It was my understanding that despite it being preorders, the devices were already under production. If that’s not the case, I tend to agree that it would have been damn nice to have an option, even if it came with limits on exactly what kind of hardware you could use in it. I can still understand why they wouldn’t, but I would also love to see the option if it isn’t going tp disrupt production the way I was talking.

That being said, I’m still not sure the market would be there in enough capacity to make it worth the small extra effort. I don’t mind cracking open a brand new device and fiddling with it, and I know plenty of fellow lemmizens that are equally (our even more) enthusiastic about technology that would as well. I’m just not confident that the kind of folks both willing and able to do it without fucking up would be worth even designing a second option on the website lol.

I dunno, maybe I’m not guesstimating the value of the option. My thinking is that for it to be useful, you’d have to already have the parts, or you wouldn’t be saving much money, which means you’re just doing it for fun, or to customize the exact specs of the ram and sdd. Not that that isn’t great! It is! I just didn’t (and don’t) see it as something that’s on the radar for this kind of device. Looking at prices, I didn’t find anything that would represent a reduced price tag new, unless I fucked up reading the specs (and I am dyslexic, so I do fuck up sometimes).

So, yeah, if my base assumptions are wrong, it could well be that it would be a net benefit to valve and users.