shop gave cable that takes 30 hours to charge device

Ergates

triade said:

MattMattMattUK said:

Can I ask what your needs are? The Steam Deck is great for playing older games and can be reasonable for modern games depending on the game, but it does not do much else.

it's for gaming when away from home, and a backup device for if my pc has an issue. It can do web browsing and play movies, so I can do my everyday browsing and can watch my stories and can play some games. It's a linux operating system and I believe many linux software apps can be loaded to it, so technicaly should be possible to do stuff like photo editing, video editing, coding, etc.

Places like cash-converter will never give you the best price for stuff you're "selling" or exchanging with them.  Therefore if you take a refund, the amount you'll get back would probably not be good value for the items you exchanged.  Assuming you still want the item, then you have two options:
1) keep the one you have and buy a charger - sounds like they cost £22.
2) Take the refund and try to buy one with the "proper" charger from elsewhere.

Look at how much they would cost from other sources (including the refurbished ones from Steam), then look at how much you'd for a refund (in cash - store credit is no use).

If you can get one for more than £22 less than you'll get refunded, then do that.  Otherwise, buy the charger.
i.e. if you would get £280 refunded (in cash) and you could find one for £240 then you'd be better of with that.   However, this seems unlikely.

DullGreyGuy

A standard USB-C cable should be perfectly fine to charge up to 60W (20v at 3amp), Thunderbolt 3 cables need to be able to take 100W (20v at 5amp) and you can get higher power USBC. Cable used with my laptop can support 140W 

Would be surprised if a USBC cable couldn't handle 45W but you only mention using as 12W charger from your phone? What power is the brick they supplied with it?

Offering a refund is the best you're going to get and is sufficient to meet their legal requirements. Its up to you if you want to take that or just buy a 45w charger with a cable for £11 on Amazon 

Exodi

Perhaps it's just me being time-poor, but I can never empathise with these types of threads.

You can buy a good quality 60W USB-C cable (which I believe the steam-deck uses) from Amazon from like a fiver...

www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0BPDWDK6V
www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B07PLSDPYN
etc

Or one with a plug for like £12: www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0C4YD2B9M

Just the time alone walking backwards and forwards to cash converters and arguing with staff to save £5-£10 wouldn't make it worth it for me, especially where I'd previously already negotiated "a reduced price because it's not the official charger". But I know many are happy to die on the sword of their interpretation of 'principle'.

triade

DullGreyGuy said:

A standard USB-C cable should be perfectly fine to charge up to 60W (20v at 3amp), Thunderbolt 3 cables need to be able to take 100W (20v at 5amp) and you can get higher power USBC. Cable used with my laptop can support 140W 

Would be surprised if a USBC cable couldn't handle 45W but you only mention using as 12W charger from your phone? What power is the brick they supplied with it?

Offering a refund is the best you're going to get and is sufficient to meet their legal requirements. Its up to you if you want to take that or just buy a 45w charger with a cable for £11 on Amazon 

They didn't supply a brick, just a really small flimsy USBA-USBC cable. I recognise that you say it should support the 45W, so it's just a case of me not having a plug adaptor that will deliver 45W? Ideally, they should have provided that, but of course, the refund option is appropriate so it's down to my choice. Perhaps I can simply ask them to provide a 45W adapter? 

I don't know, the way he responded to me on the phone was not kind. I used to like that shop. I wasn't exactly rude on the phone, just explained what had happened, and he got on the defensive. Not experienced that with them before.

Anyway, I just ordered a plug from amazon for £11, it's rated for 65W and is advertised as suitable for a wide range of devices including steam deck.

Thanks everyone for your feedback and support.

triade

Exodi said:

Perhaps it's just me being time-poor, but I can never empathise with these types of threads.

You can buy a good quality 60W USB-C cable (which I believe the steam-deck uses) from Amazon from like a fiver...

www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0BPDWDK6V
www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B07PLSDPYN
etc

Or one with a plug for like £12: www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0C4YD2B9M

Just the time alone walking backwards and forwards to cash converters and arguing with staff to save £5-£10 wouldn't make it worth it for me, especially where I'd previously already negotiated "a reduced price because it's not the official charger". But I know many are happy to die on the sword of their interpretation of 'principle'.

your point is sound. it's hassle that I don't really want. 

The price wasn't negotiated though, and the cable not being the official one wasn't communicated to me at all. I was told it was a steam deck, for that price, and i expected it to work in a reasonable fashion. He only claimed that it was reduced when I phoned them this morning. I feel like he may have been lying about that, but that's immaterial.
It was a big purchase for me though. I borrowed money off my brother to help cover the difference, so paying extra for a plug feels quite a stretch for me. I can handle it, but I feel i'd rather not bear the additional unexpected cost. If I was flush, then I'd probably have a different attitude to life. I appreciate your perspective though.

I have ordered the plug from Amazon.

born_again

It's the plug that outputs the power.
I have a 90W fast charger with laptop. It runs at required speed no matter what usb-c cable is used, from supplied cable to super cheap ones.

MattMattMattUK

triade said:

MattMattMattUK said:

Can I ask what your needs are? The Steam Deck is great for playing older games and can be reasonable for modern games depending on the game, but it does not do much else.

it's for gaming when away from home, and a backup device for if my pc has an issue. It can do web browsing and play movies, so I can do my everyday browsing and can watch my stories and can play some games. It's a linux operating system and I believe many linux software apps can be loaded to it, so technicaly should be possible to do stuff like photo editing, video editing, coding, etc.

Steam OS is a Linux distro so yes it can run some (but not all) Linux applications. Whilst it would technically be possible to do photo editing, video editing or coding on it it is very far from the idea platform to do so. 

For what it is worth I think the Steam Deck is a great device, especially the OLED version, a brilliant on the move gaming device, however would I do any of those other tasks on it unless absolutely forced? Not a chance.

If you want the Deck for gaming, the absolutely keep it, if you see it is a substitute for a laptop, then you will be very disappointed. 

MattMattMattUK

born_again said:

It's the plug that outputs the power.
I have a 90W fast charger with laptop. It runs at required speed no matter what usb-c cable is used, from supplied cable to super cheap ones.

It slightly depends. The PD standard says that the charger and the device receiving the power should negotiate the power, then increase in incrementally until they reach the maximum or the target power output. Some laptop chargers automatically output at the maximum rate as they are not PD compliant, but are designed to only be used with their partnered laptop and in theory could damage/melt a non-compliant cable. There is a reason cables are rated for the power required and some will just not be able to handle the power and limit the throughput because resistance increases. 

Considering the minor price difference in getting a cable rated for the correct wattage I would go with one properly rated.