Refurbished ones are just as good as fresh ones, and basically always "on sale" since their price is reduced.
Valve seems to be moving towards a very likely Steam Deck Refresh. Very little is known about when or how this will happen. Based on previous comments and data-mining, the refresh will have the exact same amount of gaming-power. It may, however, have a better WiFi-chip, better screen, and stuff like that. Nothing is certain and if you want a Deck soon-ish, I wouldn’t recommend waiting for this.
Got a 64GB refurb when they were in stock end of September, honestly I couldn't tell it was a refurb. It looked like new, the only thing that might have given it away was the carrying case, had a few small smudges but I got a Tomtoc anyway so it didn't matter anyway.
Given how bad the WIFI chip of the current Steam Deck is (it just doesn't like some access points and has frequent connection losses with them), waiting for an updated one might be worth it.
I would say wait for a sale, but easy for me to say since I already have my deck since over a year ago. If you’re strapped for cash or just working within a budget for the year, then yeah you can easily save at least 50 or more bucks on one. If money isn’t really an object and you got upcoming travel plans where you can capitalize on the steam deck’s mobility, then it’s worth it at current price too. I have easily spent over a grand on the steam deck from the actual unit (512 version at 650), 2tb SSD, 1tb SD card, case, dock, skins, back pad accessories, 1tb usb flash drive with usb c/usb a, etc.
So all to say, if you like tinkering/making it your own, and are trying not to blow out your budget entirely, may be worth to save. I am glad I got the anti glare screen as I’m still not up for replacing the screen myself, but if the lowest model had the same screen, would have gotten that one and just swapped the SSD.
It looks like this year they've had a 10% discount off the cheapest model. So that's ~$40 off. I think it's worth waiting the 9 days for the Halloween sale to see. If not, I'd be very surprised if it's not on sale for Autumn. I would be surprised if any of these sales have a deeper discount than any of this year's earlier sales though.
If you plan on replacing the SSD, those will probably go on sale around Black Friday. It would kind of be a pain to settle in with the Deck and get everything set up and installed how you like just to replace the SSD a month later.
I saw that blip but figured it was just some sort of weirdness in the data. It says it was sold at $319.99 but at "No Discount". So... Maybe? Seems weird that they would then put it at 10% again afterwards, but idk.
Check the second hand market. That’s how I got a 2TB one (with hub and Xbox Wireless controller) for less than what the 256GB one costs new and out of the sales period.
I haven't bought one, yet, but I think you should wait for a sale. Christmas time is usually the best time to buy electronics, so I personally plan to wait until the winter sale.