The SD card... 1:01:33 - SD card, still whole can be seen sticking up over the edge of the Steam Deck 1:02:18 - less than a minute later, standing up in the same position, no SD card is visible One of those cracks, was not a good crack.
1:01:53 - Still there. 1:01:56 - Left thumb right over the SD card. 1:02:14 - Aaaand it's gone! 1:05:18 - Broken SD card piece in frame. 1:11:00 - Where'd Control go? 1:20:46 - Notices broken SD card.
At 1:12:20 what you are seeing is that the analog pad beeing unplugged causes the input to be floating (electricaly speaking). The analog pads are just potentiometer where the '0' value is an equal resistor value either from ground or vcc.
He seems to have broken the SD card somewhere in the 30 seconds after 1:01:53 meaning that its not the outside plastic shell that caused it to break but his prying and pulling on the entire frame, possibly his second hand may have been holding on to the area with the SD card and snapped it off that way.
I actually made the same mistake. Forgot the SD was in there and the socket isn't recessed enough for the frame to not catch the SD card. Snapped a 512GB San Disk Extreme in half.
Overselling the difficulty of changing out parts is clever on Valve's part IMO - it's so easy that word of mouth alone will market the ease of maintenance, but by refusing to acknowledge the ease of maintenance while still showing how to maintain the system, they protect themselves from liability while still remaining popular and marketable. No company is ever your friend, but companies like Valve which have found their market niche in being the "reliable" brand are the best kind.
Actually I think you are vastly over estimating the technical/handiness of the general population I know several people under the age of 30 that think installing ram in there own dell workstations is a hard task...
@@uchiaslaya7 sure but when they work from home and are scattered across the UK and Ireland is easier to send the ram to them than a whole new workstation. These arent sff machines full towers
@@ThePirateParrot To be fair, I wouldn't want to open any Dell considering my experience in their tendency to self-destruct. Have not had a good experience with a Dell machine in ages (early 2000's, I think).
A suggestion as to why the L shaped battery: not to keep the frame to a certain thinnesses necessarily, but rather to spread the thermal load of the battery across a higher surface area, which also allows them to use a more anemic fan to achieve comparable thermal and acoustic performance.
No. These designs are exclusively for a packaging design goal, to claim as much space as possible. Battery life is one of the most important metrics for a handheld, so it makes total sense for them to go for this design.
@@drkastenbrot the reason why I posit that it might be a matter of thermal->by->way of battery. In comparison to the neo, they are both 3 cell designs. But If you sandwich 3 cells you create a heat sink, and given that lithium ion cells can legit catch fire, you’re going to have to use a large amount of fan and power to keep that battery cool. However, if you can remove one layer in thickness and instead spread out the same battery profile onto a larger surface area, You should be able to get good performance from a mediocre fan.
@@xipietotec The battery isnt part of the thermal design. The product has a fan and thats where you want the heat to go. Having hot surfaces on a handheld degrades the user experience, and batteries last longer when at room temperature. Keeping heat away from the casing and battery is a major design goal for the cooling system. Using the battery as a heat sink is something partially done in phones, but phones generally dont have a fan and also operate at much lower power. Lithium Polymer batteries are also rather poor heat conductors anyways.
I really like the charging port being on the top. When I'm chillin on the couch or in bed, I like to rest the device on my lap / blankets and I dont like the ports getting pressured from being bent by the wire.
When it's on the bottom is more for a craddle so this makes for a weird connection to a dock but no down cable means sooo much more confort to use with the charging wire on top
That's just not true though. The one thing that everyone who keeps using this thing is going to want to replace eventually is solidly glued in place when it should be full on user replacable. That being the battery. I would have much prefered a battery bulge with a user replacable battery, that way we could even carry spares to get extra time if we wanted as well as making the most common repair a non issue.
@@TheAkashicTraveller easily swappable joysticks, 8 screws ish to access SSD, all screws being normal sized, heatsink being super easy to remove for thermal paste change. my guy the only thing they did was applied a bit too much glue on 1 component which could be alleviated by applying some alcohol to loosen it. Hella Clueless
@@DaRkOzoraX Yeah, it was killing me watching the stream that Linus wasn't just dropping a little bit of solvent in there to seriously help with the glue. I was so surprised he didn't damage the battery.
The "blackscreening" you mention at 2:46 is something that has happened in your live streams fairly often lately. The stream feed just cuts out and goes black for a split second every now and then.
Sorry about this. It will be fixed in the next stream. We've been having some issues with the FX6 and SDI output. Normally only happens on the manned camera. They are extremely sensitive to any movement from the BNC connector.
Damn, i was kinda excited for how repairable it seemed until the battery. Freaking iPhone batteries are easier to remove Speaking of which, if iPhone adhesive strips tear before they’re out, a way to get the battery out is to run a string or a dental floss under the battery. They’re similarly shaped in an iPhone and the Steam Deck, that might have worked here
It's a bit of a hassle but glue does make the device a lot safer because people will drop it a lot. I replaced my macbook battery which was glued as well. It's annoying and requires a bit of care and patience, but it doesn't mean the battery is "non-replaceable". Just not replaceable by the average Joe, probably. I do understand the criticism though. It'd be good if Valve offered a way to make it easier.
12:55 that's to help the part adhere to one specific side of the mold. If those textured areas didn't exist it would be a crapshoot on witch side of the mold the new part is adhered to and only the side that can't be seen has ejection pins. So if your part sicks in the top halve you must get it out manualy stopping the production line.
If you pause at 1:01:24 you can see that the end of the SD card is already bent, but you can see that it's still there at around 1:01:43. When Linus lays the Steam Deck down on the table right after, that's probably where he broke it off, though it's not visible in the shot. At 1:02:06 you can see the end is broken off and stuck right above it.
the aya neo feels like a laptop rearranged its internals into the shape of a nintendo switch, while the steam deck feels much more like purpose built handheld gaming device.
Their response would be "The battery isn't meant to be removed". Or maybe "Since we knew Linus was going to try and remove the battery, we used extra sticky glue just for him".
@@Joreel It should be able to be removed and replaced, the way battery's have been lasting. If you compare it to a phone you are going to want to switch that sucker out every 2-3 years.
The battery part was one of the scariest things I've seen in a while. When it bent a little I was so afraid it might break and catch on fire. 😬I hate handling lithium batteries.
I just went back and watched Linus disassemble the units. What I learned is that I wouldn't even let Linus disassemble my toaster, let alone a handheld.
according to the valve employee handbook, if you get bored of your job you can just decide to move to a different department and do something else ...........there are no managers etc its all about teamwork.........personally i like to think that one day the janitor got bored and decided to be a hardware engineer instead, and thus the steam deck was born
"It's a non-issue that shouldn't majorly affect gameplay" 😂😂🤣🤣🤣 the more I get immersed in Steam and particularly the Steam Deck, the more I realize just how ignorant I have been about consoles vs pc's, and also just how shitty and anti-consumer console companies truly are. Nintendo and Sony truly care more about the dollar signs of making this shit difficult for the average consumer than about consumer freedom and right to repair.
@Syn's Project idk if sony has gone out of their way to stop repair or if they have I never heard anyone complain about it however the switch on the other hand I've heard stories. I also do not like with Microsoft did with their ssd cards that you pay almost as much as 1 tb samsung 980 pro m.2 and only get 500gb
I wonder if Linus is aware of how much anxiety he induces with these teardowns. It's worse than watching a horror movie, seeing him levering away at that battery like a psychopath. I need a drink...
@Pingo Zingo It most likely happened around 01:01:52 , you can see the card sticking out on the left side of the deck but after Linus flips it around and tries to get the battery out the SD is not there after getting the deck up again. Also the SD card bit was sitting on the table earlier. Edit: There is no Control on the deck when he booted it after removing the battery, so it probably happened before that.
2:15 in the video I noticed how much the screen on the framework laptop shakes. I feel like that's a really bad point for the laptop. If it shakes that much on a table, image how much it would if you were to actually keep it on your lap in a car. I'm glad I noticed this. I really wanted to buy one.
@@AlcorSalvador you don't get it. It's not about if you can replace it, you can replace the hinges on any laptop. It's about how sturdy these hinges are
@@anandmahesh4226 Right... which is why you can just replace them. . . it's like $15-20 if you are really that against the current hinges. That's like saying you wont buy these awesome modular upgradable headphones because the replaceable band, that is explicitly designed to make it easy to replace or upgrade, is a bit too loose for your liking.
It's on a table, but it's not a very sturdy one, it's one of those height adjustable desks and it's adjusted quite high, so they always shake a fair bit.
@@musguelha14 I agree with what youre saying. I was concerned because I'm a guy who travels a lot, sometimes 7-8 hours a day. I'd have to sit in a car and work. I was wondering about how I'd manage to do that if it were that wobbly. I respect the work framework has put in and i like the company. I was just contemplating on buying one.
Use a bit of alcohol on sides of the batteries wait for the alcohol to seep in between the batteries and just slide the card under the battery, pry up slowly and use more alcohol if necessary
Or use a headbed of a 3d printer, heat it up to 60c put the dispay onto the heatbed (corners maybe) so that the center sits flat on it, let it rest there until the device is heated up and then the glue should have become soft enough that it is more like rubber. Done that in the past with a handful of mobile phones to exchange displays
Software, especially when not on the bleeding edge, is so much more affordable on an open platform. It's the BIG reason I'm going all in on Steam Deck. All the other consumer friendly moves from Steam are just gravy.
3rd party docks really have an opportunity here. To attach a Noctua fan so that it'd push more air in and cool the surface of the device while charging.
1:11:40 IDK how many people are going to remember this. or even if that is what is happening here. but back in the day (95-XP days) you had to calibrate your joysticks either in the driver/os, or even in the individual games themselves. this more or less has to do with software/firmware not knowing where the zero point is.
As a Hardware Test Engineer involved with Testing down to component level, I would design as one backplane, with plug in modules on top, that way, it's easy to replace modules, & so easy to update modules, ie WiFi 6 module, the Pin & Sockets type of multi PCB is ideal, it also makes the rigid construction far better, BTW slight application of heat make the glue softer, warning Not Too Warm near the battery or LCD screen !, flex Print is better on sockets, so if anything is broken, this can be replaced, I'm all for upgrades than throw away well made units, Higher voltage on battery might mean that the area where the length of time might ON might be increased, the other reason is lower voltage drop on the connections, usually higher voltage Lower Current, I used to use fluid to make the glue very soft, but I'm not going to say what it is, No it's not lable remover as that could damage Printed circuit board, Always use protection glasses when removing batteries that Might Explode !, the other easy way to design is to have the battery slide out of a fixing when the back is removed, soft foam at the rear of the battery to stop battery movement, just a reminder the Fan speed you have to take into consideration with heatsink size, slow speed larger Fan & Heatsink & quiet, Smaller Fan Faster Speed more Noise ;)
@1:03:17 The top half of the Micro SD fly out as he turns over the Steam Deck; right before he says "can" in "You can heat it from the other side". @1:20:47 Linus notices the broken SD card even though the top piece has been sitting on the desk for nearly 20 mins.
1:45:59 As a surface laptop owner, my thought would be that anything Microsoft might sell would likely have less value proposition than the Steam Deck. Besides having generally awful thermals, Microsoft devices I've used and heard about are horrifically less repairable (0/10 on iFixit, anyone?), far more locked down, and just generally overpriced for the capabilities. Maybe the Xbox team could do better on hardware, but there's also the matter of software; Microsoft's track record for making software that runs smoothly on mobile devices isn't great so far, not to mention privacy issues and bloat. Don't get me wrong--it would be interesting to see, but I personally don't foresee them getting this type of device right for a while yet.
If they switched to two narrow double-sided adhesive tabs right next to the holes where you were able to insert your prying tool and a small one right up against the far edge of the battery I think it would be fine. Making the whole thing one big sheet of glue is not great.
Most entertaining live teardown I've ever seen. Amazing how you do that guys (didn't see it live, but hears you mention it) Got a little nervous about the still connected battery in the beginning though☝️
@@cookie7993 Valve reached out to Linus after he mentioned the OS had rough edges and Linus said he was just repeating them when he said that. Also, he's now allowed to show the OS. Those are two separate things, but this commenter put them together.
The openess of the platform and the fact that it's "just a PC" sold me and I reserved one. I do hope that a well engineered backplate that allows for some form of upgradability in the way that PCIE allows for on desktop. For some reason I really want to daily it as a tablet as well as code on and for it. I'm going to look into DotNet Maui which is looking pretty awesome.
@@Vrtox1337 Well it's a month later and even though I read your post within an hour or so I finally feel as though I can give a reasonable response. You we're right, Dotnet doesn't really support Maui on Linux all that much. The alternatives I've found such as Uno were much the same. As much as I love C# I'm learning Flutter and Dart which feels like static typed... TypeScript and React without the JSX (or would that be more properly called TSX?). I can't help but wish it was Blazor or that it used Maui's declarative XML.
Are you sure about that.... Eg, I've replaced everything except for the main board on my vita. I've replaced batteries and even just straight out removed batteries(to run straight from the adapter) from devices that were not ment to be messed with.
There's always someone lol, what would be next level is if valve implemented some type of repair program where you can send in your deck for repairs, but that would be above and beyond parallel universes
@@ju1cycrackfa1ry This was based on user repairability. Which is a pretty big topic currently what with RIght to Repair and all that. It's not "I can't get it replaced" It's a "We can't replace it" thing.
@@amystery5238 many phone have had battery pull tabs for years so i am sure valve could have used those. But honestly i don't think the battery is going to be that hard to replace if you use little bit of isopropyl alcohol. Usually it makes the glue very soft so you can remove the battery with very little force.
I love Linus talking about the hall effects thumb sticks and the Gulikit thumb sticks are hall effects (which means you'll never get stick drift) and iFixIt offers Gulikit sticks to replace the potentiometer sticks on the SteamDeck (you'll just have to reuse the stick caps and solder the wire for the capacitive pad to the Gulikit PCB). Hands down the best option if you play PC games with a controller is their KingKong 2 Pro controller.
10:50 you can see that the bottom trim on the back panel is fully surrounding the sd card most likely when pulling that off fractured the card then later falling out whilst jostled around. I always remove any protruding devices including sd cards for this reason when doing teardown of my devices.
Battery voltage difference could simply be less prone to failure. Only having two cells instead of three means 50% less prone to failure. Also more reliable with fewer cells to balance, optimally one would be the best (no BMS needed) Its the same with solar panels chained up.
The high voltage battery looked like it was three cells. I'm pretty sure for three cells you can only do all series or all parallel so either 3.7 volts or 11.4 volts. Given those options with three cells it makes sense to pick a series connection. that's a third the current which id actually a large difference in trace width.
And why bother going up to 12V only to have a wasteful bridge and MOSFET rectifiers to bring it back down again to 1.4 and 3.3 V? Might as well keep it at nominal voltage for the packs. And then the charging with a USB-C, I'm not sure how that's handled either. So 9, 10 or 12V goes in at 2A ? Then this is split in the 3 cells on the BMS? Lots of interesting question!
I really can't wait for the aftermarket upgrades. Like a beefier fan (perhaps having a new back plate with a space for a larger fan) maybe some way to extend the usb C to the bottom. Also I think the joystick pointing left could also be because joysticks usually use a 10k ohm potentiometer. And I believe the centre point is usually in the middle, at roughly 5k ohms
i had CrossCode in my wishlist since Linus mentionned it a LOOOONG time ago, finally bought it on sale, it IS quite hard to not get back to it even though the top-down platforming parts are frustrating and the first dungeon was a bit of a chore :P
6:09 (Nice!) "My alcohol was missing before the stream, as well!" Ah, Linus, you're drinking on the job! At least you're the job owner, so you can't be fired.
LinusBreaktips 1:01:53 You can still see the little SD card alive right after he pops something under the battery. This is the last time you'll see it intact
I work in a different electrical field, so my two cents probably isn't worth all that much, but if I had to guess they did the battery in that shape for a mixture of two reasons, one being the space it takes up, and the other being more effective passive heat dissipation. By reducing the need for active mitigation you both save directly in the power required for the larger fan, as well as reduce deficiencies that naturally occur in other areas as a result of the ambient temperature increases, and which are more difficult to properly offset. It's easier to cool a 12 inch surface that is 1 inch deep than it is to cool a surface that is 6 x 2 inches (assuming directional airflow). Also helps keep heat away from the hands, which is why I assume they isolate parts of it the way they do.
I hope if the Steam Deck does well they consider a slightly more premium model/remake. Room for a 2280 drive, more premium haptics, (qd?)-oled panel, user replaceable WiFi6/7, and larger, user replaceable battery maybe?
1:04:54 There's no such a thing as "a good bend" for soft pocket lithium batteries! Also, shame on you Valve for putting so much glue on the battery. At least do it like Sony where they use strips of double sided tape and you can pull the tape off from the side. (And use higher quality tape than Sony where the tape breaks instead of pulling off.)
Instead of a heat gun, a heated mat is a good solution. I am sure ifixit has something like that, but a 3d printer bed is something a lot of folks might have access to for this exact use as well - heat it up, set it face down on it without the sticks installed so the screen sits flat, wait for glue to soften.
Forget about the steam deck; I couldn't stop marvelling at how impressive the presentation skills of Linus are. Kudos to Linus for doing a live stream and still managing to output so much useful information on camera!
Absolutely loved this teardown. Anxiety and all. I've had a preorder for the top-tier Deck since fall of last year and a second one since early January, given the current state of the industry regarding chip shortages and logistical outages making a second one for my partner and I a much stronger value proposition. It's been great to see your honest feedback across your last couple videos, and it's great to see that Valve are still the same guys I knew from back when I was reviewing; just a bunch of nerds like the rest of us, looking to make the best products possible. Knowing that the teardown is this simple says a lot about their confidence regarding the market placement of the Deck and makes me very excited to see what the modding community is going to do with it.
Those ifixit guitar picks are great for removing batteries. Heat glass side for like 5 min on a hot plate, the slide guitar picks down the side and under, work way around while slowly sliding further under the battery. Works great on Samsung battery removal.
A higher voltage battery is used because the voltage is automatically connected to Amh, if 3.3v drops to 2.1v in 7h, from 4.2V to 2.1 in 13h, the voltage circuits on the motherboard can accept more current when input, but the same components on the output power with 3.3v, so a higher voltage range is formed, which is the same as Amh, it takes a long time to lower the battery voltage to a minimum, empty battery!
49:23 If anyone catches this comment (doubtful, there's over a thousand of them), PLEASE don't use something sharp to pry a battery. It's a very easy method to to pop a battery, and potentially cause a small fire. No slicing. If you need to go down this route, drip some Isopropyl alcohol underneath the battery, to loosen it. Then you use a pry tool, to jimmy the battery out.
If Valve's OS on handheld did well enough I could see it being a replacement for a lot of gamers on their personal PCs. I could certainly see daily driving a gaming oriented OS on a PC with a Windows laptop/Chromebook/iPad on the side.
I'm literally contemplating this already. Steam os seems pretty interesting and I've got a couple extra pc's to try Ubuntu with Proton as well as Steam OS on a traditional PC.
You forget, most kids who game on PC don't have their own PC. If steam OS is to be a household thing, they need to broaden their perspective to include software that is not for games only, like make a great word processing application, or make it easy to use google docs etc. Even making it easy for your typical layman to dual boot windows 11 / steam OS is also a viable solution. At this point, this is more likely to be the side device, than a Windows one, like you mentioned. Just my two cents, this is just my perspective, i don't claim to know everything about what is going on with steam OS, if anyone knows something that can flip what i said over, i would love to hear it!
55;20 I actually thought about it a bit, and remember the surprisingly small fan on the steam deck? then what if the lower voltage was aimed at lowering energy loss, not for enhancing battery life but to reduce heat generation? it would mean running everything at a higher current, and the traces would have to be wider, but it also means they can get away with a much flimsier fan (and the longer battery life was just a happy accident)
Energy loss, enhancing battery life and heat generation are inherently the same thing. By laws of physics any bit of energy used will either end up as radiation or heat. Basically anything else can be seen as some side effect on this conversion of electric energy to heat. And lowering energy loss just means to get these side effects with producing as little heat as possible.
@@TheVoitel of course they are connected. what I meant is, that I think the trade offs for the lower voltage were made for the sake of thermals, rather then for the efficiency, even though those two come hand in hand.
@@yahhav345 Tbh. I think the main reason is to get it thinner. Getting three cells in series with stacking two would require weird wirings. I notice than TH-cam completely fucks up text flow when replying to a name in hebrew script. Something tells me that Google did not think about certain Unicode-specific things happening ...
@@TheVoitel to be honest, it's not just youtube: there aren't really any good software that manages to handle multidirectional unicode, at least not without cheating (meaning having the user explicitly declaring in which direction they are writing at the moment) on another note, you might be right, though the Aya Neo was not significantly wider if I understood correctly, so I'm not entirely convinced🤷🏽♂️
at a given pressure and temperature the boundary layer on fan blades is a constant. So designing a fan is about determining the constants and optimizing for the least boundary layer.
It has pull strips to remove the glue that Linus completely missed, go back and look the two black strips he moves out of the way are pull tabs to break the glue, granted preferably it would be two thin strips in my opinion
On our Steam Deck I noticed that the trackpads have different click behaviours depending on how they're configured control wise. Seems they can have a uniform click action or d-pad action at least, and when the device is powered off they don't click at all.
@@johnnymcgregor There's definitely some haptics in there, but it does a pretty good job of feeling like a click (it also has travel btw). Haven't really tested it much, but at least the right pad's full click action even makes a distinct mechanical clicking sound, though it is a bit inconsistent. The Steam controller does something similar, though the pads have a clear button action even when powered off. I'm curious about what's going on here exactly and if it has potential for improvement and more applications.
Exactly. I love hand held gaming. It’s been my favored way of gaming since my first gameboy. Idk why but I’ve always loved being able to game anywhere. So when Steamdeck launched it was no question. When I go on trips I’ll have my steamdeck ready along with every time. Also my switch because emulating switch games is “wrong”
Linus here is a tech tip, get a bottle full of isopropyl alcohol and squirt into sides of battery, the alcohol will eat and make the glue not sticky at all anymore, it works with hot glue as well if you need to get that off super quick and easy too
Dude I know you said that you wanted to get the battery out with "as little tear down a possible" but I don't think that breaking your display and possibly causing the lithium battery to vent(explode), is really any less "tear down" than just taking the damn Motherboard out!?!? Man!! Linus that was painful man!
Just reached the point where you are talking about the steam deck pocket. As a rule the upper section of a backpack has much less pressure and more room. I would consider a pocket that velcros/zips on the upper edge of the opening of the backpack. make it so it swings up and out to clear the rest of the pocket. Maybe even a self enclosed pocket with a handle that could be unzipped entirely from the inside of the backpack so you could take just the steam deck and its peripherals and go. New time viewer thank you for the videos! Just another thought : include dense foam rings to protect the joysticks. Add a membrane with a slot at the mid line to keep them around the joysticks no matter what console is used.
Pretty certainly yes. It's USB and most adapters should work with a built-in driver of the linux kernel. But it'll be a pain having to have a cable or dongle connected and have it dangling around (plus higher power consumption).
yes and no, everything is documented on video, they just have to go back the exact steps they did for the disassembly. Not easy but they basically made their own assembly video... they just have to go back in the same order. The battery is not a problem anymore now that it has been losened the rest is not that hard.
@@werpu12 I wouldn't be too sure about that. The teardown itself has had an impact on the unit, surely you can see that. Hell, part of me thinks they won't be able to use it in any future videos. This isn't just a jigsaw puzzle we're talking about.
Hey Linus, the iFixit stuff is still all-metal, it's an anodised all-aluminium bit driver. Doesn't have the nice carved upper, but has a larger and slightly carved finger grippy surface on the lower. I think the only exception is if you buy the standalone iFixit Precision Bit Driver with integrated SIM tool (that's plastic bodied). All their kits and sets still include the all-metal driver.
Interestingly since m.2 slots are actually PCI and arent directly connected to a Sata interface, other devices can be connected to them, like WIFI cards. So I feel it wouldnt be that difficult for valve to put another m.2 slot underneath or next to the the one supporting the drive in order to make it easily replaceable.
It's cramped. Most likely scenario, you print a new backplate with space for an M.2 riser. Best case scenario, someone sells a Deck-specific M.2 splitter so you could put two 2280 nvme drives in.
The SD card...
1:01:33 - SD card, still whole can be seen sticking up over the edge of the Steam Deck
1:02:18 - less than a minute later, standing up in the same position, no SD card is visible
One of those cracks, was not a good crack.
@@TCharlieA Yeah, I was wondering about that as well.
so this is why he does not putting it together. LOL
1:01:53 - Still there.
1:01:56 - Left thumb right over the SD card.
1:02:14 - Aaaand it's gone!
1:05:18 - Broken SD card piece in frame.
1:11:00 - Where'd Control go?
1:20:46 - Notices broken SD card.
@@majorgnu DAMN
I would pay money to be a fly on the wall when the valve employee watches the battery removal section.
Linus has given them gray hair after that one. Obviously the battery isn't meant to be removed...
@@Joreel which sucks. Batteries should be designed to be removed
@@justinlabarge8178 which sucks. Batteries should be designed to not exist
@@klittlet remove it like that and it soon won't
I wouldn’t be surprised if they change to something like 3M’s Command adhesive tabs, like the ones used in some phones.
Gamers Nexus: "We do a teardown of the steam deck and put it back together."
Linus: "Valve just gave me multiple steam decks, they know me."
"Lambs to the slaughter"
They knew he was gunna drop em all
Pretty sure GN said they got two also.
Gamers Nexus also did remove the battery first.
Linus starts with the thumbstick.
@@julianB93 Same as Valve own teardown tbh
At 1:12:20 what you are seeing is that the analog pad beeing unplugged causes the input to be floating (electricaly speaking). The analog pads are just potentiometer where the '0' value is an equal resistor value either from ground or vcc.
He seems to have broken the SD card somewhere in the 30 seconds after 1:01:53 meaning that its not the outside plastic shell that caused it to break but his prying and pulling on the entire frame, possibly his second hand may have been holding on to the area with the SD card and snapped it off that way.
it was probably that crack he was so happy to hear lol
@@Johnyknocksville _oof_
I actually made the same mistake. Forgot the SD was in there and the socket isn't recessed enough for the frame to not catch the SD card. Snapped a 512GB San Disk Extreme in half.
@@XxDrac13xX That'll make a hole in your wallet 🫡
@@Johnyknocksville lmao
Watching your boss tear apart something, knowing you’ll have to put it back together later. “This is fine…”
@@shadowivy333 🤣
😢
th-cam.com/users/shortsRQusqnNMnj0?feature=share
Especially after watching his Surface teardown.
@@gamemoves2415 hello my friend, how are you?
How many subs can I get from this comment road to 1k
Overselling the difficulty of changing out parts is clever on Valve's part IMO - it's so easy that word of mouth alone will market the ease of maintenance, but by refusing to acknowledge the ease of maintenance while still showing how to maintain the system, they protect themselves from liability while still remaining popular and marketable.
No company is ever your friend, but companies like Valve which have found their market niche in being the "reliable" brand are the best kind.
Actually I think you are vastly over estimating the technical/handiness of the general population I know several people under the age of 30 that think installing ram in there own dell workstations is a hard task...
@@ThePirateParrot I wouldn't touch my Dell workstation unless it was literally my job to do so
@@uchiaslaya7 sure but when they work from home and are scattered across the UK and Ireland is easier to send the ram to them than a whole new workstation. These arent sff machines full towers
The fundamental difference between these companies is that the other companies are publicly owned while Valve is privately owned
@@ThePirateParrot To be fair, I wouldn't want to open any Dell considering my experience in their tendency to self-destruct. Have not had a good experience with a Dell machine in ages (early 2000's, I think).
A suggestion as to why the L shaped battery: not to keep the frame to a certain thinnesses necessarily, but rather to spread the thermal load of the battery across a higher surface area, which also allows them to use a more anemic fan to achieve comparable thermal and acoustic performance.
No. These designs are exclusively for a packaging design goal, to claim as much space as possible. Battery life is one of the most important metrics for a handheld, so it makes total sense for them to go for this design.
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@@drkastenbrot the reason why I posit that it might be a matter of thermal->by->way of battery.
In comparison to the neo, they are both 3 cell designs.
But If you sandwich 3 cells you create a heat sink, and given that lithium ion cells can legit catch fire, you’re going to have to use a large amount of fan and power to keep that battery cool.
However, if you can remove one layer in thickness and instead spread out the same battery profile onto a larger surface area,
You should be able to get good performance from a mediocre fan.
@@xipietotec The battery isnt part of the thermal design. The product has a fan and thats where you want the heat to go. Having hot surfaces on a handheld degrades the user experience, and batteries last longer when at room temperature. Keeping heat away from the casing and battery is a major design goal for the cooling system.
Using the battery as a heat sink is something partially done in phones, but phones generally dont have a fan and also operate at much lower power.
Lithium Polymer batteries are also rather poor heat conductors anyways.
How many subs can I get from this comment..
I really like the charging port being on the top. When I'm chillin on the couch or in bed, I like to rest the device on my lap / blankets and I dont like the ports getting pressured from being bent by the wire.
When it's on the bottom is more for a craddle so this makes for a weird connection to a dock but no down cable means sooo much more confort to use with the charging wire on top
Nice way to get around saying you have a huge gut to rest the device on 😂
@@mcd4527 You're just jealous you don't have a comfy gut-rest!
I'm almost tempted to buy one of these soly to support Valve for having such a good approach towards designing their products with repairs in mind.
I kind of feel the same, but I know I wont be able to buy one for like a year after they release. After that ill be like its a year old when is gen 2?
That's just not true though. The one thing that everyone who keeps using this thing is going to want to replace eventually is solidly glued in place when it should be full on user replacable. That being the battery. I would have much prefered a battery bulge with a user replacable battery, that way we could even carry spares to get extra time if we wanted as well as making the most common repair a non issue.
@@TheAkashicTraveller easily swappable joysticks, 8 screws ish to access SSD, all screws being normal sized, heatsink being super easy to remove for thermal paste change. my guy the only thing they did was applied a bit too much glue on 1 component which could be alleviated by applying some alcohol to loosen it. Hella Clueless
@@DaRkOzoraX Yeah, it was killing me watching the stream that Linus wasn't just dropping a little bit of solvent in there to seriously help with the glue. I was so surprised he didn't damage the battery.
Good luck trying to buy new tech. This is gonna be hard to find for a while.
The "blackscreening" you mention at 2:46 is something that has happened in your live streams fairly often lately. The stream feed just cuts out and goes black for a split second every now and then.
Really irritating. I’m surprised they haven’t fixed that yet
@@fishinghobo actually not even that bad lol
@@fishinghobo streaming a 4k camera sometimes you drop some frames lol..
@@DerpySwag live streaming in 4K is done by hundreds of people with no problems. It’s only LTT that struggles with this
Sorry about this. It will be fixed in the next stream.
We've been having some issues with the FX6 and SDI output.
Normally only happens on the manned camera.
They are extremely sensitive to any movement from the BNC connector.
Damn, i was kinda excited for how repairable it seemed until the battery. Freaking iPhone batteries are easier to remove
Speaking of which, if iPhone adhesive strips tear before they’re out, a way to get the battery out is to run a string or a dental floss under the battery. They’re similarly shaped in an iPhone and the Steam Deck, that might have worked here
I bet a bit of alcohol (IPA) would have helped.
Heating the device up to for 10 minutes 60c with a heatbed also would have helped...
Little bit of heat, little bit of alcohol (dissolves glue) and dental floss just might do the job, yeah.
It's a bit of a hassle but glue does make the device a lot safer because people will drop it a lot. I replaced my macbook battery which was glued as well. It's annoying and requires a bit of care and patience, but it doesn't mean the battery is "non-replaceable".
Just not replaceable by the average Joe, probably. I do understand the criticism though. It'd be good if Valve offered a way to make it easier.
Rather than gluing it in, using something like the 3M Command strips (like Apple is doing with some iPhones) might help.
It would be so cool if an engineer from Valve responded to this teardown and explained why (or why not) they chose this and that!
Haven't they already done this?
@@govardhanposina17 no the video literally just came out…
@@alexanderson1091 I meant Valve doing a (virtual) teardown
@@govardhanposina17 that’s not what the op asked for, yes valve already made a teardown video
You missed the second half of OP's comment.
12:55 that's to help the part adhere to one specific side of the mold.
If those textured areas didn't exist it would be a crapshoot on witch side of the mold the new part is adhered to and only the side that can't be seen has ejection pins.
So if your part sicks in the top halve you must get it out manualy stopping the production line.
If you pause at 1:01:24 you can see that the end of the SD card is already bent, but you can see that it's still there at around 1:01:43.
When Linus lays the Steam Deck down on the table right after, that's probably where he broke it off, though it's not visible in the shot.
At 1:02:06 you can see the end is broken off and stuck right above it.
the aya neo feels like a laptop rearranged its internals into the shape of a nintendo switch, while the steam deck feels much more like purpose built handheld gaming device.
I want to hear Valve's response to the battery glue thing, but aside from that, great build quality, love it.
Their response would be "The battery isn't meant to be removed". Or maybe "Since we knew Linus was going to try and remove the battery, we used extra sticky glue just for him".
@@Joreel It should be able to be removed and replaced, the way battery's have been lasting. If you compare it to a phone you are going to want to switch that sucker out every 2-3 years.
@@boratb258 not really, if Valve want u to pay for next gen steam deck
@@Joreel that would be funny. But i guess they are rather safe than sorry on the battery, a bit less glue would have been nice tho.
@@clementyeo2601 why would they want you to pay for something they make no money on when they can just sell you more games
This felt like more of an autopsy then a teardown but fair play, this was really fun!
if you thought this was fun, ask me for a "cleveland steamdeck" next time we see each other
Than*
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Vivisected SteamDeck
@@davidandrew7314 Descriptivism
The battery part was one of the scariest things I've seen in a while. When it bent a little I was so afraid it might break and catch on fire. 😬I hate handling lithium batteries.
Don't be scared !!
Its not too bad just have a fire extinguisher on deck 😁
@@huuuuuuhhhhhh69 just pour water on it it'll be fiiiiiiiiiiine lol
@@huuuuuuhhhhhh69 on "deck" nice pun
"Do you want to open up a fire door so we can yeet it out side if it starts smoking" 🤣 sounds safe 👍
Micro SDcard last seen at 1:01:54. Broke it afterwards by putting pressure on it with his thumb to grip the Deck. Rip
So it wasnt a "good crack" at all...
You can see the broken end of the SD card flying out of the SteamDeck at 1:03:17 if you go frame by frame 😢
That's truly unfortunate. It was a spoiler for me since I decided to be dumb and read comments lol
@@ArtisChronicles dammit, me too
I THINK he should disassemble his watch. Lol
I just went back and watched Linus disassemble the units. What I learned is that I wouldn't even let Linus disassemble my toaster, let alone a handheld.
This motherfucker didn't even disconnect the battery until 30 minutes in, I love this channel!
Yep. And he must forever remain this way.
@@cantcurecancer float plane chat was screaming at him to disconnect it lol
It gave me ocd for life
Every time he holds a GPU or ram, he gives me a heart attack.
Damn, Valve hardware & software engineers are incredible.
If only their marketing team was good.
@@lightly-red-huedmaleindivi6266 They aim to make products so good that we do the marketing for them.
@@insperatus lmao
Yeah, back in the days they even did good games still played today.
according to the valve employee handbook, if you get bored of your job you can just decide to move to a different department and do something else ...........there are no managers etc its all about teamwork.........personally i like to think that one day the janitor got bored and decided to be a hardware engineer instead, and thus the steam deck was born
"Ok one more video before bed"...
"Hmmm this is long"..
"Checks video length"...
"Oh"...
*proceeds to finish it*
1:01:54 The SD card is fine here.
1:02:00 He probably broke it here.
1:02:16 The card is broken here.
I'd like to see "command strips" for that battery. It's not a deal breaker, but it's pretty rough. It reminds me of my last 4 or 5 phones...
How many subs can I get from this comment.
@@ohlennny GO AWAY
So much thoughtful design
Nintendo on the other hand: "what drift?"
"It's a non-issue that shouldn't majorly affect gameplay" 😂😂🤣🤣🤣 the more I get immersed in Steam and particularly the Steam Deck, the more I realize just how ignorant I have been about consoles vs pc's, and also just how shitty and anti-consumer console companies truly are. Nintendo and Sony truly care more about the dollar signs of making this shit difficult for the average consumer than about consumer freedom and right to repair.
@@SynysterProjects You forgot about Microsoft my dude.
AMD>Valve>Sony>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>Everyone else>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>Microsoft>Nintendo>NVIDIA
nvidia is an evil jealous bitch
@Syn's Project idk if sony has gone out of their way to stop repair or if they have I never heard anyone complain about it however the switch on the other hand I've heard stories. I also do not like with Microsoft did with their ssd cards that you pay almost as much as 1 tb samsung 980 pro m.2 and only get 500gb
@@SynysterProjects same and sadly fanboys will still defend them to death
Feelsbadman for the person who needs to put that back together haha
Don't worry, Jake gets paid enough to constantly clean up after Linus haha
I wonder if Linus is aware of how much anxiety he induces with these teardowns. It's worse than watching a horror movie, seeing him levering away at that battery like a psychopath. I need a drink...
I had a drink while watching..... Didn't help..
Having a charge port on the bottom is ludicrous! That’s how cords get bent.
Well I got here right at the end.. but at least I can rewind my vcr!
Nice
wheewheewheewheewheewheee click.... perfect.
Be Kind Rewind.
I did not see snapping a Micro SD card in half coming… not even slightly. Maybe it happened around 1:01:52… you can see the aftermath at 1:20:54 😬
1:20:38 for anyone interested
@Pingo Zingo It most likely happened around 01:01:52 , you can see the card sticking out on the left side of the deck but after Linus flips it around and tries to get the battery out the SD is not there after getting the deck up again. Also the SD card bit was sitting on the table earlier.
Edit: There is no Control on the deck when he booted it after removing the battery, so it probably happened before that.
it was the "batteries good crack"
"hopefully that's a good crack"
Yeeeeah maybe you're right, that wasn't a good crack at all XD
This is practically a feature length film. Just as entertaining!
yeah, complete with all the thrills, climax buildings and closure
I'm not sure I have been as on edge watching a movie in years as when I watched that battery removal section.
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I felt like a litle kid waching a splatter movie for the first time
At 12:50 that grip texture is from manufacturing of the plastic shell. That's where they injected the hot plastic.
2:15 in the video I noticed how much the screen on the framework laptop shakes. I feel like that's a really bad point for the laptop. If it shakes that much on a table, image how much it would if you were to actually keep it on your lap in a car. I'm glad I noticed this. I really wanted to buy one.
The hinges are replaceable... Everything is... That's the entire point of the Framework Series...
@@AlcorSalvador you don't get it. It's not about if you can replace it, you can replace the hinges on any laptop. It's about how sturdy these hinges are
@@anandmahesh4226 Right... which is why you can just replace them. . . it's like $15-20 if you are really that against the current hinges.
That's like saying you wont buy these awesome modular upgradable headphones because the replaceable band, that is explicitly designed to make it easy to replace or upgrade, is a bit too loose for your liking.
It's on a table, but it's not a very sturdy one, it's one of those height adjustable desks and it's adjusted quite high, so they always shake a fair bit.
@@musguelha14 I agree with what youre saying. I was concerned because I'm a guy who travels a lot, sometimes 7-8 hours a day. I'd have to sit in a car and work. I was wondering about how I'd manage to do that if it were that wobbly. I respect the work framework has put in and i like the company. I was just contemplating on buying one.
Use a bit of alcohol on sides of the batteries wait for the alcohol to seep in between the batteries and just slide the card under the battery, pry up slowly and use more alcohol if necessary
One for the battery, one for me...
Or use a headbed of a 3d printer, heat it up to 60c put the dispay onto the heatbed (corners maybe) so that the center sits flat on it, let it rest there until the device is heated up and then the glue should have become soft enough that it is more like rubber.
Done that in the past with a handful of mobile phones to exchange displays
Linus had prepared some alcohol before the stream, but it disappeared
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Software, especially when not on the bleeding edge, is so much more affordable on an open platform. It's the BIG reason I'm going all in on Steam Deck. All the other consumer friendly moves from Steam are just gravy.
3rd party docks really have an opportunity here. To attach a Noctua fan so that it'd push more air in and cool the surface of the device while charging.
1:11:40
IDK how many people are going to remember this. or even if that is what is happening here. but back in the day (95-XP days) you had to calibrate your joysticks either in the driver/os, or even in the individual games themselves.
this more or less has to do with software/firmware not knowing where the zero point is.
As a Hardware Test Engineer involved with Testing down to component level, I would design as one backplane, with plug in modules on top, that way, it's easy to replace modules, & so easy to update modules, ie WiFi 6 module, the Pin & Sockets type of multi PCB is ideal, it also makes the rigid construction far better, BTW slight application of heat make the glue softer, warning Not Too Warm near the battery or LCD screen !, flex Print is better on sockets, so if anything is broken, this can be replaced, I'm all for upgrades than throw away well made units, Higher voltage on battery might mean that the area where the length of time might ON might be increased, the other reason is lower voltage drop on the connections, usually higher voltage Lower Current, I used to use fluid to make the glue very soft, but I'm not going to say what it is, No it's not lable remover as that could damage Printed circuit board, Always use protection glasses when removing batteries that Might Explode !, the other easy way to design is to have the battery slide out of a fixing when the back is removed, soft foam at the rear of the battery to stop battery movement, just a reminder the Fan speed you have to take into consideration with heatsink size, slow speed larger Fan & Heatsink & quiet, Smaller Fan Faster Speed more Noise ;)
Valve sent couple Stream Decks for LTT to test
Linus "So you knew we gonna rip it apart to test?"
Valve "No, we know YOU gonna drop and break it"
This stream should have been named "Cracking microSD card open with the boys."
Gonna need the increased life insurance for the Valve employee that watches this literal teardown!
@1:03:17 The top half of the Micro SD fly out as he turns over the Steam Deck; right before he says "can" in "You can heat it from the other side".
@1:20:47 Linus notices the broken SD card even though the top piece has been sitting on the desk for nearly 20 mins.
From what i know, lithium-ion batteries do not contains lithium in its metallic form and a lithium-ion battery fire can be safely stopped with water
Haha, the wobbly Framework cover lid. Thank god it has replaceble hinges 😛
1:45:59 As a surface laptop owner, my thought would be that anything Microsoft might sell would likely have less value proposition than the Steam Deck. Besides having generally awful thermals, Microsoft devices I've used and heard about are horrifically less repairable (0/10 on iFixit, anyone?), far more locked down, and just generally overpriced for the capabilities. Maybe the Xbox team could do better on hardware, but there's also the matter of software; Microsoft's track record for making software that runs smoothly on mobile devices isn't great so far, not to mention privacy issues and bloat. Don't get me wrong--it would be interesting to see, but I personally don't foresee them getting this type of device right for a while yet.
If they switched to two narrow double-sided adhesive tabs right next to the holes where you were able to insert your prying tool and a small one right up against the far edge of the battery I think it would be fine. Making the whole thing one big sheet of glue is not great.
Most entertaining live teardown I've ever seen. Amazing how you do that guys (didn't see it live, but hears you mention it)
Got a little nervous about the still connected battery in the beginning though☝️
Linus always proves to me he is the Richard Hammond of tech
Holy shit you're absolutely right!!!
@@creepysmilingcarl9742 swiss
Valve : Don't show the OS. There are rough edges.
Linus : Valve said there were rough edges.
Valve : What rough edges did you experience?
Hm?
@@cookie7993 Valve reached out to Linus after he mentioned the OS had rough edges and Linus said he was just repeating them when he said that. Also, he's now allowed to show the OS. Those are two separate things, but this commenter put them together.
The openess of the platform and the fact that it's "just a PC" sold me and I reserved one. I do hope that a well engineered backplate that allows for some form of upgradability in the way that PCIE allows for on desktop. For some reason I really want to daily it as a tablet as well as code on and for it. I'm going to look into DotNet Maui which is looking pretty awesome.
Does not work on linux. Steam deck uses linux.
@@ejazahmed4609 you know you can install Windows on it? And there is already a project (which is in beta but still) that supports dotnet maui on linux
@@Vrtox1337 Well it's a month later and even though I read your post within an hour or so I finally feel as though I can give a reasonable response. You we're right, Dotnet doesn't really support Maui on Linux all that much. The alternatives I've found such as Uno were much the same. As much as I love C# I'm learning Flutter and Dart which feels like static typed... TypeScript and React without the JSX (or would that be more properly called TSX?). I can't help but wish it was Blazor or that it used Maui's declarative XML.
I'm pretty sure it's safe to say we will not be replacing the batteries in our steam decks lol
Are you sure about that.... Eg, I've replaced everything except for the main board on my vita. I've replaced batteries and even just straight out removed batteries(to run straight from the adapter) from devices that were not ment to be messed with.
There's always someone lol, what would be next level is if valve implemented some type of repair program where you can send in your deck for repairs, but that would be above and beyond parallel universes
I would totally do it. Just use a bit of isopropyl alcohol to soften the glue.
@@ju1cycrackfa1ry This was based on user repairability. Which is a pretty big topic currently what with RIght to Repair and all that. It's not "I can't get it replaced" It's a "We can't replace it" thing.
@@amystery5238 many phone have had battery pull tabs for years so i am sure valve could have used those. But honestly i don't think the battery is going to be that hard to replace if you use little bit of isopropyl alcohol. Usually it makes the glue very soft so you can remove the battery with very little force.
I love Linus talking about the hall effects thumb sticks and the Gulikit thumb sticks are hall effects (which means you'll never get stick drift) and iFixIt offers Gulikit sticks to replace the potentiometer sticks on the SteamDeck (you'll just have to reuse the stick caps and solder the wire for the capacitive pad to the Gulikit PCB). Hands down the best option if you play PC games with a controller is their KingKong 2 Pro controller.
10:50 you can see that the bottom trim on the back panel is fully surrounding the sd card most likely when pulling that off fractured the card then later falling out whilst jostled around. I always remove any protruding devices including sd cards for this reason when doing teardown of my devices.
Battery voltage difference could simply be less prone to failure. Only having two cells instead of three means 50% less prone to failure. Also more reliable with fewer cells to balance, optimally one would be the best (no BMS needed)
Its the same with solar panels chained up.
The high voltage battery looked like it was three cells. I'm pretty sure for three cells you can only do all series or all parallel so either 3.7 volts or 11.4 volts. Given those options with three cells it makes sense to pick a series connection. that's a third the current which id actually a large difference in trace width.
And why bother going up to 12V only to have a wasteful bridge and MOSFET rectifiers to bring it back down again to 1.4 and 3.3 V? Might as well keep it at nominal voltage for the packs. And then the charging with a USB-C, I'm not sure how that's handled either. So 9, 10 or 12V goes in at 2A ? Then this is split in the 3 cells on the BMS? Lots of interesting question!
3.7 or 11.1*
Anyone else notice his Framework screen is always bouncing around everywhere? I wish one of the employees would do a full review.
I really can't wait for the aftermarket upgrades. Like a beefier fan (perhaps having a new back plate with a space for a larger fan) maybe some way to extend the usb C to the bottom.
Also I think the joystick pointing left could also be because joysticks usually use a 10k ohm potentiometer. And I believe the centre point is usually in the middle, at roughly 5k ohms
I just bought some vessi shoes online cause ive wanted some for a while and this just reminded me and gave me 25$ off 👍👍
i had CrossCode in my wishlist since Linus mentionned it a LOOOONG time ago, finally bought it on sale, it IS quite hard to not get back to it even though the top-down platforming parts are frustrating and the first dungeon was a bit of a chore :P
I remember playing crosscode for the first time in a web browser back when html5 games were still a big deal (was like 14 at the time)
6:09 (Nice!) "My alcohol was missing before the stream, as well!" Ah, Linus, you're drinking on the job! At least you're the job owner, so you can't be fired.
I've found that a nice stiff credit card works well for getting in and under the battery without damaging it.
LinusBreaktips 1:01:53 You can still see the little SD card alive right after he pops something under the battery. This is the last time you'll see it intact
I work in a different electrical field, so my two cents probably isn't worth all that much, but if I had to guess they did the battery in that shape for a mixture of two reasons, one being the space it takes up, and the other being more effective passive heat dissipation. By reducing the need for active mitigation you both save directly in the power required for the larger fan, as well as reduce deficiencies that naturally occur in other areas as a result of the ambient temperature increases, and which are more difficult to properly offset.
It's easier to cool a 12 inch surface that is 1 inch deep than it is to cool a surface that is 6 x 2 inches (assuming directional airflow). Also helps keep heat away from the hands, which is why I assume they isolate parts of it the way they do.
Would be interesting to see if they offer the processor board by itself. It would have a lot of diy uses
I hope they do like Framework does!
I hope if the Steam Deck does well they consider a slightly more premium model/remake. Room for a 2280 drive, more premium haptics, (qd?)-oled panel, user replaceable WiFi6/7, and larger, user replaceable battery maybe?
1:04:54 There's no such a thing as "a good bend" for soft pocket lithium batteries!
Also, shame on you Valve for putting so much glue on the battery. At least do it like Sony where they use strips of double sided tape and you can pull the tape off from the side. (And use higher quality tape than Sony where the tape breaks instead of pulling off.)
1:04:39 “just gonna brace against the mother board here” my god Linus that battery removal
Instead of a heat gun, a heated mat is a good solution. I am sure ifixit has something like that, but a 3d printer bed is something a lot of folks might have access to for this exact use as well - heat it up, set it face down on it without the sticks installed so the screen sits flat, wait for glue to soften.
The steam deck sticks look great for driving games
Forget about the steam deck; I couldn't stop marvelling at how impressive the presentation skills of Linus are. Kudos to Linus for doing a live stream and still managing to output so much useful information on camera!
Absolutely loved this teardown. Anxiety and all.
I've had a preorder for the top-tier Deck since fall of last year and a second one since early January, given the current state of the industry regarding chip shortages and logistical outages making a second one for my partner and I a much stronger value proposition. It's been great to see your honest feedback across your last couple videos, and it's great to see that Valve are still the same guys I knew from back when I was reviewing; just a bunch of nerds like the rest of us, looking to make the best products possible.
Knowing that the teardown is this simple says a lot about their confidence regarding the market placement of the Deck and makes me very excited to see what the modding community is going to do with it.
Those ifixit guitar picks are great for removing batteries.
Heat glass side for like 5 min on a hot plate, the slide guitar picks down the side and under, work way around while slowly sliding further under the battery. Works great on Samsung battery removal.
A higher voltage battery is used because the voltage is automatically connected to Amh, if 3.3v drops to 2.1v in 7h, from 4.2V to 2.1 in 13h, the voltage circuits on the motherboard can accept more current when input, but the same components on the output power with 3.3v, so a higher voltage range is formed, which is the same as Amh, it takes a long time to lower the battery voltage to a minimum, empty battery!
Those two black stops on the side of the battery are to pull the adhesive strip out, so you don't have to pry
now he has to try the pull strips on another unit x)
I wish he noticed that, but we got a nerve wracking pry instead. Definitely made for entertainment.
I love seeing Linus geeking out over something that you can tell he truly loves!
Colton: "am i fired"
Linus: "47:43"
49:23 If anyone catches this comment (doubtful, there's over a thousand of them), PLEASE don't use something sharp to pry a battery. It's a very easy method to to pop a battery, and potentially cause a small fire. No slicing. If you need to go down this route, drip some Isopropyl alcohol underneath the battery, to loosen it. Then you use a pry tool, to jimmy the battery out.
Awesome seeing a modern compact console torn down like this!
Oh and the SD got broken at 1:01:56 by Linus's own thumb!
If Valve's OS on handheld did well enough I could see it being a replacement for a lot of gamers on their personal PCs. I could certainly see daily driving a gaming oriented OS on a PC with a Windows laptop/Chromebook/iPad on the side.
Sounds great!
I'm literally contemplating this already. Steam os seems pretty interesting and I've got a couple extra pc's to try Ubuntu with Proton as well as Steam OS on a traditional PC.
You forget, most kids who game on PC don't have their own PC. If steam OS is to be a household thing, they need to broaden their perspective to include software that is not for games only, like make a great word processing application, or make it easy to use google docs etc. Even making it easy for your typical layman to dual boot windows 11 / steam OS is also a viable solution.
At this point, this is more likely to be the side device, than a Windows one, like you mentioned.
Just my two cents, this is just my perspective, i don't claim to know everything about what is going on with steam OS, if anyone knows something that can flip what i said over, i would love to hear it!
@@NeoDarkcloud Steam OS is linux. So it already has all those things you mentioned. Linux has word processing, and google docs is web based.
@@Mad-Lad-Chad Ah, so you will be able to install any linux application on steam OS? Nice, I did not known that.
55;20 I actually thought about it a bit, and remember the surprisingly small fan on the steam deck? then what if the lower voltage was aimed at lowering energy loss, not for enhancing battery life but to reduce heat generation? it would mean running everything at a higher current, and the traces would have to be wider, but it also means they can get away with a much flimsier fan (and the longer battery life was just a happy accident)
Energy loss, enhancing battery life and heat generation are inherently the same thing. By laws of physics any bit of energy used will either end up as radiation or heat. Basically anything else can be seen as some side effect on this conversion of electric energy to heat. And lowering energy loss just means to get these side effects with producing as little heat as possible.
@@TheVoitel of course they are connected. what I meant is, that I think the trade offs for the lower voltage were made for the sake of thermals, rather then for the efficiency, even though those two come hand in hand.
yep, between needing less cooling, and less of a fan and having less travel needed for the heat to escape by being thinner is my guess
@@yahhav345 Tbh. I think the main reason is to get it thinner. Getting three cells in series with stacking two would require weird wirings. I notice than TH-cam completely fucks up text flow when replying to a name in hebrew script. Something tells me that Google did not think about certain Unicode-specific things happening ...
@@TheVoitel to be honest, it's not just youtube: there aren't really any good software that manages to handle multidirectional unicode, at least not without cheating (meaning having the user explicitly declaring in which direction they are writing at the moment)
on another note, you might be right, though the Aya Neo was not significantly wider if I understood correctly, so I'm not entirely convinced🤷🏽♂️
Will you be doing a rebuild video? We need this even if it is in a speedup fashion.
Hey Linus For the bag, You could make an incert just for the steamdeck to cover the joysticks. it could attach to the felt
at a given pressure and temperature the boundary layer on fan blades is a constant. So designing a fan is about determining the constants and optimizing for the least boundary layer.
I would LOVE to see Valve engineers do a reaction video in a thinking out loud kind of way.
The battery and the sd card part would be full of: "- oh S***T! oh Lord! Gaben are you seeing this S****T!!! OMG!!"
I didn't expect that glue under the battery from Valve
It has pull strips to remove the glue that Linus completely missed, go back and look the two black strips he moves out of the way are pull tabs to break the glue, granted preferably it would be two thin strips in my opinion
On our Steam Deck I noticed that the trackpads have different click behaviours depending on how they're configured control wise. Seems they can have a uniform click action or d-pad action at least, and when the device is powered off they don't click at all.
That's probably haptics simulating the clicks.
@@johnnymcgregor There's definitely some haptics in there, but it does a pretty good job of feeling like a click (it also has travel btw). Haven't really tested it much, but at least the right pad's full click action even makes a distinct mechanical clicking sound, though it is a bit inconsistent.
The Steam controller does something similar, though the pads have a clear button action even when powered off. I'm curious about what's going on here exactly and if it has potential for improvement and more applications.
Christ, I can't even fathom how the engineers learnt to compact all this tech into such a small place. We all take it for granted
Exactly. I love hand held gaming. It’s been my favored way of gaming since my first gameboy. Idk why but I’ve always loved being able to game anywhere. So when Steamdeck launched it was no question. When I go on trips I’ll have my steamdeck ready along with every time. Also my switch because emulating switch games is “wrong”
Linus here is a tech tip, get a bottle full of isopropyl alcohol and squirt into sides of battery, the alcohol will eat and make the glue not sticky at all anymore, it works with hot glue as well if you need to get that off super quick and easy too
Dude I know you said that you wanted to get the battery out with "as little tear down a possible" but I don't think that breaking your display and possibly causing the lithium battery to vent(explode), is really any less "tear down" than just taking the damn Motherboard out!?!? Man!! Linus that was painful man!
he didnt break the screen tho?
11:00 well now I want you to do it. Make gold steam deck happen!
*Linus- explains why it's a bad idea and all the reasons it's not reasonable*
*Us- well now I want it even more*
The maniac look of linus on the thumbnail just tells his love for tech and i feel it😂😂😂
Just reached the point where you are talking about the steam deck pocket. As a rule the upper section of a backpack has much less pressure and more room. I would consider a pocket that velcros/zips on the upper edge of the opening of the backpack. make it so it swings up and out to clear the rest of the pocket. Maybe even a self enclosed pocket with a handle that could be unzipped entirely from the inside of the backpack so you could take just the steam deck and its peripherals and go.
New time viewer thank you for the videos! Just another thought : include dense foam rings to protect the joysticks. Add a membrane with a slot at the mid line to keep them around the joysticks no matter what console is used.
Im glad charging port is on top... whether seated or not having it on bottom raises risk of cord or port breaking
If you want better network connectivity, could you use a USB-to-LAN single, or similar external WiFi adapter?
Probably, dock for steam deck allows wired internet connection atleast
Pretty certainly yes. It's USB and most adapters should work with a built-in driver of the linux kernel. But it'll be a pain having to have a cable or dongle connected and have it dangling around (plus higher power consumption).
Yes, they said that any USB-C dock will work, so your option are wide open.
My pc shut itself off while watching linus disassemble. poor thing got afraid.
Too much LTT horror.
I wish I could see the reassembly, what a nightmare X3
yes and no, everything is documented on video, they just have to go back the exact steps they did for the disassembly. Not easy but they basically made their own assembly video... they just have to go back in the same order. The battery is not a problem anymore now that it has been losened the rest is not that hard.
@@werpu12 I wouldn't be too sure about that. The teardown itself has had an impact on the unit, surely you can see that.
Hell, part of me thinks they won't be able to use it in any future videos.
This isn't just a jigsaw puzzle we're talking about.
@@danieljones9937 Either way, would love to see it X3
Hey Linus, the iFixit stuff is still all-metal, it's an anodised all-aluminium bit driver. Doesn't have the nice carved upper, but has a larger and slightly carved finger grippy surface on the lower. I think the only exception is if you buy the standalone iFixit Precision Bit Driver with integrated SIM tool (that's plastic bodied). All their kits and sets still include the all-metal driver.
Interestingly since m.2 slots are actually PCI and arent directly connected to a Sata interface, other devices can be connected to them, like WIFI cards. So I feel it wouldnt be that difficult for valve to put another m.2 slot underneath or next to the the one supporting the drive in order to make it easily replaceable.
It's cramped. Most likely scenario, you print a new backplate with space for an M.2 riser.
Best case scenario, someone sells a Deck-specific M.2 splitter so you could put two 2280 nvme drives in.