At $349, the 64GB Steam Deck is an incredible holiday deal, even after you buy an SSD
Not officially a Black Friday deal, but still a good one.
There are lots of Black Friday tech deals floating around. But if I may, let me point to you to a deal that isn't specifically attached to the holiday shopping season: The 64GB Valve Steam Deck is on a nice discount on Steam, at just $349.
Valve is making the 256GB LCD Steam Deck the new base model, so this is a limited-time deal. Once it runs out, it's gone. And while 64GB of eMMC is a paltry amount of storage if you play major game releases, $349 is remarkably affordable for a gaming PC, and can be easily improved with a little more cash and some elbow grease. Check our guide to upgrading the Steam Deck SSD for more details.
Valve Steam Deck (64GB): now $349 at Steam
The original Valve Steam Deck for an incredibly low price, but only while supplies last. It uses an AMD Aerith CPU and comes with a 1280x800 7-inch display and 64GB of eMMC storage.
The 64GB Steam Deck is from the original release, with an LCD screen, the AMD Zen 2-based "Aerith" APU, a 7-inch, 1280x800 screen, and 16GB of RAM. While the newer Steam Deck OLED has a nicer, larger screen, it starts at $549. That's $200 extra, albeit with more storage.
The good news is that, at $349, you may have a bit of money left over in your budget for more storage, and that's where the magic comes in. The 64GB of eMMC storage can be replaced with a faster, larger NVMe drive to store way more games.
While we have a whole page dedicated to the best SSDs for Steam Decks, our favorite option, the Corsair MP600 Mini 1TB, happens to be on sale for Black Friday. It's a fast TLC drive that's reasonably priced, making an extra deal even sweeter.
Corsair MP600 Mini 1TB: now $79.99 at Amazon (was $89.99)
An M.2 2230 SSD that will fit in the Steam Deck to increase the number of games you can install. This one is speedy and well priced.
Sabrent Rocket 2230 (512GB): is $59.99 at Amazon
An affordable 512GB NVMe SSD that fits the Steam Deck adds a bit of extra room.
We've been appreciating the Steam Deck OLED here at Tom's Hardware, but if you balked at the Steam Deck's price originally, this 64GB option combined with a brand new SSD will give you some gaming power on the go. You could even add SD cards later on for more storage, but this is a great start at a great price. Plus, we're probably still two or more years away from Steam Deck 2.
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Andrew E. Freedman is a senior editor at Tom's Hardware focusing on laptops, desktops and gaming. He also keeps up with the latest news. A lover of all things gaming and tech, his previous work has shown up in Tom's Guide, Laptop Mag, Kotaku, PCMag and Complex, among others. Follow him on Threads @FreedmanAE and Mastodon @FreedmanAE.mastodon.social.