The best microSD card for the Steam Deck is going cheap this Black Friday

I’m rounding up Steam Deck-ready microSD sales over in our best early Black Friday SSD deals hub, but thought it worth highlighting the Samsung Pro Plus more directly. This is, of all the ones I’ve tried, the best microSD card for Valve’s handheld PC, and it’s currently enjoying some discounts in both the UK and US.

These focus on the 256GB and 512GB models, the latter being the roomiest capacity that the Pro Plus comes in. Assuming that you do indeed find yourself constrained by your Deck’s own SSD, I’d suggest aiming for 512GB if you can – 256GB will hold a fair few games but might also fill up fast if you’re installing a lot of gigabyte-hogging AAA games. Then again, an extra 256GB might be fine otherwise – many of the best Steam Deck games, like Vampire Survivors, have a tiny installation footprint. Your call.

UK deals:

US deals:

Why the Samsung Pro Plus and not an even cheaper microSD like, say, the SanDisk Ultra? That’s a good choice too but the Pro Plus was simply faster at loading games when I tested it, to the point that you probably couldn’t tell the difference between this and the pre-installed Steam Deck SSD unless you were craned over it clutching a stopwatch. Like, uh, I was.

I guess you could alternatively upgrade the SSD itself, though Valve themselves advise against it. In fact, if you mod your Deck to “fit” a physically longer type of solid state drive, a Valve employee may show up in your Twitter mentions expressing concern. Yeah, microSDs are fine.

We’re keeping track of all the best early Black Friday PC gaming deals as we approach the big day on November 25th. Head over to the main hub for highlights across all kinds of PC hardware, or you can check out our more specialized guides, like the best early Black Friday SSD deals, the best Black Friday gaming keyboard deals, and more.