I dropped my launch edition steam deck last night on carpet and while all the buttons still worked- something was rattling inside of it. After I opened it up I discovered a missing chunk of plastic from the R2 trigger, that piece presses against another to keep the button from over articulating. I suspect this trigger absorbed most of the impact, there was no other visible damage.
Of course I was upset that I broke it, but so very pleasantly surprised to find ifixit had the trigger in stock and reasonably priced. This availability made me love the deck even more, and really the fact valve made these parts available places the deck above any other competition in my mind.
This machine is built to last, I am so excited to get it fixed and get back to gaming.
Imagine an alternative reality where a company can create a mobile phone with swappable components and high repairability index.
I will immediately buy their product, because I am sick of being forced to switch my phone every couple of years due to planned obsolescence adopted by so many companies.
I think Fairphone is pretty repairable. It is also quite durable. I have had it for years now and dropped it very often, but it hasn’t broken yet.
Fairphone ist your answer. It got a maximum score from iFixit and you can order and replace all components easily. They also promise support until 2031, even picked an IoT Chipset for longer support.
while I like the idea of Fairphone, last time i checked their flagship did not include an 3.5mm jack. This is simply not acceptable as i need it for my work. It is hard to find phones with a 3.5mm - even harder if you want to be able to repair them.
Yeah, sadly true, no 3.5mm jack on the fairphone 5.
Can you recommend a model? I’ve seen in the past that some of their models didn’t really match their contemporaries in terms of power, so I didn’t really bother looking at them more in depth. However, my views and priorities have changed over the last couple years and getting a Fairphone would definitely be something worthwhile to consider once I must upgrade my phone.
Well that is indeed the trade off. The IoT chipset does get long support, but it is not up on par with specialized phone chipsets. If you are looking for a powerful phone with a snappy experience, my impression is, the fairphone would probably not life up to that. It is a phone for people looking for repairability as the main feature.
Can you upgrade the phone’s internals?
Only some of them. As far as I remember they released a better camera for the fair phone 4 at some point, but its not like you can upgrade the chipset or the memory at the moment.
Project Ara, the future that never happened
This was very promising because it’s backed by a big company, but unfortunately it’s Google
I love how repairable and modifiable the deck is as well! I swapped my sticks for hall effect sticks a while back. Was super easy to do.
If you’d like to game while waiting for your replacement part, you can link a Bluetooth controller to your deck or use the usb c port to give yourself some USB ports for a keyboard and mouse.
Hall sticks are on my list to do eventually, that’s a great point the general upgradeability is awesome too. Appreciate the Bluetooth idea but I chose to leave the deck disassembled until the trigger comes in. The back screws inserts are molded plastic so the less times screws are removed & reinserted the better.
That’s a really good consideration as well! Hopefully its a quick shipping time for you
This is why I love lenovo laptops, they have videos for replacing everything.
Lenovos used to be even better, with quick access to a lot of internals via various hatches on the bottom
I got the iFixit pro tool kit a few years ago and I use it all the time even for stuff that’s not electronic lol
It’s great for electronics, but be careful with the bits on non-electronic stuff, they are quite soft and wear easily against stronger screws.
I won’t lie I was super tempted to add a pro toolkit with the part order, but talked myself out of it and ended up with just a spludger and moray driver kit lol.
I won’t lie I was super tempted to add a pro toolkit
I say do it (if you have the money, of course). I got it and while it has far more tools/bits than I use regularly, it’s been invaluable.
I have to second the other person said, if you have the money I’d get the the kit. It’s proved useful for all sorts of things. I’ve used mine for electronics, knife repair/maintenance, home repairs, basically anything you’ve ever needed to work on that required some kind of weird screwdriver that you definitely don’t have in the drawer lol
I feel the same way about my Leatherman Wave multi tool. I had a cheap one that I got for like £4 and it just sat in my toolbox. My house got broken into and they stole all my tools. The insurance company replaced the multi tool with the Wave. I just shoved it in the toolbox, which lives in the garage as I never really used it.
One day, I saw the Wave online and noticed it costs a lot of money (£100+). I brought it inside the house and ended up leaving it by my desk. I found myself reaching for it to do all manner of household jobs. It’s a great gadget to quickly fix odd jobs or cut boxes up from the numerous online purchases. Really handy to leave around the house.I’m sure you can get by with cheaper variants but the Leatherman tools are solid and built to last. They also come with a 25 year warranty. Definitely a purchase I’d make again if I ever needed to.
I bought a shitty knockoff, and it works great.
Buy what you can afford. If you can afford the expensive ifixit stuff, do it. If you don’t want to, then buy the knockoff and you’ll be fine.
I did the same thing and they fixed it for free. Gotta love Valve
Sony did something similar for me for my PS3. It was out of warranty and the drive stopped reading Blu-ray discs. CDs worked fine. I couldn’t find the receipt to see how old it was but contacted them anyway. They said can I find an old bank statement or something to see if it is still in warranty. The only thing I found was it showed up in the loyalty points of the game shop I got it from. They accepted this as enough proof however the unit was out of the standard warranty. They said they will still accept it. They sent out a postal guy with a thick plastic box with foam insulation with a replacement PS3 in it. He took away my broken PS3. Great! All free of charge. I was well happy. Then a week later a letter arrived and contained the SD card that I accidentally left in my old PS3.
Sony went the extra mile here. Very happy with the outcome.
That’s awesome. I’m wondering if Sony would go the extra mile nowadays. Curious if folks here can chime in on that
Yeah. As much as I praise Sony for this endeavour, I doubt it’s the same now.
I second this! My decks screen got cracked for… probably toddler related reasons… and I was able to get everything to repair it no problem.
Wasn’t terribly cheap though, I hope ifixit can score a partnership with a shipping company or something cause shipping adds up fast if you, say, mess up the two sided adhesive… for toddler related reasons… and need a quick second order of just the adhesive.
I sense a pattern here. Does iFixIt offer anything to fix these so-called “toddlers”?
Apparently it’s a feature and not a bug (they didn’t let me return her, even for hospital store credit). I heard there are preventative measures available, though… ifixit brand condoms?
10/10 would buy for sure
I usually just duct tape them to the radiator
I’m so glad they did this partnership as well, my first deck had a whiny fan (pretty bad), bought a new fan that was fairly easy to install and made it so much better to use the device! Ifixit tools are pretty good, too.
Doh why didn’t I think to do the fan while I have it open! Mine is loud as hell… Well, there’s always next time when I do the SSD I guess.
Gotta appreciate Valve continuing to be a master class in how a successful company should behave
It should be theoretically in a company’s long term financial interest to keep customers at least reasonably happy, but the infinite growth mindset is such a cancer that you can see it tearing apart any number of old established brands these days (cough Boeing, eg).
Looks like GabeN decided that going to sleep each night on piles of billions of dollars was enough and he didn’t need to supplement his pillows with the customers’ nickels and dimes as well. Feels like that shouldn’t be such a strange mindset, but apparently it’s rare enough to stand out.
It doesn’t even just have to be about money, Valve is one of the only major tech companies I can think of that seems to actually care about customer feedback. They don’t acquiesce to every request and complaint, it’s unrealistic to expect any company to do that, but just in general, Valve genuinely seems to listen more on the whole.
Too many tech companies have convinced themselves that the silent majority’s silence equals approval, and therefore the “vocal minority” of complaints need never be taken seriously. But what they don’t appreciate is the most vocal criticisms tend to come from enthusiasts, and when you cater to the average users only, you are slowly making your product less remarkable.
Steamdeck feels like a product made for that “vocal minority”. It addresses so many concerns that other tech companies would hand wave away because “most people aren’t complaining”.
i am convinced the vast majority of decision-makers these days are just actually incompetent:
Large corporations repeatedly amputate themselves to save weight only to go surprised pikachu when that causes them to fall flat on their face, small business owners will vehemently oppose building bike paths outside their stores because that would remove 2 parking spaces (yeah sure dude 2 parking spaces is totally enough to sustain your business, that has no relation to why it’s currently careening toward bancrupcy), and governments will unironically use the logic of “well we can’t build a bridge here, not enough people are swimming across the river to justify it!”.
Just to add to this, Valve is a company with a very peculiar organization, in which the structure is very horizontal and that does its own thing (the structure is not without problems, but it’s still very interesting). They also have a surprisingly little amount of employees for such a company! Numbers vary between 350 and 1000!
It’s cos they’re privately owned and so don’t necessarily have to be shit, where publicly owned companies are legally required to maximize profits for shareholders.
are legally required to maximize profits for shareholders.
Not exactly
I literally the dane think and broke the exact damn part. 5 minutes on ifixit. Swoon 😍
Ifixit fucked me on a MacBook battery I bought. So do NOT trust their products. The guides are wonderful, though.
The battery didn’t even last a single year, and they did not replace it.
Should see if somebody modelled something similar to print on 3D printer. Could make it glow in the dark, or wood infused filament.
I like showing my repairs a bit, make them stand out slightly, makes me love my devices more knowing they’ve been repaired.
I have never bought anything from Valve/Steam as I’m a PlayStation gamer, but their support for Linux and repair ability makes me think about a Steam Deck when my Surface Go is gonna be too old (but it’ll last for quite a while since Fedora isn’t as demanding as Windows).
I did the exact same thing with my Steam Deck LCD and I had the same problem. It was a piece of piss to swap out the part thanks to Valve and iFixit :)
Modularity and upgradability should be standardised in everything!
You make me want to buy a Steam Deck, even though I don’t play games much.
as has been repeated into oblivion, it’s just a PC, so it’s perfectly usable for non-gaming stuff!
If you want something more portable than a laptop and are alright with the slightly strange input method for a computer, there isn’t really anything better.
Yes. Let’s all go buy steam decks! Yay, capitalism!!1!
Capitalism is when people have hobbies?
Yes, if you intend to buy some, let’s buy from the companies which have some values and respect their customers so they are successful and more companies may get inspired, instead of from the other ones. See also Patagonia and Fairphone for other rare examples.
Never heard of Patagonia. What do they do?
Outdoors equipment most famously winter coats. They are famous for environmental policy and treating their employees very well. https://www.forbes.com/sites/dougsundheim/2023/12/12/how-patagonia-became-the-most-reputable-brand-in-the-united-states/?sh=7f50e1ef1473
Thanks for the link. That makes me regain some faith in humanity.
Nah let’s all shit on things in ways that make zero sense instead!!1!
And they still can’t manage to start selling it in Australia. Completely different things but still frustrating nevertheless.
