Valve has just dropped a new flavor of its acclaimed handheld, with the new white Steam Deck OLED transforming the previously all-black gaming device into a classy white and gray model. Despite being ostensibly the same device, but with a different colored shell, the result looks strikingly different from the original device, with the white heavily contrasting against the black screen.
This isn't the first white handheld, of course. The best handheld gaming PC right now, even if other devices have more processing power available.
White Steam Deck OLED release date
The white Steam Deck OLED release date is Monday, November 18, 2024, when it will be released worldwide in limited quantities.
White Steam Deck OLED price
The white Steam Deck OLED price is $679, which is $30 more than the standard black model with the same spec. The white model also comes with some accessories included in the bundle, such as a matching white carry case and white cleaning cloth.
White Steam Deck OLED specs
These are the white Steam Deck OLED specifications:
| White Steam Deck OLED | |
| U | AMD Zen 2 (4 cores / 8 threads) |
| GPU | AMD RDNA 2 (8 CUs) |
| RAM | 16GB LPDDR5 (6,400MT/s) |
| Display | 7.4-inch OLED (1,280 x 800 / 90Hz / HDR) |
| Battery | 50WHr |
| Storage | 1TB NVMe SSD |
| Weight | 640g |
| Size | 298 x 117 x 49mm |
There's a warning here, though, which is that Valve says the white Steam Deck OLED is a limited edition device, and it doesn't look like more are coming after the first run. "This is a Limited Edition!" says the company, "once we're out, we're out." Accordingly, Valve says it's only allowing each customer to buy one unit, and only to people who've made at least one Steam purchase before November 2024.
Each region will be allocated a certain amount of separate stock, rather than it just being one big pool, meaning the US, Canada, UK, EU, and Australia will all get a batch of the new white Steam Decks.
In of performance, the white Steam Deck OLED specs are identical to those of the 1TB black model. This gives you a 1TB NVMe SSD, so you get a decent amount of storage space for games, and you also get the acclaimed 7.4-inch OLED screen, which has a 1,280 x 800 resolution.
Meanwhile, the U and GPU are the same as the base Steam Deck model, with a quad-core AMD Ryzen Zen 2 U and an AMD Radeon RDNA 2 GPU containing eight compute units. The OLED models come with faster RAM than the base models, though, with 16GB of 6,400MT/s LPDDR5 memory, which helps performance, as this RAM is also used as VRAM by the GPU.
Valve has dipped its toe into the different color waters before, releasing a smoky translucent Steam Deck OLED earlier, which it describes as "an experiment to find out if there was interest in alternative colorways (there was!)." This new white Steam Deck OLED model is also a bit of an experiment along those lines, with Valve saying that it's "curious to see what the response is," adding that it "will use what we learn to inform future decisions about any potential new color variants down the line."
Basically, if this white Steam Deck OLED sells out quickly, it's likely that Valve will produce the Steam Deck 2 in both black and white variants, with possibly other color variations as well.
If you're looking for more power than the Steam Deck, check out our best microSD for Steam Deck, where we take you through our favorite options for expanding your storage.