Holy moly! Valve just hiked the Steam Deck OLED price by almost 50% — but I have two fan-favorite handhelds that are still cheap and you should get instead

• Valve just announced a Steam Deck price hike
• It'll go up by over 40% in the US, and over 30% elsewhere
• No hardware changes are coming with the price increase

Price hikes, even for older gadgets, are standard practice in 2026. None, though, warrants as loud a ‘WTF’ as Valve saying its Steam Deck OLEDs are going to cost close to 50% more in some regions, with smaller but still major price hikes landing elsewhere.

Per a blog post announcement where Valve revealed the handhelds are back in stock, it also dropped the pricing bomb. The $549 / £479 / AU$899 512GB model will now set you back $789 / £649 / AU$1,199 — representing a $240 / £170 / AU$300 increase or a 43% increase in the US (and closer to 35% in the UK and Australia).

Meanwhile, the 1TB OLED Steam Deck will cost $949 / £779 / AU$1,429. That’s a $300 / £210 / AU$380 increase on its former cost of $649 / £569 / AU$1,049 — representing a 46% price hike in the US and 36% elsewhere.

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Notably, these price hikes don’t come with any hardware upgrades. Instead, Valve explains they’ve been introduced to "reflect the current state of component costs and other global logistical challenges across the industry as a whole.” The component prices specifically blamed are “rising memory and storage costs.”

A warning of more to come?

If you’re after a handheld run, don’t walk, to grab one before further price hikes arrive.

This Valve announcement follows similarly catastrophic hikes from Lenovo back in April. We saw the Lenovo Legion Go 2 Ryzen Z2 Extreme 2TB jump up over $1,000 to $2,849.99 (from $1,479.99). Meanwhile, the 1TB model rose $650 to $1,999.99. The less high-end AMD Ryzen Z2 16GB RAM model also saw a hike to $1,499.99 — up from $1,099.99.

Outside of Australia, where the PC handheld rose in price in February, the Asus Rog Xbox Ally X has so far dodged serious hikes, though that will probably change soon.

I’ve been loving this Asus x Xbox PC handheld, and I predominantly use it for Steam games. I have it set up so that Steam’s Big Picture mode boots up as soon as my handheld switches on to better mimic the simplicity of the Steam Deck, and I’ve found the console comfortable to play for as long as the battery can last — which is a decent number of hours even for chunkier AAA titles.

So far in 2026, it’s been where I’ve enjoyed Resident Evil 9, Slay The Spire II, Zero Parades for Dead Spies, and 007: First Light among plenty of others, and while the meatier games don’t run as beautifully as they do on my static gaming rig, they still look solid and play very well — especially after a few visual settings tweaks.

An alternative approaches?

Alternatively, you could nab a different kind of handheld: the Nintendo Switch 2.

It’s not a PC gaming machine and lacks the incredible breadth of the Steam catalog, but it does have three key advantages over PC handhelds.

First, you get access to Nintendo exclusives like the Super Mario, Legend of Zelda, and Pokémon series. Yes, console exclusivity is frustrating, but it does give Nintendo an edge for fans of its franchises.

Secondly, and more importantly, I’ve found the Switch 2 is perfect for co-op. The Joy-Con pair you get with every console can be used together for single player, or as individual controllers for many couch co-op adventures, whether it’s a competitive brawl in Smash Ultimate, racing through Mario Kart: World, or teaming up in Super Mario Bros. Wonder. You can play co-op games on PC handhelds, but both players will need a console, making it a much pricier endeavor.

Thirdly, crucially, the Switch 2 costs a lot less but still packs a punch. It comes in at $449.99 / £395.99 / AU$699.95 and has yet to incur a price hike. That said, one is coming in a few months.

We know this because Nintendo itself has warned that the console will go up by $50 in the US on September 1, 2026. A UK and Australian price increase is yet to be formally confirmed by Nintendo, though it is likely its cost will increase there too.

So you have a little longer to decide on a Nintendo console, but when it comes to the PC handheld market, I’d act sooner rather than later if you’re desperate to nab one — or risk some serious disappointment when, not if, prices get hiked for the few remaining machines yet to see one.

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