc.
Well after a few months of hard use the fan developed a click, it was a bad bearing or something. You could make it go away by tapping it.
Anywho to make a long story short, after getting a replacement that was DOA, and then getting a second replacement. The new fan was noticeably quiet. So quiet that I thought I had another DOA. But no, it was working perfectly. I just didn’t realize how bad the original fan was.
So now I have a very quiet Deck, and I’m quite happy about it 😁
Maybe, back then I read that there are two fan models going around and one is better than the other, so who knows. Or how putting a bit of pressure on a certain spot could help, or things like that. I was toying with the idea of ordering a replacement, when the iFixit stuff was announced, but never did it and forgot about it.
So far my friend is mostly emulating older handhelds, so it doesn’t get too hot in the first place, and even if it gets louder it doesn’t seem to bother him for now.
I’d say it’s a mixed bag. The screen is great and battery life is better.
But I have serious problems with wifi just not working. I have to use a hub that has physical ethernet. Many USB-C devices have problems too. Seems like the connector is unable to provide power. It can only receive it.
I’m on the SteamOS beta train in the desperate hopes of getting a fix for these problems quickly but without the added problems of the preview builds.
The screen is way better particularly the 90hz upgrade, playing at 90 FPS is so much smoother than 60, since I mostly play indies and old games on the deck I hit that frame rate all the time. Also I used to love my Vita and Switch because of the Oled screen. I now can play my Vita and Switch games on a 7+ inches oled display with proper controls, plus all my pc games. The brightness increases makes playing games on the couch on plain day light feasible, previously I had to turn the blinds in order to properly enjoy a game. That’s no longer the case.
The battery upgrade is very nice, specially for more demanding games . I usually only play lighter games on a handheld as opposed to AAA and rarely play more than 2-3 hours per session so the battery has always been fine for me, however when playing games like Resident Evil the battery lasted about 2 hours, now it last 3.5 hours, enough for a full gaming session. Games like Hardcore mecha get over 10 hours which mean i could take the Deck on a Weekend trip and forget about charging it.
The sticks feel way better too, not as good as the PS4 controller, the middle part is still a little slippery but close enough.
All that said the games you will play are as as much fun in the Oled model than in the regular one. I sold my LCD Deck so the upgrade have been relatively cheap but if you have to buy a new one and find a sweet deal on an LCD model don’t hesitate, you will be able to upgrade to the Deck 2 in 18-24 months.
I got my original about a year after orders opened up and loved it. But I never realized the differences between the small versions of the deck. Mine was ordered on the day of release so the OLED version has nicer, more tactile buttons than the OG one. THe extra battery and bigger better screen is a huge plus as well. I love it. And I will with out a doubt order a next gen one as well.
If I hadn’t resold my original deck (to a friend, gave him a good price) an upgrade probably wouldn’t have been worth it for me personally. Although I’ve been using mine in handheld more often these days, OLED doesn’t do a ton for me and I don’t notice the weight difference some people have mentioned. However! The battery life is better, I feel like the touchpads haptics seem more prominent(?), and bluetooth-to-wake is a wonderful feature (highly recommend an extra dualsense if you’re a docked user).
The thing that has struck me the most is how much lighter it is. Nobody seems to be mention that, but that one small thing makes such an outsize difference.
The battery life is also very noticeable, and you can multiply the benefit by using energy conserving settings.
The other big difference is control responsiveness. If you play fighting games or other games with intense timing and accuracy needs, you WILL notice the difference.
The OG Steam Deck is still great, but the OLED is just better in so many little, meaningful ways.
Yes - went from my 512 LCD to the LE OLED. I already upgraded the nvme to a 2tb in the LCD, so I just swapped it out.
Screen is definitely more impressive, but that wasn’t the main reason I upgraded. It was the better battery life that made it worth it. The other efficiencies, upgrades to the controls, were icing on the cake, but battery life far and above was the thing that made it worth it. But as many have said, the screen is damn impressive.
There wasn’t a single shred of buyer’s remorse. But I also play on it every day and tinker with it non stop. So depending on how much you utilize your deck may effect whether it’s worth it for you or not.
Yes I absolutely love it. I will give you the same advice I gave my brother. He plays his 20% of the time, so I told him not to bother yet and wait for the next generation model eventually. Myself, on the other hand, pretty much abandoned my gaming pc for the steam deck, so upgrading was absolutely worth it.
I still use both, but yes I have. I’ve talked about this a bit before elsewhere, but I think the most noticeable difference for me is the difference in weight.
I have the 512gb and the LE OLED. The 512gb is heavy. When I would bring it to appointments where I know I’ll just be in the waiting room, I would consistently use the case as a prop to hold it on. Same for use at home, I’ve talked with my friend about how we are always looking for something to prop it up on. I was already planning to, but I am glad I got the DeckMate and a VESA mount by the bed.
The OLED is significantly lighter when picking it up by the center and holding it with 2 hands. They feel about the same otherwise, like when holding with one hand on the controller, or inside the case where OG is a bit heavier but not as noticeable. I still get surprised when I pick it up sometimes. Not nearly as light as a Switch, but its heft feels good.
Outside of the weight difference though, I’d say I do notice and take advantage of the gains. I’ve found that a lot of indie games get a strong 100+ FPS boost - for example Revita goes from about 150-200FPS on OG to 250-400 FPS on OLED. The slightly larger screen is nice but hard to tell even side by size, but the OLED difference is quite noticeable.
The touchscreen does feel noticeably improved as well, it’s hard to explain the difference but it’s kind of like the OLED needs less pressure for the capacitive function. Obviously that’s not actually the case, that’s just how I’d describe the feeling.
The battery is definitely a strong 2 hours more, depending on the game of course but for Revita as the same example I remember seeing about that much of a difference.
Okay but all told, where I think the OLED performs most differently is when docked, with a caveat.
The OG Deck with MH Rise is a fairly stable 60FPS on low-medium 1920*1080. It dips when there are 3 monsters on the screen, but otherwise it’s pretty solid.
The OLED is rock solid at 75FPS on medium 1920*1080. I have not noticed dips, even with the multiple monsters on screen.
The difference is quite impressive. I’ve yet to try other harder games like MH:W or 2077, but this alone was pretty surprising to me.
The caveat however, is that I find the OLED has more hiccups in docked mode? My OG Docked just pops right up on the display, but the OLED tends to have its fans go full blast and the device restarts. Not entirely sure what that’s about. Takes a minute or two longer and doesn’t happen every time, but it does happen. That said, I haven’t noticed it in a while so it may have been the early release of the software/ironed out with updates.
The only other issue I have in docked mode:
Currently I’m finding that after a few hours my Steam Controller will stop the haptics. The control scheme still works, but no haptics and no steam overlay. The game will freeze for a minute and lose internet connection if the controller turns off, and upon turning it back on the control scheme is gone. The Deck controller also is bugged by this point.
I have to suspend the Deck, that gets Deck controls back, then I go to Bluetooth, forget the Steam Controller and re-pair it. Then it works just fine.
Alongside all this, there’s an occasional Internet issue where starting up a game it may not recognize it’s connected to the Internet? But it seems linked to Bluetooth issues I’ve been having here as well. In any case, at this point if the network settings getting reconnected doesn’t solve the issue (sometimes it does but not always) I have to restart the Deck.
Issue tl;dr Steam Controller disconnects from Steam Deck OLED in docked mode, controller works sans haptics until the controller turns off, then game freeze and wifi disconnect. Can remedy without full restart but often helps solve it faster. Both models.
That issue occurs maybe every other session? And usually after extended periods of time, rarely within a single hour or two. I wonder if it’s the Controller or the communication with the Deck or Bluetooth or what.
But that issue aside, my experience with both Decks has been stellar. Even including that issue, it’s consistent enough in how it happens and is remedied that it doesn’t bother me much, and only takes a couple minutes at most. My friend goes to take a hit and I’m back in the lobby by the time he’s ready again.
These days my OG model stays docked on the TV downstairs, picked up by my partner sometimes, the OLED moves around with me and is occasionally docked to a monitor.
Big fan of the offerings of the Steam Deck. It’s been so nice going from my PC upstairs, saving and edit: POPPING pooping downstairs to continue where I left off. No poo in the Steam Deck please. Big fan of being able to play a game online and have a Steam Deck with WiFi off to play another game during the downtime between hunts or missions.
I haven’t yet customized my OLED with Decky plugins, but I’ll likely get a few when I feel the need. I like having the theme music, Steamgrid DB can really beautify a library, and between theming and OS tweaks (Bluetooth devices right in the quick access menu). One day it’ll get to the OG status lol.
Oh, I forgot to mention - 90hz feels significantly different in the games that support it. Spiritfarer is absolutely gorgeous.
Final say: if you have the LCD and are on the fence, I would base your decision on 1) weight, 2) potential performance gains, and 3) how much you prefer OLED.
The weight is what remains with me the most. The performance gains are noticeable but “how necessary” depending on your games - 60fps locked games will get better response times but won’t take advantage of the 90hz. Finally, it’s an OLED screen.
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