I was wondering, is there any reason why I should buy the Steam Deck abroad in France instead of in my home of Canada?

So I (Canadian) am surprising my friend (from France) with a Steam Deck in October when I go visit them. It will just be the cheaper LCD version, since they won’t care about (or notice) the difference in quality.

Aside from buying adapters for the plug, I literally can’t think of a reason why I should buy it directly in Europe as opposed to getting it in Canada. It would be a lot easier since I can have it delivered to my address, don’t need a specific day and time for it to be delivered, don’t have to deal with any issues of ordering things in a foreign country (sometimes you need to have a local address to order and have things delivered, etc)

That said, I wanted to still check and see if there’s something I’m forgetting or just outright unaware of. I know there’s specific power requirements for the Steam Deck, but mine worked just fine with an adapter when I was last there in January.

  • seaQueue@lemmy.world
    9·
    1 day ago

    Mostly just EU consumer protections and ease of warranty service. If you buy in the EU you should get the standard 2y consumer electronics warranty but only 1y in NA. Verifiy that you can actually get a deck in france, apparently availability is spotty. Typically warranties are handled where you bought the item too, so if you ever need to make a warranty claim you might have to send the deck to Canada if you buy it before you leave.

    • squaresinger@lemmy.world
      2·
      6 hours ago

      Also, warranty is usually region-locked, even if the device is not.

      Buying a steam deck in Canada usually gives you warranty in Canada. So of you then use the device in France and it breaks, then you have to first ship it to some friend in Canada, so they can do a warranty claim.