Supplies of LCD Steam Deck Replacement Batteries (Briefly) Dry Up, Raising Concerns for the Older Handheld's Future

It's no secret that Valve have officially retired their original, LCD-based version of the Steam Deck, in order to fully move their production lines over to the newer (and supposedly much better-looking) OLED model. But after a report by ExtremeTech and followed up on by PC Gamer, it appears that this might be straining Valve's promise to keep their hardware repairable in the long-term.

When the Steam Deck first launched, Valve strongly promoted it on its repairability. A factor that has become all the more important as RAM prices have driven the price of the handheld even higher, making replacing a failing LCD model a potentially very expensive proposition. Through a partnership with iFixIT, the plan was for replacement parts to remain in circulation long after the sunsetting of the hardware.

Concerns were raised recently when one LCD model owner went shopping for a replacement battery - one of the most common failure points on the system - and was informed by iFixIT that they were out of stock and weren't expecting to receive any more. Thankfully, the worst-case scenario has since been averted, with Valve confirming to PC Gamer that battery stocks should return as soon as next week, and iFixIT confirming that Valve were the ones to dispatch a fresh stock of the components.

While this is an 'all's well that ends well' story for the time being, it does raise concerns about how much longer stock will last on LCD-model components, and how willing Valve are to keep restocking their partner's shelves, with even iFixIT staff confirming that the components were being sunset until this surprise restock happened. As an owner of one of those earlier-model LCD Steam Decks, I'd quite like to keep my hardware running for as long as possible.