Steam Frame OLED Version Surfaces in Source Code, Suggesting a Possible Hardware Refresh

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Valve’s Steam Frame is barely out the door, but now data mining has reportedly surfaced that an OLED version may already in the works.

The News

As reported by Steam Frame Hub, Valve may be working on a new version of Steam Frame, which much like Steam Deck, may include OLED panels instead of LCD.

The codename ‘Plano’ has appeared in Valve’s publicly released Steam Frame kernel source code, describing a ‘Deckard’ (codename for Steam Frame) with a 3,552 × 3,840 per eye resolution OLED, and refresh rate of up to 90Hz, and 120Hz experimental mode.

That comes in contrast to Steam Frame’s 2,160 × 2,160 per eye resolution LCD panel, which includes 72-120Hz refresh rate (144Hz experimental).

Steam Frame Hub maintains that while native pixel counts are impressively high, essentially the same as Samsung Galaxy XR, the default resolution appears to be half that: 1,776 × 1,920.

That would essentially allow Valve to hit roughly the same performance target as the standard Steam Frame, as the kernel source code appears to show Plano uses the same Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 chipset as the current model.

Development on the repository reportedly continued through October 2nd, 2026, weeks after Steam Frame pre-orders opened on September 14th. That suggests the project remained active after the headset’s launch, although it doesn’t establish whether Plano is a separate product or an experimental hardware configuration.

My Take

Valve may well be following the same playbook as Deck, which was first released in February 2022 with an LCD version, followed by an OLED version in November 2023. Still, there are a few possible explanations beyond a mid-generation Steam Frame OLED refresh.

An alt display config could have been evaluated during development, and subsequently abandoned. Valve may also be simply internal testing right now, which doesn’t mean it will necessarily be productized—soon, or ever.

Notably, the name Deckard appeared more or less the same way, albeit in 2021. That’s ‘Valve Time’ for you, so hoping for a speedy release of an OLED version of Steam Frame really isn’t something I’d count on right now.

As it is, Steam Frame backorders have already stretched in 2027. If Valve wants to follow the same playbook as Deck, the company would ideally need to ramp up production, catch up with demand, make it available without reservations, and establish strong appetite for another Steam Frame before it can release anything else. A lot of that hinges on the device’s popularity, which still remains to be seen since there are still so few in the wild.

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