Fancy upgrading the resolution of your Steam Deck screen? Well it seems FX Technology also known as F(x)tec are planning to offer Steam Deck screen upgrades under the Deck HD brand.
The screen on all three models of the Steam Deck have a 1280x800 resolution, and the top-end Steam Deck has special anti-glare coating. What if we could swap it out for a 1920x1200 anti-glare screen? Well that's their plan. Not just that though, their screen will offer better colours too they claim 74% AdobeRGB Coverage versus 45% AdobeRGB Coverage on the original Steam Deck screen.
It's not available yet but you can join the waitlist on their website, with a price expected to be around $99.
An interesting idea, although it's worth remembering that powering that extra screen resolution will come with a cost attached. Even at the 800p of the existing Steam Deck screen, that can be too much for some of the latest AAA games to handle. Might be nice for some older games though, or just anything that isn't the latest 3D AAA titles.
I actually spoke about this in my recent Steam Deck news round-up video, as it was teased on Twitter but only today I found the official site launch for it. Anyway my round-up is below:
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It seems the deck has an ips screen, not tn, right?The Deck has an IPS screen, yes. Which means that off-axis viewing is fine, which wouldn't be the case with a TN screen. But the colour gamut isn't great as far as IPS screens go - less than 100% sRGB. It seems to be one of the "painful" choices Valve made to hit the price point. In actual use, though, it's not that much of an issue: you aren't using it to see skin tones - games make up their own custom colours. If you hold it side-by-side with a good IPS screen you'll see the reds being slightly orange, but solo you'll only notice the high DPI, fast response, and ability to show a good image even at very low brightness, which are admirable traits for a battery-powered gaming appliance. There is space for a Deck with a better screen but the process of replacing it is not a lot of fun. And replacing the screen with one that can't run at an arbitrary refresh rate between 40 & 60 Hz (which the Deck's display can) would be a functional downgrade.
Well, I suppose that an IPS screen still means good color reproducion in the range of the reproducible while still very low gamut.
This ensures good reproduction at low brightness levels, but still, at low brightness having more gamut helps, because saturation is clamped "by design".
Btw, it is not just skin tones. At least for me, the inability to show saturated and vivid colors is a serious issue.
I repeat, my personal and biased opinion, don't shoot me.
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Well, I suppose that an IPS screen still means good color reproducion in the range of the reproducible while still very low gamut.You should endeavour to see one in person, playing games. It's fine, but not great; but you definitely wouldn't want to sacrifice the other aspects of the display I mentioned for a better gamut. Constrained technology like this is all about compromises.
This ensures good reproduction at low brightness levels, but still, at low brightness having more gamut helps, because saturation is clamped "by design".
Btw, it is not just skin tones. At least for me, the inability to show saturated and vivid colors is a serious issue.
I repeat, my personal and biased opinion, don't shoot me.
(As a point of comparison, my desktop monitor has very good colour reproduction (Dell UP3017), but I do almost all my gaming on the Deck)
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Can it do the timing tricks that the Deck's screen can do to run at 40 Hz?
That's a big deal. Also, didn't Valve mention that even the physical properties (particularly flexibility) of the screen they chose is integral to the Steam Deck's build?
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If it's about price points, may be they should have options for screens same as they have options for storage?
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CyborgZeta May 19, 2023
i rather have 800p OLED insteadSeconding this. My Pixel 7 (and Pixel Watch) have AMOLED displays, and it's not bad, I have to say. I'd be open to something like that for the Deck.
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Wow, Is the Deck just 40% AdobeRGB?
Somebody corrects me if I'm wrong, since I'm more pratocal about NTSC and SRGB colorspaces, but it seems AdobeRGB is equivalent to NTSC, and 40% means seriously washed out colors (how does the red looks on the Deck, kinda orange-ish?), more or less the same you find in 300/400 euros laptops; good for office use, but definitely NOT for running games or watching movies, what a shame.
There's also the general public "education" component to consider; where the general market favors an inferior product over a superior one due to high familiarity with the cheap one and a lack of technical knowledge to fully understand why the cheap product is lesser. The differences are seen as faults, because, well it's different and weird.
Good examples are the box wine comparisons and the preference for certain headphones over higher quality options.
I am curious if there was a similar effect for cheap screens.
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So, we have body, joysticks and now display. One think for upgreads for deck which we need right now is main board with new CPU. Can some small chinase company buy cpu used in ASUS ROG Ally? :-)
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Wow, Is the Deck just 40% AdobeRGB?
or maybe they are saying to it as marketing material.
the last thing i heard was that deck was ~70% sRGB, not sure how it compare to adobeRGB or wich one is the most correct one, but if the content was designed for the wrong displays anyway, using an color accurate display will improve our experiences... at what cost?
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i would be totally ok with a screen that has the same resolution brightness and everything just with no bezel. this is not a tablet idk why there is a need for a bezel. it looks ridiculous and makes the screen smaller for no reason. it could easily be a 8" display.
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