You can now coat your Steam Deck in ceramic, but why would you?

Wild and wacky Steam Deck customizations come part and parcel with the platform, but is there such a thing as taking things too far? According to PWRUP, a company in the business of selling handheld customization products that just released a ceramic coating kit, there’s no such thing.

Full disclosure: PWRUP has been fairly honest in disclosing that its post on the biggest Steam Deck subreddit was a promotion. You can find it below, alongside an impromptu Q&A from the creator of this curious product. The most important question by far, though, is the “why” of it all. According to PWRUP, coating your Steam Deck in ceramic should make it more resistant to scratches and regular wear and tear and easier to clean. Not bad, right? There are real reviews of the product available, though, and that’s the really interesting bit.

PWRUP’s ceramic coating kit is now available, makes your devices neat and shiny

PWRUP’s aptly named “Ceramic Kit” is priced at €18,95, and there’s no secret sauce to the product. As explained in Retro Dodo’s review, this is the same type of coating used to protect modern automotive paint. It’s pretty much just an invisible protective film about two microns thin that will prevent minuscule scuffs and scratches on your device in much the same way as it would on your car. This is about as far from a must-have as it gets, I will say, though the value proposition may well be there for some.

As per Retro Dodo’s review, the application of the nano-coat is straightforward, if somewhat fiddly, and the end result is an immaculate-looking device. The reviewer does say that they’ll revisit the article with an update “in a few weeks” to discuss whether the coating is holding up, but aside from that, they appear to have been quite happy with it.

As per PWRUP, a single €18,95 ceramic kit comes with enough coating liquid to cover 5-10 devices. You also get two pairs of nitrile gloves, an applicator cloth, two microfibers, and a cleaning pad. The package just about covers the entirety of the use case, in other words, so I’ve got no doubt there will be an audience for the kit. Time will tell whether it’s a fancy gimmick or something genuinely useful for a gaming handheld.