Like many in my millennial age cohort, I’ve obtained a sickening nostalgic obsession with clear plastic electronics: Recreation Boys, OG MacBooks, Discmen. It is god’s personal design language, I inform you, not simply rosy reminiscences of the late ’90s and early aughts! Little question being attentive to the various aftermarket options for giving the Steam Deck a transparent plastic makeover, Valve’s gone forward and made its personal, official model.
The restricted version Steam Deck OLED will likely be obtainable for buy alongside the usual fashions on November 16, however solely within the US and Canada. It comes within the 1 TB NVMe configuration, so I would anticipate the identical $650 price ticket except Valve fees a premium for the colorway.
The plastic is rather less translucent than, say, an atomic purple Recreation Boy Coloration or Jsaux’s customized shell replacements for the Deck. It is nearer to the Swap Professional controller or Glacier Recreation Boy Advance with a smoky high quality to the plastic, however you possibly can nonetheless make out a number of the underlying electronics and otherwise-hidden elements of its vivid orange spotlight parts.
The remainder of the group was fairly cool on the design, however I am in love with the factor—it jogs my memory of Steam’s OG military inexperienced with yellow highlights interface, and as enjoyable because the Jsaux DIY resolution will be, there’s one thing to be mentioned for the construct high quality of an official launch. To not point out, it has all of the OLED Deck enhancements which led to my colleague Tyler Colp’s glowing overview of the revised console.
However I am unable to spend $650 on this factor! It is simply over a 12 months since I put up 650 clams for my authentic 512 GB deck, I want far more time earlier than I attempt an improve. I am definitely feeling the sting of OLED envy, however woe to those that purchased their Steam Decks in October or November of 2023—you could have my sympathies.
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