Valve says the hardware is guaranteed to work like new, though refurbished units may have cosmetic defects that don’t affect functionality.
“Each Certified Refurbished Steam Deck has been thoroughly tested to the same high standards as our retail units,” says Valve. “Every device goes through a complete factory reset, software update, and an extensive examination involving over 100 tests at one of Valve’s facilities. Among the tests are all controller inputs, the audio system, the screen, and internals. Battery health is also assessed to ensure proper functionality and longevity. All refurbished units meet or even exceed the performance standards of new retail units. Although they may have minor cosmetic blemishes, they provide a reliable, high-quality gaming experience at a lower cost.”
The Steam Deck’s hardware has already been superseded by newer CPUs and GPUs like the Ryzen Z1 in Windows-powered handhelds like the Asus ROG Ally. And Valve has said that it’s in no rush to put out a major upgrade, preferring instead to stick to a more console-esque upgrade timeline that gives developers a slower-but-stable configuration to target.
But as we discovered in our testing, Windows still isn’t well-suited for handheld PCs, and third-party SteamOS distributions for handhelds like the Ally also aren’t all there. For many players’ day-to-day experience, it’s still worth giving up some extra frames-per-second to get the niceties of official first-party SteamOS support.