Despite giving it a full teardown, Valve was keen to note that damage done while opening the device is not covered under the warranty, and it does weaken the structural integrity of the device. Bear in mind that the Steam Deck also uses an M.2 2230 SSD, which will be a bit hard to find. The original SSD also features a dedicated EMI shield, and swapping it out for an aftermarket SSD might cause interference with the wireless module.

That said, opening the Steam Deck is not as hard as we expected, as all you need to do is remove eight screws and remove the rear panel. Of course, you also need to disconnect the battery, which might be the hardest thing as the connector is not that easily accessible.

The video also shows how to replace a thumbstick, despite the fact that it is a custom part, but, we suspect custom thumbsticks as soon as Steam Deck gets some traction.

Valve's Steam Deck is expected to ship in December 2021, starting at $399 for the 64GB eMMC version, while the 256GB NVMe SSD and 512GB NVMe SSD versions are priced at $529 and $649.