The new Valve Steam Deck OLED didn’t just change the screen: Almost every part of the device has had some sort of revision, from the screws to the power topology of the motherboard. Some of these changes happened silently in the Voyager platform refresh for the Steam Deck, but the majority of large changes are brand new. Memory underwent relocation and now uses better modules, the cooling solution has had its fan flipped and thickened, and the controller component PCBs have had some consolidation and durability improvements. In this tear-down of the new Steam Deck OLED, we’ll compare the new Steam Deck vs. the original, old Steam Deck “LCD” model.
I would honestly not worry too much.
The glue is a mother fucker, no arguments there. There ARE actually very good reasons for it but… it still sucks.
But as long as you aren’t going at it with a butter knife For Content, it is mostly just tedious. Get a plastic pryer/splitter and a heat gun and go to town. https://www.ifixit.com/Guide/Steam+Deck+Battery+Replacement/149070 is the gold standard guide for that.
I’ve seen some solvents advertised for specifically this use case (remove glued in electronics parts) but I personally wouldn’t trust those without a LOT of reviews. Like, if it were that simple, ifixit and the like would already be selling it.
But also? I doubt it is going to be an issue outside of RMA-worthy problems. The days of batteries failing left and right are gone now that basically every device has logic to not over-charge or kill the zero. Think of the Steam Deck like a phone. It has a 2-6 year life cycle at which point it will be “weak enough” to not run anything remotely new and likely have a replacement with MUCH better everything (Valve best keep that audio jack though…). Now, PC gaming gets weird as I think my most played games at this point are Warframe and Dwarf Fortress (and that goes back to the curses only days…) but… yeah.