The Steam Deck Is Great, But These 7 Upgrades Would Make It Amazing

The Steam Deck is my favorite handheld gaming console, and I own several, including the Nintendo Switch. It’s not a perfect device, with some shortcomings that were mostly rectified with the Steam Deck OLED, but even with those issues, it’s still the console I find myself reaching for. The seamless integration of my Steam Library into a device I can always have on hand is liberating, enabling me to tackle my backlog of gaming and play some game genres that I normally avoid. I’d love the next major iteration of the Steam Deck to improve on these seven areas so that it can be the most useful handheld gaming console around.

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7 Hall effect joysticks and triggers

Eliminate drift forever

Valve did a good job with the thumbsticks on the Steam Deck already, in my estimation. They’re well-calibrated, and have a good feel between the range of motion and how much movement it creates in-game. They’re also a good height relative to the rest of the console, which is important when you’re holding the console for extended periods of time. The main issue I have with them is that they use the old style of potentiometers, which use an adjustable resistor that can wear out over time.

And just like in every other controller, from the JoyCons used by the Nintendo Switch to the DualSense used by the PlayStation 5, when the potentiometers wear out, you get a phenomenon called stick drift. This makes the console think there is movement when you’re not touching the sticks, which is a big problem. It’s an even bigger problem for the Steam Deck, as the controllers are built into the main body. Even with replacement parts being readily available, it’s a pain to swap the sticks out.

What the Steam Deck’s successor should use is Hall effect sticks and triggers, which sense a magnetic field for their position, so they don’t have any touching internals to wear out. That’s the type of thumbstick used in the Lenovo Legion Go, and it should be the default for every controller, console, and thumbstick-equipped device going forward. Hall effect is the superior type of sensor, and the only reason the carbon resistor ones are still used is that they save a few pennies per device in manufacturing. That’s not a good enough reason to keep using them, and companies like Valve should also consider the potential influx of service requests when the older-style thumbsticks invariably wear out.

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6 A more accurate touchscreen

I shouldn’t have to tap twice

Most of the time, I love how fluid the navigation is on my Steam Deck, whichever method of control I’m using. The Steam UI is well thought-out for controller use, and I can also use the two touchpads if I prefer to scroll. Those touchpads are also great when in Desktop mode, using the Steam Deck as a mini Linux computer. They’re surprisingly accurate, and I often don’t feel the need to attach a mouse to the console for an easier time.

But the touchscreen, that’s another story. It’s fine for tasks that don’t require precision, like scrolling or selecting the large game tiles in the Steam UI, but that’s about it. Trying to use it in Desktop mode is an exercise in futility, and so is trying to select menu items when in Gaming mode. Even something as simple as opening the side menu to select the power menu to turn off the Steam Deck takes multiple tries if I use the touchscreen, and it shouldn’t have to be that way. Smartphones have far more accurate digitizers on a smaller screen, and so do most tablets.

The next Steam Deck needs a more accurate touchscreen so that it can recognize inputs the first time, every time. To be fair, this isn’t an issue isolated to the Steam Deck. The Legion Go also has subpar touchscreen performance, but that could equally be Windows 11’s fault and not inaccurate hardware. The Nintendo Switch is the only semi-accurate touchscreen handheld console I own, and the next Steam Deck should be at least that fluid as a touch interface.

5 More power

The APU needs a replacement

My Steam Deck is the earlier LCD version, so it doesn’t have the upgraded 6nm AMD APU from the Steam Deck OLED or the 25% bigger battery that Valve says it added to the refreshed device. The new 6nm APU is essentially a shrink of the 7nm APU in my original Steam Deck, so it brings better power efficiency, which means lower thermals for the same tasks. That’s a good improvement, but Valve could go much further next time.

The 6nm APU is still using the RDNA 2.0 architecture, which first came out in 2020 with the AMD Radeon RX 6000 GPUs and the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series S|X consoles. AMD’s own GPUs are using RDNA 3.0 currently, which is more powerful but might be too power-hungry for a handheld console.

What fits the bill for both power and efficiency is the new Qualcomm Snapdragon X chips, and the best part is that Valve wouldn’t have to do much to get Steam OS running on them. See, Steam OS is based on Arch Linux, which already has an optimized port for Arm devices. Windows 11 also has a version for Arm processors, so you could conceivably dual-boot on the Steam Deck and get the best of both worlds. Steam OS for most games, Windows 11 for those that need anti-cheat to run.

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4 Improved housing

The fit and finish needs a tweak

One of the widespread complaints about the original Steam Deck was that the case often didn’t fit properly, with seams that felt rough or sharp or didn’t line up near the triggers. My unit also suffers from this, and is very mushy near the exhaust port for the cooling system and also near the microSD card slot. When I took the console apart to swap the SSD for a larger unit, I was slightly successful at tweaking the trigger positions and securing the case and other parts so that they lined up a little better. Not perfectly, but still better. Some of the buttons also had a squishy feel, mainly the Steam button, and the haptic feedback on both touchpads was so strong I thought something was broken until I adjusted some settings.

Now, Valve has already fixed some of these annoyances with the Steam Deck OLED. For instance, the haptics on the touchpads have been improved. The screws that hold the casing together are now Torx and screw into metal threads instead of into the plastic of the opposite housing. The bumper buttons are now secured to the joystick PCB, which makes them sturdier and easier to repair. I want them to go further with the next model and take some cues from the company that outsells everyone in handheld consoles, Nintendo. The Nintendo Switch is built with more solid plastics, and feels more premium to hold. That’s the gold standard, but Valve could even go higher and make it the most premium handheld console for PC gaming. Companies like Ayaneo and GPD have shown that there’s a market for it, so why not push the premium aspect?

3 Better cooling

This is a noise complaint

The cooling system on the Steam Deck is functional enough, keeping the temperatures of the 15W APU low enough that the housing doesn’t get that warm. But to do so, the cooling fan needs to turn into a little screaming pinwheel and can get quite loud. Combine that with the fairly quiet speakers, and you’re going to hear fan noise instead of your games.

This isn’t that much of an issue if you use headphones to play, but it’s still an issue. Consider other devices with similar TDPs. The M1 iPad Pro can use up to 20W under gaming loads, and that’s completely passively cooled. Now, part of that is because the aluminum case is used as a heatsink, and that’s not the case for the Steam Deck with its plastic housing. Maybe a larger heatsink will work to keep the thermals in check, but it really depends on what chip the next Steam Deck is powered by. Still, I’d love an end to my console sounding like a mini jet engine when I’m playing a power-hungry game.

2 Larger SSD support

Give us a 2280 capable slot

The Steam Deck is essentially a handheld computer and uses standard PCIe NVMe SSDs for its main storage drive. That makes it fairly easy to swap it for a larger, gaming-focused SSD to store more of your Steam Library. But what’s not standard is the form factor, as the Steam Deck uses 2230-sized SSDs, more commonly found in small and/or cheap laptops. The shorter SSD does mean it takes up less space, which is important to keep the overall size of the handheld console small, but it means there is a hard cap of SSD space of 2TB.

I’d love for the internals to get reworked so that we could put the more common, 2280-sized SSDs into the next iteration of the Steam Deck. Drives of this size come in capacities of up to 8TB, which is plenty to store games for Gaming mode and documents, programs, etc. if you also use Desktop mode. If the 80mm long SSDs are too much of a space hog, maybe there’s enough space for a second slot to fit another 2230-sized SSD into the device. It’s cool that the Steam Deck lets you install games to a microSD card, but that’s not a long-term option, as the cards wear out faster than SSDs. Maybe removing the port will give the necessary space.

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1 Anti-cheat support

Please let me play my beloved Destiny 2

Games that rely on anti-cheat systems have a long history of issues with Linux-based devices. Whether it’s BattlEye, Vanguard, Easy Anti-Cheat (EAC), or any of the other popular anti-cheat software, they all have one thing in common: they won’t work on Linux. That’s for a mix of reasons, including resources to get them running on a different operating system and, in some cases, complete disinterest from the developers. It’s the biggest issue facing Steam OS right now since so many other games work perfectly with the Proton translation layer.

If anyone in the world can get anti-cheat working on Linux, it will be Valve and the huge depth of developer talent that it employs. The Steam Deck shouldn’t be limited to single-player gaming or single-player campaigns from games that also have robust multiplayer components. I’d love to see anti-cheat working on the next Steam Deck, whether natively or through the translation layers that make Windows games run on Steam OS. Until then, I’ll have to keep a Windows-based handheld gaming console around to play the few multiplayer games I love when I’d much rather slim down to one console.

Whatever Valve improves, the next Steam Deck is going to be great

Valve nailed the core functionality of the Steam Deck on the first try. Then, the OLED version launched, improving on many of the issues owners had been talking about. With a longer release window for the successor of the Steam Deck, Valve has time to optimize things like cooling and fit of the plastics so that the next device is more complete.

Most of my wishes for the next handheld are around longevity, whether that’s better tech in the joysticks or more options for replacement parts. They’re also minor tweaks, as I feel Valve got most of the console right. I’ve used multiple other handheld gaming consoles, and they have a different set of shortcomings, including software ones that make the overall experience lessened. The only big software shortcoming for me on the Steam Deck is no support for anti-cheat, and that’s going to be a tall order as it requires multiple developers to work together. Still, I can hope that one day I’ll be able to play Destiny 2 on a Valve handheld without resorting to installing Windows.

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