Hey y’all, I’m just starting to dip my toes into learning more about the Steam Deck and was wondering how likely it is that we’ll see refurbished OLED decks for sale by Valve around Black Friday?

If unlikely, what do you recommend as the best way to find a good deal on a used OLED for the holidays?

Thanks in advance!

EDIT: To clarify, I’m only interested in the OLED version, despite the crazy good deals on a refurb LCD model!

  • Onno (VK6FLAB)
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    -41 month ago

    Black Friday is a marketing exercise to get you all riled up about the massive savings you will receive if you buy something RIGHT NOW.

    Suffice to say that the actual bargains on the day are far and few between.

    If you actively track pricing you’ll discover that the price goes up before the event, then drops to the same or slightly lower pricing on the day. The “bargain” is notional at best.

    Then there are the “pre Black Friday” sales, and the “Cyber Monday” ones afterwards. It’s all just marketing.

    If you want an actual bargain, find what you’re looking for, set a price watch on it and track it for as long as you have patience. When you’re ready, buy it from your preferred supplier and get them to price match the amazing price.

    As far as refurbished goes, ask yourself what is the upside for the supplier to give away any bit of return on their spend to refurbish the item in the first place?

    • FubarberryM
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      171 month ago

      Everything you’ve said is true, but I don’t think it really applies to this case where they’re asking about officially refurbished Decks being sold directly by Valve. The price of a standard Steam Deck is well established here, and any discount will be an actual, real discount on the product.

    • @[email protected]
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      11 month ago

      This seems like a real knee jerk moment here. You aren’t wrong that there are predatory sellers that do exactly that, but it also seems to assume that people do not have the ability to do their own research, which tbf in a society where attention is apparently a rare commodity and heavily capitalized on, it’s not necessarily an unfair assumption. It’s just unhelpful and honestly pretty damn rude to make a blanket comment that seems to assume that people just won’t or will refuse do their research, and should just listen to your authoritative take.

      Wouldn’t it be better to just rephrase your comment into something like, “Please remember to keep an eye on price histories to make sure that the displayed prices are discounted as claimed.”?

      Or does it feel better to speak as if people are dumber than you are? I mean, if you need to feel smarter and better, there are other healthier avenues for that, and I would suggest that you try looking into those instead.