In case you’re out of the loop, the old Steam Deck had Philips screws that screwed into self-tapping plastic holes. This lead to occasional stripped threads and often stripped screwheads.
Valve absolutely did not have to change their screws, and its probably actually against their best interests. While other companies around the world are constantly in search of new ways to screw their own consumers, Valve goes out of their way to update their screws to make them easier to install/remove by changing to torx screws and added metal threads in the backplate. Those who know anything about mechanical engineering know this is not an insignificant amount of effort they put into it.
This is a small change that makes a huge impact, and speaks volumes about the ethos of the company. It says:
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We want to make our devices last longer, and be easier to repair.
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If you want to buy the cheaper tier and save yourself a few bucks by installing whatever SSD you want, go right ahead.
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We trust you to make decisions for yourself.
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Most importantly, we respect you, the consumer, and want you to fully own and control the devices we sell.
Valve is by no means perfect, and there’s plenty more they could be doing, but they’ve earned my respect and my patronage and I won’t buy games from anywhere else. I will buy whatever future products they sell, even if I don’t think I’ll use them regularly.
I can understand wanting mods, but at the same time, it’s not like you can open your iPhone without damaging it in the process. I guess I want to say that I can get why people would want to add stuff to their thing, but I don’t see why someone would expect Valve to have accounted for that.
You’re missing the point of this post… They specifically made a change to make it easier to open and put back together without damage, which is not the norm in most related industries these days. That’s a good thing that we have been conditioned not to expect because of companies like Apple that fully do not want you to open your device ever for any reason.
Your comment sounds like “well you can’t open an iPhone without damaging it, why should you be able to open a steam deck without damaging it”… Very much corporate overlord shill vibes.
“Corporate shrill”. Why was it necessary to make it personal?
My point is that you can’t expect companies to do good things. Valve seems to be an exception.
Also you have to admit that the title frames it like a complaint. Top post points this out
When I get my new OLED the first thing I will do is crack it open and swap the SSDs. Partly because the other one has all my data on it and it be an eternity to move it over and partly because the old one has already been swapped for a 1TB.