The Steam Deck 2 is an open secret at this point, with Valve repeatedly confirming the existence of the device and fans eagerly waiting to find out what upgrades it’ll feature. While we still don’t know when we can expect a successor to the popular portable powerhouse, we do have some idea as to what specs Deck designers want to improve.
An obvious upgrade for the Steam Deck 2 would be to swap out its existing custom APU with the best gaming CPU that Valve can use from the AMD Ryzen 6000 or 7000 series. This would assist the handheld device better keep pace with competitors like the OneXPlayer 2, by improving its performance.
However, Steam Deck designers Lawrence Yang and Pierre-Loup Griffais would instead prefer to place their efforts on improving the battery life and screen of this prospective PC.
Speaking to The Verge, they say that Valve will “opt to keep the one performance level for a little bit longer, and only look at changing the performance level when there is a significant gain to be had.”
Given that the Steam Deck 2 isn’t likely to feature drastically different hardware from its predecessor, it’s a safe bet that the best Steam Deck dock and other accessories will be backwards compatible. That said, we’ll need to wait and see for when Valve finally lifts the curtain on its new and shiny handheld to be sure.