The "best handheld around," as we dubbed Steam Deck in our review, may have already been made available, but Steam Deck 2 is currently under development at Valve. Given how many people are interested in the Deck, the volume of reservations has already pushed the anticipated release date of the gadget back to "beyond Q2" of this year. But only time will tell how much of an improvement it will provide and whether it can compete with products like the Ayaneo Next.
The potential release date for Steam Deck 2
We shouldn't anticipate the publication of the second Steam Deck very soon, given that Valve recently released the first Steam Deck. This does not preclude the possibility of improved versions of the current Deck appearing shortly, comparable to how Nintendo updated their Switch lineup with the OLED model.
Price rumors for Steam Deck 2
There's no doubt that the current Steam Deck, with a $399 MSRP that was supposedly challenging to achieve, as Gabe Newell noted in an interview with IGN, is inexpensive for the power you are getting. Newell also acknowledged the necessity for Valve to reach such competitive pricing. An Ayaneo 2021 costs more than $1,000 and isn't nearly as quick as the Steam Deck, just for comparison's sake.
We may thus presume that Valve is covering part of the associated expenses intending to recoup the cost on the Steam platform. We anticipate that the Steam Deck 2 will follow suit, offering a discounted price that is more in line with current gaming consoles rather than PC gaming.
Specifications for the rumored Steam Deck 2
Despite the lack of official information and significant leaks on Steam Deck 2 specifications, we may draw some educated assumptions based on the characteristics of the current Deck. By raising the battery capacity over 40Whr, it would be possible to significantly increase battery life compared to the existing Deck, which would help solve one of its main criticisms.
In comparison to the present IPS LCD panel, an OLED or QD-OLED display would provide much better color accuracy. It would also enable Valve to drastically lower the screen's border.
The Steam Deck 2 could be fitted with a new AMD Ryzen APU in contrast to the Steam Deck's existing RDNA 2 processor. The "Little Phoenix" processor, which has four cores, eight threads, and four WorkGroup Processors, is intended to be an "extremely low-powered" variation of the upcoming Phoenix point CPU.
Performance rumors for Steam Deck 2
There won't be any official or leaked Steam Deck 2 performance benchmarks to examine until we get closer to its debut date. As a result, we expect Valve too, at the very least, upgrade the existing Deck's battery life and gameplay performance. In any case, fewer Steam games' compatibility levels should be disclosed, making it simpler to play video games on Steam Deck 2.
