Steam Deck 2 Doesn’t Need a Higher Resolution Screen

howtogeek.com:

The Steam Deck is a nifty little handheld gaming PC, but it does come with its share of wrinkles. The 800p display, however, isn’t one of them. If you ask me, the Steam Deck 2 (or whatever Valve ends up calling the Deck’s successor) doesn’t need a higher resolution display. Here’s why.

Before I begin, a disclaimer: I’m not trying to say that Valve shouldn’t put a 1200p screen on the Deck 2 under no circumstances whatsoever. If the company manages to equip the thing with a powerful APU, remedy most of the common downsides found on the original Deck —average battery life, poor haptics, stiff paddle buttons, subpar wireless performance, loud fan, USB-C port located at the top, etc.— and include a 1200p screen that covers 100% of the sRGB color gamut, great! I’m all for it. But if the price of having a 1200p display is a weaker APU or not addressing some of the more jarring issues with the console, I’m all for Valve keeping the 800p resolution on the Deck’s successor.

Many Steam Deck owners rant about the Deck’s screen, but most don’t mind the resolution, myself included. First of all, a 67% coverage of the sRGB color gamut is the most critical issue with the panel. Narrow color gamut results in washed-out colors that are far from the color saturation overload we have on the Nintendo Switch OLED, or even other handheld gaming PCs such as the AYANEO 2, the GPD Win 4, or the ROG Ally.

And while there’s a Decky Loader plugin —vibrantDeck— that makes colors more saturated, the said add-on doesn’t magically increase the color depth. If anything, making the colors pop more hurts the color accuracy. It’s because the more saturated the colors, the less pronounced the difference between different shades of each color, with different