The screen swap was easy peasy, the hardest part was getting the old screen out. Mine was already broken, and I wasn't keeping the front plastic, so I didn't have to worry about being too careful, except around the top edge where the mics and ambient light sensor are.
The case swap was a bear, took forever. I'm fairly handy, but the whole process took almost 4 hours. My buddy was doing his in tandem with me and he was over 5 hours, and that's with me lending a hand towards the end.
It looks great, in my opinion, and I'd do it again, I'd just start earlier in the day ๐ฌ
As far as the OLED goes, so far it looks good. The stock brightness slider isn't working, it must be a software thing? I have had zero time to look into it. I haven't even played a single game on it since doing the swap. I'll report back when I have time to give it a fair shake.
I've considered doing this. Did you have to remove the old screen even though you were doing a chassis swap?
Yes unfortunately. I thought I wouldn't have to, that's half the reason I got the extra case. But the way the steam deck is designed, the internal frame is screwed to the front case with 6 screws that are under the screen ๐ซ
Edit: Swapping the screen without swapping the case would be significantly easier, you've only gotta go down as deep as the motherboard.
That's interesting, I had a assumed screen swap/case swap would be equally difficult.
Nah, every little button and board are all individually screwed into the front case. So swapping it is literally removing those things one at a time, setting them aside, doing the rest of the work, then putting all those little pieces back in exactly where they go.
The instructions have over a 100 steps, then you do them an in reverse. So over 200 steps to do it all.
I bet you could get fast at it, but first time? Gonna be slow.
But the screen swap is just the motherboard in and out I'm pretty sure.