Some Steam Deck owners who recently customized their handhelds with cheap vinyl skins are now regretting their decision and are warning others not to follow their lead.
Many Steam Deck owners like to personalize their handhelds to make them look unique. Some buy vinyl covers to cover the smooth black casing of the Steam Deck to give it more variety. While some of these vinyl covers are great, others could mess up something.
Some of these vinyl stickers have a particular type of glue that would need heat to activate its stickiness. When applied to the Steam Deck, most owners have reported that the grip was strong and it did not show any way of tearing. If they get bored with the design, they could just remove the stick and apply another one. They assumed they would only need to use a heat gun to remove the glue, but unfortunately, something caused some problems when that was done.
Redditor rkatz94 and ZoteTheMitey shared their experience with removing these subpar vinyl stickers on their Steam Decks. They reported on the SteamDeck subreddit that while removing the vinyl stickers, the glue residue remained and it caused some sort of damage to the casing. Dbrand, a popular vinyl sticker distributer, only uses high quality 3M vinyl material. It allows users to easily apply their vinyl sticker designs and also remove them effortlessly without any glue residue.
For owners who have removed vinyl stickers and the glue residue remained, some redditors suggested applying hand sanitizer or medical-grade alcohol on the affected areas, but it will take time to do so.
The lesson to learn from this is to not use subpar vinyl stickers on a Steam Deck or any kind of high-end gadget. It might just leave glue residue that will take a lot of time to fully clean up.
The Steam Deck is now available for purchase worldwide.
