Optionally, what would you have wanted to know before you bought one?
Thanks!
Edit: Hey, thank you all very very much for your comments and suggestions, I really appreciate. I will most likely save up more and get the 1TB OLED model rather than the LCD model I was initially planning on. A couple of reasons for that, one, I am not good with electronics and I’d probably screw something up putting a new storage drive in. And two this thing will most likely be a permanent replacement for my old gaming laptop, which at this point is more than 10 years old, and seems to be on its last legs (I installed Linux on it, which was a struggle, but that is probably on me rather than Linux or the computer being at fault).
Anyway, I appreciate everyone’s responses and thanks for helping a gal out!
Get the 1TB with the etched screen if you’re considering it. It looks fantastic, and works great when not indoors. Like, in a car or airplane for example. I was debating between it and the 512GB because I often prefer a glossy screen, but the effect is small yet mighty.
Also, get Moonlight on your Steam Deck and Apollo on your PC. You can stream games from your PC with Apollo to Moonlight at much higher quality than Steam’s own streaming system. I send 1440p to my deck so after chroma subsampling I get fully defined 1280x720 pixels. It looks significantly better than just sending 1280x720 or 1280x800 to the Deck.
And finally, pick up Geometry Wars 3. It’s like the perfect pick-up-and-put-down game for the Deck.
I got the entry model and an etched screen protector and upgraded to a 1tb ssd and saved myself a couple hundred. This was pre OLED though so YMMV
The 1TB version came with a completely different screen is what he meant though. A screen protector won’t be able to replicate a physical display difference.
I know exactly what they meant and the only difference between the etched glass screen and the regular screen on the earlier models was the surface of the glass and that’s primarily due to the reduction in glare. Which is replicated 99% as effectively with a matte glass overlay. I have done side by side comparisons between mine and my friends one who got the etched glass and you cannot tell the difference. Especially since the first thing you want to do on the etched glass model is put a screen protector on top to protect it anyway.
The OLED is a significant upgrade on both.
An etched screen protector can help, but isn’t as nice as the native etched glass. The underlying screen is the same OLED as the 512GB, I believe.
The OLED model is also just better. Got a few minor upgrades other than the screen. Faster RAM, better battery life, slightly lighter. Maybe some other changes.
The fan is more quiet. Wifi 6E, slightly larger screen, improved shoulder buttons. There’s a lot of improvements, definitely a worthy revision.
Oh I forgot about WiFi 6E. Suuuuuper good for streaming from your PC.
I got the 512gb and upgraded the SDD to 2tb. I learned about this screen after! If I had known I would have gone that route instead.
You can get an etched glass screen protector that emulates the effect. The one I got isn’t as good as the base screen (which is essentially perfect), it has a very small amount of color scrambling if you look really closely due to the nature of the etching, but it’s not bad and I got used to it quickly.