If you can (and are brave enough) it's worth also replacing the thermal paste under the heat spreader. It gave me a decent boost. I made a post about it here if you'd like to know more.
It seems for some reason Nintendo's in house games' HDR support seems to be more for increasing accuracy of colours and shapes rather than increasing brightness. Running on my QD OLED monitor, Breath of the Wild's Switch 2 upgrade does not look super bright with massive contrast (as most PC HDR would be), but you have things like the sun going from a white blob (on an SDR Switch 1 as well as an emulator) to being much more detailed due to the increased gamma value range. On Welcome Tour as well, the fireworks demo definitely shows much more detail in the explosions, but does not use the peak brightness of the monitor. Similarly, Switch 1 games look a bit more muted with the Switch 2's HDR output (compared to the tone mapping the monitor uses for the Switch 1's SDR output), but with colours closer to the printed box art and other sources. I think we might see future Nintendo published Switch 2 focused games try and use the HDR for a higher brightness output, or we might see the more accuracy same brightness trend continue. This is likely a development choice, and explains why Cyberpunk 2077 (a game with existing HDR on other platforms, where the tendency is for higher brightness with more "pop" with high contrast) looks quite different in HDR on Switch 2 compared to the Nintendo titles.
The integrated display is definitely not the best thing in the world, but it does what it needs to do pretty well. High refresh rate 1080p with some light HDR looks perfectly fine to me, and it definitely looks far better than Switch 1. It's very good for my usage. The brightness could have been higher though, considering this is a portable device that you might want to use in bright sunlight on the train or something (high end phone screens get 1000+ nit brightnesses for this reason, and as far as I know Deck OLED does at least 800 or 900).
Ah, it's LibreOffice Fontwork on my modern Linux desktop, just screenshotted and comically compressed to look that bad. I did genuinely consider installing my copy of Word 2003 on WINE to make this though, because classic Microsoft Word WordArt is funny as hell.
I do think Nintendo need to follow the lead of a lot of other companies and offer official replacement parts, especially with the weeks long turnaround times their official service can have sometimes. Replaceable storage is also a good improvement that could happen, considering it's not unheard of for storage chips to die (for example early 32GB Wii Us). Still, I think iFixit are somewhat unfair when it comes to the Switch's battery. It is definitely harder to remove than the ROG Ally (screwed in batteries are the way, ASUS did a good job on this) but even their own guide scores the Switch battery removal as being easier than the Deck. The Switch's battery can be removed mostly with isopropyl alcohol and prying (still a royal pain compared to the Ally, but doable), while they recommend using multiple applications of heat for the Deck (which is terrifying considering this is a battery we are talking about, and will put a lot of people off). The only thing better on the Deck is availability of official parts, but everything else is far worse than the Switch battery replacement experience, and I do not think the Deck deserves the 7/10 repair score considering the replacement procedure for this commonly replaced part. It should be given a 5/10 instead.
Do you think it might be worth finding some sort of proxy shipping service that can buy in another country and send it over? I've used a few when buying stuff from Japan to ship over here in the UK, and have found them to be pretty useful. Worst comes to worst, you could always try (insert somewhat shady Chinese marketplace of choice here, there's a bunch) and hope you get a good battery.
Oh my
this is beautiful, and I hate it
If you need a replacement, there's official Steam Deck batteries now available on the iFixit store. It is a bit difficult to remove, but it's worth it to extend the life of your Deck.
Holy shit that is a blast from the past.
This is the sort of thing that leads to compression artifacts so bad even just black and white text looks like a snowstorm. It's almost impressive, in a way.
The special sauce of the Deck isn't really what it's running (it's just Arch with some extra Steam stuff on top), it's more that it's something you can just buy and use without even thinking twice about anything - a more console like experience. To get a Linux handheld with that kind of performance before, you would have to go through all kinds of hoops and trouble to get it working (a lot of people aren't ready to reinstall the OS on a device they just bought), plus a lot of games just would not work well. Deck gave pressure on game makers to ensure Proton compatibility at launch, as it gives them an established market who would appreciate it.
Can definitely agree on the Fire Emblem. Me? Hundreds of hours? Never!
I only got to try a Deck for a bit, so I unfortunately can't do a proper direct comparison. I would say it's a little bit lighter than the Deck, while being a bit thinner. The backs of the Joy Cons have a better shape that makes it feel more secure in my hand compared to Switch 1.