Black Friday brings the first big discount on the 1TB Samsung Pro Plus, the Steam Deck microSD card to beat

The Samsung Pro Plus is, alongside the Logitech G502 Hero, one of those hardware products that rocks up at literally every single sales event in the calendar. Just an endless cycle of microSD cards, mice, microSD cards, mice. At least it’s a good’un, though – the best Steam Deck-compatible microSD of them all, in fact. Previously, its one weakness was the lack of a truly cavernous 1TB model, but that was amended earlier this year, and now that capacity is getting its first major saving as part of Black Friday 2024.

Since this post can’t entirely be a history lesson on flash storage, let’s talk cash. Having originally pushed £100, the 1TB Pro Plus is now down to a tasty £76 in the UK, while dropping from $120 to $90 in the States. While the SanDisk Ultra 1.5TB still beats it on both size and price, the Pro Plus is significantly faster at booting and loading games, making it the one to go for if you want some easy expandable storage that comes as close as possible to the Deck’s own SSD.

UK deals:

US deals:

I suppose this raises the same question as the newly cheapo Crucial P310 SSD from earlier: when in search of new handheld PC storage, should you upgrade the SSD itself or pop in a microSD? The former does have a capacity and potential performance advantage, but really, cards like this are plenty fast, and don’t require a single second of faffing around with the Steam Deck’s tiny screws. Which I’m fairly sure are stripping, on my original 512GB LCD model. Huh, maybe I need another Pro Plus.