Pinned info: There is a revamped version of the Steam Deck - the Steam Deck OLED with really nice improvements - it's not a Steam Deck 2, but a really good 1.2 version - see here.
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Is there no Steam Deck 2 coming?!
To reassure you: Yes. Just not in the near future.
Steam Deck 2 probably not until the end of 2025 or later
In an interview with The Verge and CNBC, Valve’s Pierre-Loup Griffais said they would like to bring a new, redesigned Steam Deck to market - but it will probably not happen until late 2025 or later. The reason for this is the performance in combination with the battery life.
Griffais said the following via email to The Verge :
"It's important to us that the Steam Deck offers developers a consistent performance benchmark. The message to our customers should be clear: any deck can run the same games. We don't change performance levels lightly and only want to do so when there is a significant performance gain. We also don't want increased performance to come at a significant cost in power efficiency and battery life. I don't expect such progress to be realizable in the next few years, but we're keeping a close eye on developments in architectures and manufacturing processes to see which direction they take."
But just because we're talking about a revised version of the Steam Deck doesn't mean that the current model is to be despised. It can still handle the latest titles - albeit with a loss of quality - from day one. The SteamOS 3.5 update only contributes to the performance optimization; this, coupled with the right settings, allows games like Starfield or Baldur's Gate 3 to run smoothly on your handheld.
It is still unclear what solutions the Steam Deck 2 will bring. A new screen that offers better image quality thanks to a higher frame rate? (OLED perhaps?) A larger battery with more juice? An optimized CPU? Or simply a Steam Deck Lite?
Experience has shown that there will certainly be rumors and leaks until then - but to be completely sure, we will all have to be patient.