In case you’re out of the loop, the old Steam Deck had Philips screws that screwed into self-tapping plastic holes. This lead to occasional stripped threads and often stripped screwheads.

Valve absolutely did not have to change their screws, and its probably actually against their best interests. While other companies around the world are constantly in search of new ways to screw their own consumers, Valve goes out of their way to update their screws to make them easier to install/remove by changing to torx screws and added metal threads in the backplate. Those who know anything about mechanical engineering know this is not an insignificant amount of effort they put into it.

This is a small change that makes a huge impact, and speaks volumes about the ethos of the company. It says:

  1. We want to make our devices last longer, and be easier to repair.

  2. If you want to buy the cheaper tier and save yourself a few bucks by installing whatever SSD you want, go right ahead.

  3. We trust you to make decisions for yourself.

  4. Most importantly, we respect you, the consumer, and want you to fully own and control the devices we sell.

Valve is by no means perfect, and there’s plenty more they could be doing, but they’ve earned my respect and my patronage and I won’t buy games from anywhere else. I will buy whatever future products they sell, even if I don’t think I’ll use them regularly.

  • ColorcodedresistorEnglish
    51·
    7 months ago

    As someone who used to run a louis rossman electronics repair business for a couple years before i burned out.

    LG G5 was and still is my point to for perfectly fixable devices.

    Motorola is trash because you have to dismantle the phone from the back layer by layer just to reach the front screen.

    HTC was even worse with two tier motherboards and octopuss ribbon cables were a nightmare to navigate.

    iPhone was/ is possibly the easiest fucking phone to fix, ironically…however by the iphone 8 and onwards apple found increasingly shitty ways to make 3rd party repairs nearly impossible.

    windows phones, nokia, and others were hit or miss. tablets were long winded affairs but generally easy due to their inherent size.

    ive been out of the game since 2019 when covid dropped. id really like to hear the inside baseball on any current operators running repair business.

    i used Repair Shopr software to manage my customers. idk if thats still the go to or if another has bested it.

    • Björn Tantau@swg-empire.de
      17·
      7 months ago

      When I couldn’t repair my Nokia and replace the 5 € USB-Port because there happened to be a small crack in the screen (of course you have to remove the glued on screen to accese the innards), I caved and bought a Fairphone 3.

      Worst decision ever. The stupid thing refuses to break to let me even use the better repairability.

      • Domi@lemmy.secnd.me
        7·
        7 months ago

        Good to hear, got a Fairpone 5 recently and I’m very happy with it so far.

        Although breaking it probably won’t take more than a year for clumsy me.

        • Björn Tantau@swg-empire.de
          3·
          7 months ago

          Honestly, I think I’ve never dropped a phone as much as this one. And apart from a few scratches there’s nothing. I think it’s the battery cover that usually just pops off like on the indestructible Nokia phones of decades past.

          Really funny how I can use Nokia as both a positive and a negative example.

          • jarfil@beehaw.org
            2·
            7 months ago

            I think it’s the battery cover that usually just pops off like on the indestructible Nokia phones of decades past.

            “Battery cover”, or… “kinetic energy redirector” 😉