Source is KeplerL2, who is generally considered a reliable source for insider hardware info, particularly on AMD GPU hardware and AMD SoC for consoles.
Previously I would have personally estimated Steam Deck 2 to release mid 2026-early 2027, but the recent info about an upcoming Steam Machine made me think that maybe I should push back that estimate.
Of course even if we assume this is reliable insider info, a lot can change in couple years, so things can definitely change.
There are two kinds of people who would like a refreshed Steam Deck, in my experience:
People who seem to think it needs to be faster. Since it appears to be crafted to provide suitable performance for the 720p display it has (which I don’t personally think needs to be changed, considering the whole “portable” use case), this seems to just be a “bigger number better” argument and those people should probably go out and buy a Lenovo Legion / ROG Ally / whatever.
People who are otherwise happy, but think it should have a newer, more efficient processor to get longer battery life, and make less heat/noise in the process. There’s a measurable gulf between the current Zen2/RDNA2 CPU and a theoretical modern Zen5/RDNA3.5 (or even RDNA4) model in that regard; it could be tuned to deliver roughly the same performance as the original (or a little more, for the handful of games that tend to miss their performance target slightly) but deliver longer battery life.
We got a hint at 2) with the OLED model’s CPU using a newer manufacturing process improving thermals and battery life (of course it did also have a bigger battery). I think the number of people willing to pay a bit extra for what could be an even larger improvement in that area is probably more than some would like to admit.
(I personally fit in that latter category. Considering a full work day including a public transport commute and lunch break, not a whole lot of extra battery could well be the difference between having to carry a charger and not)
I want a higher resolution screen, for readability. Games don’t need to use a higher resolution in general and can keep targeting something like 720p, but I want text and more to be crisper, etc
https://infosec.pub/comment/17743689
Fair point. Games clearly need to start decoupling the UI scale/resolution from the general screen resolution.
In a somewhat parallel issue, I’ve found that playing games on the couch (usually with Steam in-home streaming, from a PC elsewhere in the house) I have to reduce the resolution because the game’s UI is far too small at TV-watching differences.
Certainly understandable. I really don’t want them to increase the resolution. For that screen size, it’s perfect. If they made better hardware and kept the same screen res, imagine the battery life you’ll get out of this thing. Also, I want them to keep how it looks like right now. It’s hands down the most comfortable handheld I’ve ever tried, and I’ve tried several of them.