Valve originally released the Steam Deck back in 2022, following it up with an OLED model the following year. Since then, the handheld gaming PC market has blown up and brands have been launching their very own renditions of the device. Those to have stuck around include the ASUS ROG Ally and Lenovo Legion Go – but even with these enjoying success, and boasting better specs than the Deck, many Steam Deck owners still aren’t ready to upgrade.

That’s according to a recent poll we’ve been running. Following the announcement of the Lenovo Legion Go S, which will get a SteamOS variant in May this year, we were curious to see whether this SteamOS model will help recruit many current Deck owners over to the Lenvovo handheld with a familiar operating system.

Steam Deck is still relevant in 2025, owners say they “don’t need to upgrade”

At the time of writing, our poll reveals that 44% (242) of voters already own a Steam Deck and have no interest in upgrading right now. For reference, the Valve handheld runs on much older hardware than is currently available on the latest handhelds. When comparing the ROG Ally X vs Steam Deck, we can see that the Deck runs on AMD’s Zen 2 and RDNA 2 CPU and GPU architecture respectively, while the Ally X enjoys newer Zen 4 and RDNA 2 hardware courtesy of the Ryzen Z1 Extreme chip.

On top of that, the Ally X is upgraded to 24GB of RAM and doubles the battery size of the original Steam Deck. Despite all this, it still runs on Windows – an operating system that some people would rather avoid on a handheld now that they’ve experienced how user-friendly SteamOS is. There’s also the issue of price; Valve offers the best value for money in our eyes and rival companies fail to remain competitive in comparison.

So, what do people want in a ‘Steam Deck 2‘ that might make them want to upgrade? After all, 31% (170) of our audience did say they are waiting for a sequel before they upgrade. Well, here comes another poll to figure out just that. We suspect that battery life is going to be a big one. Even though Valve has already confirmed that there will be no Steam Deck running on the new Z2 chip, the processor promises to solve the battery life issue that fans are often quick to complain about.

About the Author

Jack Goodall

At PC Guide, Jack is mostly responsible for reporting on hardware deals. He also specializes in monitors, TVs, and headsets and can be found putting his findings together in a review or best-of guide.