The Steam Deck is a handheld gaming PC that crams the guts of a laptop computer into a compact design that’s meant to be held in your hands. But despite the tight fit, Valve promised earlier this year that the Steam Deck would be user-repairable. And now the company is delivering on that promise.
Spare parts and repair guides are now available from iFixit. But not every component is available for purchase yet.
Have a cracked screen, broken speaker, wonky buttons or joysticks, or a chipped case? You can buy replacements for any of those parts right now, along with tools that you may need to complete the repairs, including screwdrivers, tweezers, spudgers, opening picks, and heat guns.
But there are a few key components that aren’t available for purchase yet, including batteries and mainboards.
You can find repair guides for those parts. So if you want to know how tough it is to replace the battery (very), you can read the instructions. But you can’t actually buy a battery yet. The same goes for the motherboard, complete with an AMD Aerith processor (this is considered a moderately difficult repair, since you don’t need to deal with as much adhesive).
via Valve and the iFixit blogÂ
The main thing I’m interested in is the battery. I hope they keep it in stock for years to come and it’s not as difficult to replace like reviewers and iFixit made it look.
I doubt I’d need to replace anything else given my Steam Deck is a home-use only handheld like my Switch.
Just don’t get in the habit of keeping it plugged into the charger during use. It will wear out the battery more quickly.
Lots of people think that they are helping their laptop’s battery life by keeping it on charger all the time (I suppose they think they are just running on the charger’s power directly?).
This results in your device charging and discharging continually. Some laptops are designed to do this in an optimized way, but it’s still not better than charging and draining it.