So I know it's not an all-time low, but $799 is still the cheapest I could see available at the moment. It appears they have stock online, so hopefully not pre-order (but advise if it is and I'll adjust the description).
Worth a look at if you're in the market for one.
And supposedly doesn't honour their word in sending out agreed products to youtubers for competitions. ETA Prime called them out on it the other day.
Steam doesn't want to deal with Australian consumer law, it is unlikely we will get it through official retail channels.
This is probably correct. For a Gen 1 product it would cost them a FORTUNE to organise repair centers and return channels
Not like Valve is lacking in cash.
I have had one since day 1 and I can tell you there isn’t much special that you are missing out on.
A lot of the docks I’ve seen sometimes dont have display port or have 2x USB3.0 instead of 3x on the official dock. Sometimes I’ve seen cheeky 100mbit ethernet nics instead of gigabit.
Other fancy thing is that you can update the docks driver and firmware once plugged in just like you would update steam os via settings.
In reality this isn’t really as fancy as it sounds since you can update several other docks with manual firmware upgrades, just less elegantly and a bit more complicated to do so.
All in all, unless you absolutely want the clean look and match, or you want to support valve, the official dock isn’t worth the price tag relative to the quality of options available.
As time goes on, I am more and more tempted by docks with built in NVME on them.. those are something I’d suggest if you have the money to spend.
Ordered, cheers!
Enough reviews on the internet, but it has a decent crack at pretty much every game in my library.
Loaded up Metro 2033 redux for a laugh on USB C, it actually ran it at 1440P with playable 30-40 FPS.
Isn't the screen only 800p though?
Guessing they were on external monitor as they said “on USB C”
i want it.. so bad
but don't feel like i have disposable income D:
early birthday present
Alright folks, just bit the bullet. With my luck, Valve will announce an official Australian launch for the steam deck next week. Y'all can thank me later.
people have been saying that for months lol.
Would avoid until the next hardware revision. Had one but offloaded. While it clearly smashes the Switch for specs (with a price to match), the screen is….woeful? Compared to the OLED Switch, it’s just so dim and crappy. Not to mention battery life :/
Firstly they have confirmed it won’t be for many years, so maybe its not for you at all.
Expect maybe 2025-2026.
The most likely apu upgrade they might make based on the info we have now would be the 6800u line up, and the battery life on that would be worse although we’d get better performance.
You can try vibrant deck, I found it to be a game changer for vibrancy.
Wrong. They said they wouldn't be releasing any major hardware revisions from e.g. a performance point of view. But they are working on one with better battery life. That could come out this year.
You can try vibrant deck, I found it to be a game changer for vibrancy.
You can also colour calibrate it (if you have access to a colourmeter) since the deck supports 3D LUT correction through vkBasalt or Reshade. There also LUTs that people have shared themselves, but may not exactly match your particular display (since they vary from screen to screen).
I purchased this for much higher. Best purchase I’ve made in 2022. I’m actually playing games again. And all the emulation options are great. Get an SD card if you are worried about the storage space.
Anyone have experience with PCByte? reading about them on product reviews and seems to be a drama for warranty issues
if there's a store front near you it's worth consideration, but i just got my deck off ebay. cheaper
TLDR: sucks buying steam deck in australia as you pay ~ $300-400 AUD premium on top of consumer banking exchange rates. Got relatives in Canada that can buy same deck equivalent of less than $850AUD for 512GB directly from Valve…
My experience buying from Kogan:
I’m not sure what the reputation of PCByte is. I purchased my deck (512Gb) model from Kogan for $1299AUD including delivery ~ 2 weeks ago. The delivery took 5 business days the deck arrived with AusPost.
The deck was in its Valve case (good) but the valve case was then placed in some 3rd party cardboard box looked like from Hong Kong. There was also some shitty knock-off USB-C charger in the box but I’d been happy if Kogan provided me the original Valve’s charger (even if it’s NA plug). Instead, my charger looked like some cheap eBay knockoff that was rated to 15w and wasn’t an AU plug anyway… I know WTF…
Fast forward today, I’m still fighting with Kogan to get a USBc cord after they sent me a separate 65W kogan usbc/a charger with no cord as I argued Valve steam deck normally comes with charger +cord (normally attached to charger).
In warranty side; I thought my deck had battery issues (never charges to 100% but the internet forums seems to think this is by software design). I started to process deck replacement and Kogan asked for bunch of additional evidence like videos etc. they also say Australian warranty applies but can’t guarantee if you’ll get a NEW deck if you seek replacement under warranty. Quick search on Google suggests likely outcome is Kogan used 3rd party who’ll likely send you a refurbished unit back.
That sounds like an absolute horror story especially since I was that close to buying from Kogan. I wish you luck on dealing with Kogan my man
That 512gb looks expensive, but I wouldn't expect the 64gb models to be much cheaper once officially released (since they are averaging in the 700-800 range and even dropped to 650 at one point) so it looks like some price gouging on the top model. That's accounting for GST and likely a bit of extra margin that Valve will most likely add.
The rest of it looks like Kogan being shitty. My sydneymobiles order had the official box, seemingly official charger (US), although I bought a baseus charger since the plug is annoying and doesn't stay in most plug adapters properly.
Nevertheless, I feel for you; that sounds like a nightmare.
I contacted pcbyte today and they said they don't have these in stock but are expecting stock to arrive in 2 to 3 weeks time. Likely we are all in for a bit of a wait.
I couldn't get a straight answer from them re stock arrival but hopefully we're not waiting that long!
Mine finally shipped today (ordered 26/03/2023).
jsaux also steal youtube videos and use them in their advertisements