Purchasing the Steam Deck has been tricky ever since Valve started taking pre-orders in July 2021. Also, it wasn’t until February 2022 that the company started shipping the handheld console and for much of this year there has been a long list of pre-orders. expected as demand has always outstripped production capacity. Now, the situation has improved and the company announces that the console is available without reservation in some world regions, Spain included.
Valve says they’ve had to go to great lengths to deal with component shortages and logistical issues, and build the console at a faster rate than ever before. “Despite ever-increasing booking rates, we have managed to exceed our shipment estimates and today we have cleared the queue”they explain.
The purchase of the Steam Deck will be easier
Thus, although they do not rule out having to return to the reservation system if the volume of orders for a certain model exceeds their capacity to send it on time, it can already be purchased directly without the need for reservations, although the availability of the three versions for sale remains different. In Spain with the following prices and shipping dates:
- Steam Deck base with 64 GB: 419 euros. Expected availability for orders: October-December 2022.
- Steam Deck base with 256 GB: 549 euros. Expected Shipment Date: 1-2 weeks.
- Steam Deck base with 512 GB: 679 euros. Expected Shipment Date: 1-2 weeks.
As you know, the three models on sale are identical in design, screen (7-inch IPS with 1280 x 800 pixel resolution, 16:10 aspect ratio, 400 nits of brightness and 60 Hz refresh rate); processing and graphics capacity (AMD APU with 4-core/8-thread Zen 2 CPU and RDNA 2 GPU with 8 compute units) and RAM (16 GB LPDDR5 RAM).
The differences go through the storage solution used from 64 GB eMMC in the base version and the 256 and 512 GB SSDs that mount the two higher versions, respectively, and some extras that Valve includes.
Steam Dock, also available
In addition to the purchase of the Steam Deck without pre-orders, Valve has announced the official docking station direct availability that recharges its battery and extends the game in mobility, facilitating the connection of the console to an external screen, be it a monitor or television.
To do this, it has three USB-A 3.1 Gen 1 ports, a USB-C port for power supply, a Gigabit Ethernet port for connection to the local network / Internet and digital video and audio outputs, DisplayPort 1.4 and HDMI 2.0 .
Note that the Steam Deck can work with any other third-party USB-C docking stations or hubs thanks to the compatibility work Valve has done on the console’s operating system, SteamOS. If you want the official dock, it is available (at the moment without reservations) for 99 euros.
