This is more of a rant than anything. But also a cautionary tale to asian countries.
I live in a country where Steam says they do not support RMA (asia).
Bought my first deck earlier this year. Worked perfectly for a month before encountering the notorious “freezing issue”. (Black screen, audio continues, able to access steam menu to close game). (If you have no idea what I’m talking about, good for you, you scored a working steamdeck. Otherwise, you know what I’m referring to).
Games which were able to run indefinitely without issues now were freezing 10-15 minutes in.
I scoured reddit, steam, started mulitple threads with steam admins, posted everywhere, tried every solution online, nothing worked.
From memory, I have tried:
-Updating the Deck - no brainer but people still ask
-Putting the Deck in battery mode
-Factory resetting
-Reimaging the Deck
Eventually asked Steam for RMA but guess what - they dont’ support RMA to my country.
I bit the bullet and fucking purchased a 2nd deck.
Within 2 weeks, SAME FUCKING ISSUE.
I’m switching to ASUS ROG ALLY any never coming back to steamdeck.
So you are unhappy that Valve isn’t supporting RMA to a country which they never said they were supporting in the first place. wow.
Please, switch to ASUS ROG Ally and never come back to Steam Deck.
I’m no expert on… well anything… but supposing this isn’t some ROG ALLY ad, why would you buy a second Steam Deck after learning Valve doesn’t support them in your country? That is a lot of money, even for the 64GB model.