News

Jul 09, 2023

A fully transparent Steam Deck mod is on the way

We've had transparent backplates for the Steam Deck for a while now but what

We've had transparent backplates for the Steam Deck for a while now but what about the front? Well, they're on the way from two different companies.

Firstly, JSAUX, who make the most popular transparent backplates (I showed off one here) are working on their own fully transparent case for the Steam Deck. From speaking to JSAUX they told me this will be available in Krystal, Purple and Brown and they told me the backplate has a new design too as they've added new ventilation and improved the heat sink as well. Their first teaser posted to Reddit can be seen below:

In that same post, JSAUX also teased they're coming up with "several" new RGB-related stuff to make your Steam Deck look even more wild. So I'm very curious to see what they're cooking up, especially as I thought their OmniCase 2 Pro was fantastic.

On top of that, JSAUX just today showed off and sent me over a little teaser clip of what they will look like:

Looks really nice! Glad to see they've looked to improve the backplate at the same time.

The other is eXtremeRate, another company that makes various gaming accessories. They've begun teasing their own full shell for the Steam Deck, including transparent options but we don't know much more than what they showed in a brief GIF on Twitter:

I wouldn't mind grabbing some backplates from eXtremeRate when they're available, to compare with what JSAUX have, especially since eXtremeRate don't seem to have the heat sink on the back which can get quite hot on the JSAUX versions.

Just a reminder: if you're going to take apart your Steam Deck - make sure you take out your Micro SD card. Don't snap it like me and many others ended up doing at some point. It's really easy to forget - so try not to, or you'll be sad and out of pocket.

The main issue here is that changing the frontplate is pretty intense, as you need to take the whole thing apart. Not something that's particularly easy and even iFixit note it down as "Difficult" to do in their guide. There's a fair amount you could mess up but still, no doubt many will go for it because it looks awesome.