You read that right. My battery went bust. I had to send my deck in for a replacement. Really upset about this, and I know I’m not the only one who has had issues with this…

I would’ve happily taken more delays if it meant that Valve could’ve gotten the kinks worked out. I mean seriously, in it’s current state, this is kind of unacceptable. If you read /r/SteamDeck you can find that lots of people are having issues from batteries, to stuck buttons, to bad graphics cards, to bad haptics, and more. I figured maybe I would be lucky and get away without any issues, like many have. Well evidently, that is not the case.

Here’s hoping the replacement unit will work properly. If not, I’m probably just going to ask for a refund…

Update Aug 11th: Well after opening up the device, and then looking to see if the battery connection was unplugged, I decided to unplug and replug the battery just in case, and it seems to be working fine now. I tested it by charging it up to 100% and then playing Civ VI (which is a very intense game on the battery fwiw) until it hit 20% and I had no issues with that. I got an hour and a half of playtime out of it. So I don’t know if unplugging and replugging fixed it or what, but it seems to be working just fine now, so here’s hoping it stays that way…

If I start having issues again, then yeah, it’s time to send it in for an RMA.

Update Aug 12th: This morning I started having issues again whilst playing Cities: Skylines. It died with 75% left. I have no choice but to send it in for an RMA.

Update Aug 15th: It has been dropped off with FedEx and sent in for an RMA. Hopefully the replacement unit comes in quick and works well.

Update Aug 21st: New Steam Deck on the way! Fingers crossed that this one won’t meme itself after a month.