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The Steam Deck is one of the most popular handheld gaming PCs available thanks to a combination of a low price tag, decent performance, and well thought-out software. But one area where there’s room for improvement? The display.
And that’s where Fx Technology’s DeckHD comes in. It’s a Steam Deck screen upgrade kit. First introduced in May, the DeckHD kit is now available for purchase for $99.
FX Technology says it began shipping units to Early Bird customers last week, and folks who order now should receive a kit by mid-October.
So what kind of upgrade are we talking about?
The Steam Deck’s standard display is a 7 inch, 1280 x 800 pixel IPS LCD screen with up to 400 nits brightness. Customers who opt for the top-of-the-line $649 Steam Deck with 512GB of storage also get an anti-glare coating on the display, but cheaper models with 64GB or 256GB of storage lack the anti-glare finish.
The DeckHD is a 7 inch, 1920 x 1200 pixel IPS LCD display with up to 400 nits brightness, and 87% sRGB color gamut. Anti-glare coating comes standard on all displays.
So the biggest difference is a higher-resolution display for sharper graphics. But if you have one of Valve’s cheaper Steam Decks, the upgrade also brings an anti-glare screen. And all users should benefit from the wide color gamut display.
Valve doesn’t offer an official description of the color gamut offered by the default display, but FX Technology says the Steam Deck’s stock display covers 67% sRGB color gamut, which seems to be about right according to most third-party reviews/tests I’ve seen.
That said, the DeckHD may not exactly be a no-brainer for everyone. While the kit comes with everything you need to pry open the Steam Deck and replace the original screen with the new FHD screen, there is still a chance you could break something when disassembling your Steam Deck to replace the screen.
If you want to see what the upgrade process looks like, Taki Udon has a video showing the basics (although he sort of skipped a few steps dealing with removable and application of adhesive).
Taki Udon says it should take around 30-60 minutes to upgrade the hardware, after which you’ll still need to install drivers for the new screen.
For folks that may be uncomfortable opening up their Steam Deck or who may not already have one, there are a number of other handheld gaming PCs with FHD or higher-resolution displays. But most also tend to have substantially higher price tags than a Steam Deck, even after adding $99 for a DeckHD upgrade kit.
Steven can’t afford upgrades, so you shouldn’t either! Lol.
Just buy the basic steam deck during one of Steams sales throughout the year for 359.00, toss in a used SD flash card you have lying around and forget about doing anything else with it. It’s just fine as it is.
I couldn’t be happier with mine…just the way it is.
Truth is…we live in a society that believes bigger and more is better and I want better RIGHT NOW.
A worldwide depression will fix that behavior. No worries. Dead ahead.
Great, more e-waste. The Deck’s display is perfectly functional, no need to “upgrade” it. And what are you going to do with your old display? Oh yeah, it’s going to end in the trash, because there’s no market for second hand steam deck displays. Maybe it will sit on a shelf gathering dust for a few years, unused. But it will still end up in the trash eventually.
Go on the internet and see if they’re is a stream deck with a broken screen. Fix it and sell it.
Do not buy anything from fxtec. They have been “shipping” pro1x phones for a few years now (but not really) and have violated nearly every Indiegogo TOS:
– Selling commercially before backers got their perks
– Not updating the campaign once a month
Etc. It is just constant lies from them.
I think F(x)tec and Fx Technology are probably two different companies, despite the similar names.
No they are the same company.
F(x)tec = Fx Technology and they have scammed people on both the pro1x, the linxdot and soon this as well. Their next scam is a stupid blockchain phone
Huh. So it seems both deckhd.com and fxtec.com both say “FX Technology Limited” at the bottom. Not to be confused with the Hong Kong “FX Technology Co Limited”. Or the American IT service provider also called FX Technology.
I guess either they’re really trying to disassociate from the mess the phone’s been. The websites look too similar. Yeah, it would be a good thing to point this out.
You appear to be yelling at an empty room while everyone else has left in their haste to go buy the new screen such that the initial stock was sold out within 5 min
http://steamdeckhq.com/news/deckhd-screen-pre-sale-sells-out-in-5-minutes
Are you sure? I’ve been following this product since the beginning and it had nothing in stock at that date, it was just cattle bait for social networks.
Unresponsible communication and gratuitous marketing, in short a shitshow for me that completely dissuaded me from putting this thing in my Steamdeck.
Nicer display is cool, but what I really want is a larger display.
Seems like a good option for someone who already owns a Steam Deck, but it you didn’t yet own one, it makes more sense to buy the Asus ROG Ally compared to the 512gb model of Steam Deck.
It already has a 1080p screen with a 100% SRGB colour gamit, and a 120hz refresh rate.
If discussing only about the total cost between the two, that could be true for the high end Steam Deck. But why compare it to the most expensive version in this case. That would be overlooking an important fact, which is that for anyone able to replace the screen would also simply replace the internal ssd as well. Therefore it would not make sense to buy the highest priced Deck for this situation. Considering then that most swaps would be for both parts at the same time which is about an additional $150 to get to a new screen and 512 drive, that is still 2/3 the cost of the Ally. Pay a little bit more to upgrade to 1 TB instead, it is still lower priced. Getting a nicer screen AND double the drive capacity would still be reason enough to go for it even for those that do not own a Deck yet. Especially since the ecosystem around the Steam Deck has exploded since both the hardware and software has been managed in a very open manner by Valve. They have proven very receptive to listen and work with their users and continue releasing fixes at a constant rate, over a year since the Deck has been out so there is great assurance for longevity for their device versus another vendor. Also there has been rumor Valve is trying to maintain the same internal form factor even for the next revision of the handheld so they could possibly be offering board upgrades to people. That would be a big advantage to stick with the Deck. Existing owners with the skills can swap out the mainboard or pay someone else to do it, at much lower cost than buying a brand new unit. Being able to get the latest greatest cpu so one can continuing playing the newer demanding Steam games but be eco-friendly is a win-win for everyone.
The Steamdeck screen should only be replaced when it is defective/broken.
Stop telling people they have to tinker with their consoles in the worst possible way.
The screens are sealed to the front chassis, it’s not desirable and even less responsible for Steamdeck owners to peel them off under pain of crying and screaming.
A Steamdeck owner who wants to enjoy the benefits of a 1200/600 screen will have to buy the Deckhd for $129 ($99+$30), but also a new front shell (€40) to mount it. This represents the cost ($169) of replacing a Rog Ally screen.
This will allow you to have two screen sets with different resolution scales, so it will be easy to switch from one screen to the other.
Of course, this major change, which requires complete Steamdeck disassembly, can also be accompanied by other upgrades, such as better joysticks for $30 or an Nvme module ($40-$170).
Personally, I’m skipping this pre-order, maybe next time 😉
The prices don’t need to match, because the Steam Deck has much lower performance, and the upgraded screen is still inferior to the ROG Ally’s screen. Not to mention you need to void the warranty of the Steam Deck to do this.
The ROG Ally doesn’t need to match or beat the price of the Steam Deck to be a better option for me. It’s a more capable device overall. I’d pay the difference with no complaints. If I want 1tb of storage, I can upgrade it too. And Asus actually stated that SSD upgrades are compatible with their warranty. Valve hasn’t made a similar statement, infact they’ve warned their users not to upgrade the SSD.
The Steam Deck is a good device too, but it has too many drawbacks for me. It’s too large, I don’t like the analog stick layout, I don’t like the 16:10 screen ratio, I don’t need touchpads, SteamOS can’t play some games that I want to play, and the performance is insufficient for my needs.
The Steamdeck will always perform less well than the Rog Ally, because although they have the same form factor, they don’t share the same characteristics.
I’m comparing the two consoles because it’s often mistakenly said that the Steamdeck is less expensive, the only two cases where this statement is true are purchase and repair.
But for the rest, modifying your Steamdeck can be an expensive hobby.
No there is nothing special. The Rog Ally performs better because it was just released this year in 2023 using the newest AMD chip. The Steam Deck came out over a year ago when the Ryzen Z1 did not even exist yet. That is also why Steam Deck costs less because it is using years old cpu. When the Steam Deck v2 comes out it will perform better than this year’s Rog Ally. And the cycle will continue, just like in all other aspects in life, from advancement of medicines to biological evolution and so on. There is no voodoo, it is just basic logistics so comparing processor performance between these two makes no sense since it is impossible for an older generation technology to somehow compete with the latest generation.