Steam Deck OLED is just pure joy - the definitive Steam Deck

I wouldn't call OLED a minor upgrade – considerably better battery life and color rendering. Also better blacks without background bleed, which is a major annoyance when gaming in dark (bus, plane, bedroom etc.)

800p is for a good reason – although e.g. 1080p would be more crisp, personally I'd pick better colors and higher refresh rate over resolution in this case. When gaming with the APU, most games (especially AAA) can't be upped to 1080p either way without considerable performance drop. I kinda understand the need for higher resolutions from a strategy gaming standpoint, but to me at least the compromise isn't worth it.

When PPI is considered with standard viewing distance, it's still better than my 1080p 13" laptop. With proper anti-aliasing there's no need to push it further, at least IMO it's not worth it compared to the reduced performance.

2560x1600 would make a bit more sense, as you could drop the resolution to 1280x800 without having to smear pixels due to pixels not lining up in the smaller resolution. That would also be better for strategy games. Don't really know how good the panel availability for those is, though, since it's probably using a tablet screen.

4 comments

I'm waiting for the trinitron version.
a lot of noise made for a minor upgrade, screen is still 720p. In 2023...
- I wouldn't call OLED a minor upgrade – considerably better battery life and color rendering. Also better blacks without background bleed, which is a major annoyance when gaming in dark (bus, plane, bedroom etc.)
  800p is for a good reason – although e.g. 1080p would be more crisp, personally I'd pick better colors and higher refresh rate over resolution in this case. When gaming with the APU, most games (especially AAA) can't be upped to 1080p either way without considerable performance drop. I kinda understand the need for higher resolutions from a strategy gaming standpoint, but to me at least the compromise isn't worth it.
  When PPI is considered with standard viewing distance, it's still better than my 1080p 13" laptop. With proper anti-aliasing there's no need to push it further, at least IMO it's not worth it compared to the reduced performance.
  2560x1600 would make a bit more sense, as you could drop the resolution to 1280x800 without having to smear pixels due to pixels not lining up in the smaller resolution. That would also be better for strategy games. Don't really know how good the panel availability for those is, though, since it's probably using a tablet screen.
  
  I gamed on a 1080p 6.5" Sony Xperia Z Ultra clipped onto a full-scale Sixaxis, and that thing weighted less than a Steam Deck. In 2013. We've got 3040x1440 OLEDs in our pockets since 2019.
  Anybody who suggests gaming on a single-megapixel dumbbell in 2025 is either a troll or lives in a cave since the 2010's.