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As someone that uses their Steam Deck as a backlog killer for games that released from 2018 and back. I've been happy with the decks performance. So much so, I picked up a Oled version because It fixes my 2 main issues with it. Battery life and screen quality. Steam OS has only gotten better due to constant updates and support.. which I haven't seen on any other PC handheld.
That’s what I do with my laptop, it’s a low spec ryzen5 2500u and a 1050, I use that for pretty much any game from roughly 2016 and prior, I use a series x for newer stuff, I wish it was the other way around lol, don’t have 2 grand for a desktop so the series x is ok for now.
but vrr and freesync on ally is the goat for low tdp, literally 40fps in ally is smoother than 55fps on deck, the dips is especially noticeable on deck
Got my OLED Deck a few days ago. Still crazy playing a game at 90FPS/Hz at max brightness on this beautiful screen, getting down to 60% or so battery, going to check my remaining battery time and it's like 4-6 hours depending on the game. As I don't get these machines for AAA games (even if they could run them flawlessly) I mostly use them for emulators and to catch up on my large indie/smaller game collection. Like recently, Knuckle Sandwich, Death Must Die, You Will Die Here Tonight, Star Ocean Second Story R, Signalis, Lunacid, etc. That kind of game. It runs all of those beautifully and the battery lasts an absurd amount of time. Reminds me of when the GBA SP was new and you could get 10 hours of battery before it would die. Hell, I even pop into some MMOs like FF11 or FF14, or really old stuff like PSO Blue Burst, which at max brightness was reporting 9+ hours of battery life. Nuts. But more than any of that, I'm glad this market finally exists and that it has real competition. For a long time there, there was nothing at all, then we had the Win GPD and similar devices, and I think one of the early Aya Neos, but those always felt like extremely compromised devices, novelties at best. I actually use my Deck all the time and its versatility is wonderful. I can't wait for native dualboot support, because I wouldn't mind running Windows on it. Again, since I don't run anything very heavy, I wouldn't be missing much in terms of power lost vs the Ally. I hope this market continues to thrive and these manufacturers continue to push each other and we can look back at the big discrepancies between devices/build quality/features of right now and laugh at them being early growing pains as we get more capable, functional and smartly built handhelds.
@@kr1me2000 the battery life is like double, the touchpads and buttons are better, the screen is 90hz instead of 60hz, the speakers are better, the wifi and Bluetooth are better, and you're telling me you didn't notice a difference I think I'm smelling Cap right now I'm not sure you actually bought the OLED
I prefer the Deck simply because of battery life. Yes, the Ally performs a good bit better but what's the point of a handheld if you can only play it for like an hour and a half at the higher power-draw settings? The other power draw presets do increase battery life significantly but at that point you'll be getting similar performance to the Deck while still getting not as good battery life, especially compared to the OLED model. The only time I use my Ally instead of my Deck is if I'm at home sitting by the charger and at that point I'm not actually taking advantage of the portable nature of the device. And that's not even mentioning how much more intuitive SteamOS is compared to Windows and Armory Crate, at least in my opinion, along with other improvements like the trackpads. That said, I like both and they have their use cases, but I would choose the Deck in a heartbeat simply because I can actually use it as a handheld device far more.
1 hour, 3 hours, these are PC handhelds. Until they can get them to 4 to 6 hrs of battery life, it's going to be a plug and play for a while. And just because a screen is OLED is a weak reason to want a system. I wouldn't want to be limited to what I can play, or just to Steam's launcher when they don't have a lot of games like Fortnite, Dead Island 2, Alan Wake 2, Rocket League to name a few. But to each their own, I'm rolling with the ROG Ally. Portrait mode screens are going to limit your gaming experience. Period
@@MARR3N No duh d*psh*t. Did I say it was going to get 12 hrs on a modern game? No I didn't. On a demanding game the old deck and ally get about 1.5 -2hrs at 15 watts on newer demanding titles. The new OLED model gets about 2.5-3 hours which is substantially better. As evidenced by digital foundry's testing video. I love how when you people try and defend the legion go and ally you just make sh*t up that people don't say.
I've had the OG Deck, Ally and now the Deck OLED. The OLED may be lacking some power but good lord that screen is excellent. It's also much nicer to hold (lighter) and battery life is stellar. I would say the OLED deck is the better handheld but the Ally does have that turbo boost provided you're plugged in. I'll take the OLED but hey isn't it really nice to have a choice?
See that’s what I needed to hear I have a c2 and I don’t think I can go back to LCD and the ally seems awesome but how’s the battery life on it been a while since I watched the reviews
@@matthewmontgomery7764while you will get a nicer saturation of colors and deepest blacks. If you dont plan on doing alot of HDR gaming. The Oled is a little hyped. Not to say it isn't great. But compared to the Ally or Go its not a huge jump
@@matthewmontgomery7764 I have a C1 and an Ally, it has good black levels. It's not like a cheap IPS panel or anything. All my other devices are OLED or miniLED, and the Ally holds its own.
The steam OS is an incredible package , ease of use and interface is exactly what you need to appeal to a wide audience and get first timers in. Then the layers of customisability from there is great. Also think steam will at least continue to support their device. I think a year from now Asus will have totally lost interest/treat it like their laptops.
Great to have competition in this segment. I'm sure the existence of the Ally and other competing handhelds is partially why we get OLED on the mid-spec deck. When Switch 2 comes the $400 LCD will probably get upgraded to OLED.
I loved my Ally! It was beautiful, ran games like a beast, and had arguably one of the BEST LCD panels in its class. Unfortunately for me the battery and SD card issue was the reason I returned my unit and bought a steam deck OLED. I work as an aerospace mechanic, and often times may not have access to power due to remote locations.
I own both deck and ally, have the oled coming tomorrow. I totally agree with you. I love playing on the ally, in bed, right next to a wall plug. 😂 The deck oleds improved battery life makes it a preferred handheld especially when I travel. Also, valves support for the deck is second to none. Asus treats the ally pretty much like yesterdays news.
Just got my OLED Deck in and I'm super happy with it. The screen size increase is so much nicer for everything especially using the desktop and of course the colors and black levels are top notch. I'm surprised how noticeable the weight difference is. The thumb grip on the sticks is vastly better, which was a big negative for me previous. All the buttons feel a bit nicer and easier to press in. I'm also super happy to finally have 512GB instead of just 64GB. I still have my 1TB SD card that didn't even need to be formatted, it just works.
Hol up so I can get 1TB out of the box and throw in SD cards for more space? I'm gonna hold multiple SD cards. But still the download times are impressive. It can load a 50 GB game while I shower.
Just returned my legion go, you guys put it in perspective for me, I can use my gaming laptop when I’m on a vacation but for flights or just relaxing the steam deck is going to be the right choice, going to order the oled version, thanks
I just ordered a asus ROG ally. The steamdeck I’ve heard is hard to use if you want to do anything besides play games plus with the zen4, RDNA3 and VRR it really seems like the better deal. Another big reason I went with the ally is because of the processor which is much better than the one in the steamdeck. It’s over twice as powerful single thread and has twice the cores. So I think that will play a part in how long this handheld holds up. We shall see. I thought about getting a laptop. Best Buy has two on sale right now that are within $200 of the ally but the reason I didn’t is because with a laptop I have to sit up to play it and I already have a gaming PC that’s more powerful than any laptop you can buy so I figured if I am going to get something else it will be a handheld. Plus the z1 extreme processor is more power than the cheap laptop CPUs.
I think it’s more a limitation of the screen hardware like the way the oled display is made or orientated that dosent allow it Linus was saying it’s extremely similar to the switch oled display so that might be a limitation hopefully they sell enough of these that for the next one there like okay we have the customer base for it more bispoke parts
Indeed, having VRR would've made the Steam Deck OLED a must buy for me, but as it is now, with the price being almost on par with the ROG Ally, i'm very torn what to go for.
@@matthewmontgomery7764 It's because of the interface. The MIPI interface on the screen they went with doesn't support VRR. I think this is another reason Linus suspects that this is basically the same display as on the OLED Switch.
They didn't ignore it, it just wasn't possible with the available hardware for the given price range or something like that, and they had to choose between VRR and OLED, so they, rightfully, favored OLED.
I prefer the steam deck, and am looking forward to the OLED, but its awesome we have so many options for handheld gaming now, when before it was pretty much just the switch
VRR, going over 15watts, being able to play any game ever released for Windows, performance is a step above the deck, and it can make a huge difference in some games, Game Pass is game changer! Plus its smaller than the Deck! Ally all the way!!! Big ups to Asus for putting in the work with support as well (still not as good as Valve but not far off)Sold my Deck and never looked back.
Its 100x better than when it first launched. At first many issues waking, but no more, it sleeps and wakes without issue. First bios would have issues waking and also battery would die. Thats no longer an issue.@@jcarreno94
The only real issue right now is the SD card slot, many still have issues with it killing cards. I ended up just swapping the internal drive for a 2TB.@@jcarreno94
@@jcarreno94 It's terrible, I've had numerous crashes when leaving it sleeping too long. The best thing I found is putting windows in hibernation mode, but then your game clock keeps running. Apparently I played 150 hours of Star Ocean last week...
I have all 3 even though I love how the Steam Deck feels holding it all my favorite games that are not that even demanding run like crap on the Steam Deck. LegionGo has a big screen which is huge for me bc I have shit eyesight. But, I reach out for my Rog Ally everytime I'm sent outta town with my job. It has its issues for sure but, it runs all my games solid when I get dips I barely feel it bc the VRR kicks in and, the sound stage on those front-facing speakers is the best in any handheld so far.
I have to be honest I've had my 512gb Steam Deck for about 1 year and I love it. I would say 80% of my favorite steam/emulated games ran well on it. But not being able to properly play games like Call of Duty, Fortnite, Destiny, Minecraft, rainbow six siege, and many other games kinda sucks. Also emulating PS3/XBOX 360 games isn't the best experience on the steam deck because it's not powerful enough to handle most titles. But I purchased an ROG Ally and all of those problems went away. I was able to play 100% of all of my favorite Steam/emulated games with no problems even PS3 and 360 games run way better because the ROG Ally is a lot more powerful than the Steam Deck.
I feel exactly the same way. The Ally alleviated so many of those issues that I had with the deck. Something that also bothered me was having to run a lot of games I play in 16:9 on it's 16:10 screen, and having the letterboxing issues, especially since my deck had bad screen uniformity issues with it's backlight bleed. And nothing could fix that. The Allys 16:9 screen took that all away. But the OLED Deck would also fix that, but then the Ally just being so much better with emulation performance and just being able to push some 3D indie games to higher frame rates.. it just won me over.
18 watts might be the sweet spot but you gotta make the benchmark fair. 15 watts vs 15 watts. Not to mention overall tdp consumption should also be taken into account for this. 15 watts on the ally can net around 60-80 ish minutes. While the deck oled is at minimum 2 hours 20 minutes or 30 minutes. That is where most people are gonna look at when they decide on what they wanna buy
@@dio8070 agree..... Again with so much cpu power turning off cpu boost really helps at limited tdps on the ally. So think of it this way the Rog Ally has 2x as many cores clocked at substantially higher frequencies. The GPU will run at much higher clock speeds at any given wattage with CPU boost off. Not so much different than tweaking the deck per game. If they repeated this test at similar wattages with that one simple setting change it would net much better performance for the ally. Once that setting is changed you would be surprised that you could then set the custom tdp to 12-13 watts and have similar performance to steam deck at 15 watts. At that point yes the steak deck OLED would have a larger battery and still have an advantage. In my personal case though my kids have Xbox game pass so the cost savings for me ( I've bought two out of the more than a dozen games that I currently have on the ally. Not so easy to do on the deck. If I was a PC gamer only then I would think differently. I've played and finished $200.00 in games already and I'm playing starfield and another $200 in games I have spent $0 on where I would have had to buy them on steam ...... Dang My son has the steam deck lcd and it is a fine piece of kit but he's 11 and his game choices are not mine lol. I exclusively play the ally as I rarely have time to sit at a desktop to play a game. I fly quite a bit for my profession and the Ally has been great for me.
While that is true, the amount of performance you get for 3 watts more on the ally is surprising. It would have been great to have 18 and 30 watts as comparison points.@@dio8070
I love the competition finally happening in this relatively new space! I just feel like it's a preference choice at the end of the day. If you prefer linux or want a cheaper entry with a screen that pops, get the Steam Deck OLED. If you want windows or a VRR screen for the type of games you play, get the ROG ALLY. I love my ALLY, but at the end of the day it's just a situation of what's more important to you
I can’t recommend the rog ally to anyone. It has had so many issues for me that an eventual fresh install of windows had to be performed to fix most of the problems I encountered. The deck just works much more seamless out the gate. If you want a reliable experience, just buy the deck.
give the Ally a 100W power supply and if you’re ever just playing in bed on a charger my god, the Ally can hit up to 45-50W and the performance is just alien… I love the Deck but the Ally running those frame rates in my hands actually gave me that feeling of “oh my god this is what’s possible”
Steam Deck control mapping is 10 levels ahead of anything you can do on a Windows handheld. Good luck playing any "piano" games on an Ally. By that I mean so many keys it may as well be a piano.
I think raw gaming performance is the only metric where the Ally can pull ahead of the deck. Every other aspect and I actually think other handheld devices on the market are just here to showcase how much more thought and design process was put into the Steam Deck. None of these devices are powerful enough to provide a good experience in the latest of games, they just aren't designed to get you there for this price range. If you are sucker for using Windows with a touch screen, well..
Raw gaming performance, screen, dock ability, form factor, controller, being able to play not just steam games are all better on the Ally. (Screen was better than deck lcd, but even with the deck oled, the Ally screen is still really good in comparison)
@@fresco_dinero5155 I think these are all highly subjective, except for the only plays steam game part, which is simply not true. With both devices you get a full fledged operating system you can do anything with, only a selected few multiplayer titles are not working, where the developer refuses to support Linux on purpose.
@@H4GRlD no there’s whole swaths of games not compatible with Steam os, LINUX and proton. There’s applications that just straight out don’t work. What’s the point of having a gaming handheld pc that can only use 1/4 of the available launchers and games out
@@fresco_dinero5155 While I still think you are way off with your ratios for the supported / unsupported titles, many people are more than happy with playing their "older" games, or ones with simpler graphics on a device like this while on the go or even at home on the couch. And when I say older I mean games released maybe before the last 1-2 years. Most of these new shiny AAA games are for eye candy, a large chunk of gamers are playing with 5-10 years old stuff. On the other hand I had no issue playing Diablo 4, Baldurs Gate 3, Elden Ring, the list goes on. The experience was far from perfect, but this is related to performance bottlenecks not compatibility. I have a gaming rig with an RTX 3090, so for these kinds of titles I prefer using the PC and if I really want to play it on the deck I just stream the game, since these are mostly single player ones. The only game I would play occasionally and I cannot do it is Fortnite STW, Epic just s**** unfortunately. 😔 We have Heroic Launcher and a bunch of community driven alternatives that support the zillion of custom crappy launcher software from Windows on the deck to circumvent these annoyances. If you are curious about compatibility just check proton db.
Just depends on what you want to do with it. The ally is awesome because of flexibility and compatibility out of the box. Whilst windows sucks at this form factor, it does have its advantages namely the ability to play games from any launcher out of the box, the ability to add mods with no issues and transfers games without having to download them again. Additionally after the initial set up, you don’t really need to do anything with windows and can just go straight to armour crate and launch what you want easily. If you don’t care too much for the other launchers, want a more streamlined experience and are happy with what’s on your steam library then go for the steam deck can’t really go wrong with either.
Honestly, I never really saw what was so difficult about the initial setup on the rog ally. The touch screen and screen keyboard worked fine enough to complete the process. I really only hated how long windows updates take, that was the longest process during my experience
With AW2 I got to see that unified 16 GB RAM is not a good option for windows machines. It should've been atleast 24 GB. That's where Steam Deck has a massive advantage. Next gen demanding titles, once optimized for Steam Deck, will run better in such cases. In Windows, the resources are always split, while Valve has command over the entire pool.
Ultimately, the only real question is what games will the buyer be playing on the device? If they plan on playing games that have anti-cheat software, then the deck is just not an option at all. If they don’t play those big major release games, then that’s when choosing between the two as an option.
I have the og steam deck and wished I could play eafc on it. I see people talk about dual booting windows on their deck and trying it out but it ends up running poorly or having to jump through a bunch of hoops to just get it to launch
Doesnt run poorly, only issue I had was an inaccurate brightness slider caused from a recent SteamOS update, so its assumingly going to be fixed soon. Try installing it on your deck instead of relying on the opinion of others, took me 10 mins but only because my steam deck was brand new so making a new partition to install windows on was really fast @@vincentchandara6438
And by "inaccurate brightness slider" i mean the brightness doesnt match the slider it goes up or down at slow speed instead of instantly so you have to "jiggle" the slider at the highest brightness and wait a few seconds for it to catch up. Weird bug but it doesnt prevent you from doing anything
I went with Rog Ally. Got it in a Amazon’s promotion for € 590 euros to get handheld who can be improved with an external GPU but if it was at the normal price I would get Steam Deck Oled.
1. If steam deck is sold in your country: get the Steam Deck OLED 2. If the games that you want to play are not compatible with steamOS: Get the ROG Ally. 3. If steam deck is not sold in your country: get the ROG Ally. I've seen several SD owners have problems trying to service their SD but very few places offer repair. If they wish to fix some things themselves they have to import parts with big shipping fees. My opinion: wait for the ROG Ally refresh which will fix most of its flaws and issues, like the SD Oled fixed its flaws.
@@kylerclarke2689why not add that the car that can go 90km/h has to go that max speed to be faster than the car that can go 50km/h and the that the car that goes 90km/h needs gas ever 50 fifty minutes if it goes it’s max speed 😄
One huge benefit of the Ally over the deck is just that 16:9 aspect ratio. Always been one of my biggest issues because I plug it into a TV a lot and very often need to go into the settings to change the aspect ratio because it changes by itself a lot of the time but not all of the time especially with certain games. It would be SO nice if the deck was just 16:9 for seemless docking
I personally prefer the extra screen space of 16:10. It’s noticeable. You can always just force it to be 16:9 in the settings and leave it that way permanently I’m pretty sure. I’m like 70% sure you can do that in the settings of the steam deck somewhere, but I’m not totally sure, but if you can, that would solve your problem.
@joker6558 yeah but then you can't take advantage of the full size of the 7 inch screen. Ally has a 7 inch screen that is 16:9 so it's not smaller at all its just a much better ratio for easy docking
Despite battery concerns I need the 60fps more than anything else so I think I’d go with the rog. Idk though the steam deck has a bit of beef to it, but still the rog just does it a bit better, albeit for like an hour and a half tops lol.
@@dio807018w is definitely the sweet spot though for demanding games when unplugged. Actually I find myself using 25w when plugged in as it gives a nice performance boost without the high temps.
Everything i wanna buy, I watch first the reviews of the DF guys. Most of those other youtubers are leaning more to the product wich they like. The DF guy's are real and honest.. so keep up the good work 👏.
I think one of the most important factors people are forgetting is the price man! And battery life. If you already have a beast of a pc at home(or even a decent pc) then I don’t see a reason to drop a 800$ on the ally tbh
You're probably thinking about the Legion Go? The Ally did cost 699$ before, but is now available for around 600 - 620$ depending on where you look it up. I have a good gaming pc at home, but the Ally and the Deck are still worth buying. They are great to for couch gaming while spending some time with your s.o. as well. That way you don't need to hide yourself away in another room with your pc.
@@makenshi2k that’s exactly why I’m getting one haha. Nomore look of shame from the wife while I game after work. I didn’t know it was that cheap though. I guess I got it mixed up with the go.
Yeah but lugging my desktop into my van and bringing into the hotel is a chore. The Ally is quite a bit smaller and lighter than the Steam Deck so it is ultra portable, got me through the boredom of working away and being alone in the hotel room after work. I managed to complete the excellent Cocoon this week, the game looks stunning on the Ally's screen.
I dont know how people play games without vrr in 2023. Its like when we were arguing against 60hz lcd panels in like 2005. And it took most people until like 2018-2020 to figure out 120hz+… steamdeck players are still like “40hz is fine”… like no its not… it fucking sucks
The battery life on the Steam Deck Oled really makes it unbeatable. If you want super high performance on the go, a good laptop is the move. In a mobile form factor, the Steam Deck wins all around.
@@alumlovescakethey mentioned the OLED model specifically. I currently have an LCD steam deck and the new OLED model on my thanksgiving trip (OLED arrived while I was loading up the car and needed to swap ssds). The OLED has SIGNIFICANTLY better battery life. It smokes any other handheld PC and it isn’t even close.
@@alumlovescake The thing lasts like 6+ hours with your average game. What in the fuck are you doing where you are playing video games more than 6 hours a day without coming home at all? I could fly across the US and spend nearly the whole flight on it.
Most gaming laptops offer the same battery life as the ROG Ally, but they are heavier and require a desk for most gaming scenarios. Its just not a real alternative.
Well, no, because most games that have anti-cheat can’t run on Linux. So most online multiplayer games, MMO’s, Gamepass games, etc. can’t run on the SD. Also if you use mods for single player games it’s a nightmare trying to get them to work on steam deck because they don’t play well with Linux Source: (own both devices for different use cases)
Got a steam deck OLED and a Lenovo Legion Go. Both superb. I use the Legion Go for gamepass titles and the steam deck OLED for emulation and everything else. I had a Rogue Ally but it had so many hardware issues I returned it. Apparently DF don’t think the Legion Go exists.
Mine moved from packaged to shipped 3 days ago now and im still waiting, hopefully it arrives tomorrow. Im in the UK though and they're shipped from Netherlands, probably why its taking a while.
Being months late and thinking a lot about this purchase I ended up going with the Steam Deck OLED. For me it came down to the low voltage performance and great battery life (considering what the Deck is doing). Once I get my hands on it I have a feeling I’m going to love the Steam ecosystem with the community store. I’m thinking the community store is an unsung mvp of the Steam OS ecosystem.
I chose both! If could only have one device though, probably the Ally since great mini gaming portable PC that is also portable and play PS3 and AAA titles better than the Deck. If mainly want a handheld though, the OLED Deck. Battery life and handheld experience is WAY better on the OLED Deck.
I think the most difficult part of trying to compare these two is that one of them will play Steam and the other one will do Steam and Xbox game pass . I have a sneaky suspicion the interface is probably nicer on the steam deck but I have Game Pass ultimate so I couldn't pass on having access to that at the end of the day I'm sure they're both excellent devices and we're all just happy to play
You can easily add Xbox Cloud gaming and it surprisingly works really well. I’ve owned and played both but if that’s your main concern you aren’t out of luck. The other benefit with cloud is you get crazy good battery life.
Having different devices, I have to say if you can go with a smaller laptop or small form factor PC for the more intense titles and OLED Deck for portability and indie games, that’s the better combo. It really depends on your use case but to me handhelds should be about portability and battery life while a laptop, or custom PC will is about performance and will last much longer down the line. The ROG is a sweet little machine but it’s also going to struggle in a year and be replaced and with a laptop or custom PC you’re set for a little longer.
i think lasting longer down the line wont be much of an issue, the optimization of games right now is horrendous and i can only imagine they will get better over time so less demanding hardware for better looking games, i mean COD for an example, its like 100GB for 6 multiplayer maps and 15 guns its truly awful, if a deck can run elden ring at 40-50fps i dont think it will be made redundant anytime soon, however more power is always better.
i am buying the rog ally because all my games are on windows only most off my games need launchers of there own i am good on the steam deck . and i play on game pass games too
I have the ROG ally and recently ordered a steam deck OLED. Really both have its pros and cons, what I can really say is that it depends on your needs. If the games you like to play are from Epic, EA etc then get the ROG ally as it just windows, if not get the steam deck.
Saying the ROG Ally has better performance than the steam deck is like saying a 100 m runner has better performance than a 10 k runner. Personally, I think for a handheld device 25 w tdp is a bit irrelevant since it has very limited practical uses. You can play at that tdp only if you are plugged in or if you wanna drain your battery in less than 2 hours.
I've got a Rog Ally on my wish list. It comes down to preferences, for me it will mostly be a chill lay back on the couch or in bed, more awkward with a laptop, but would be plugged in so battery doesn't become an issue. I would go Steam Deck if I would be utilising the battery more, and for the sweet OLED, but as a plugged in couch sitter, I think the Rog Ally would pull ahead from better performance in turbo mode. That an VRR on the lower power device would ultimately give a smoother experience as well. I'd take less quality in display that has any drops within VRR smoothed out at 40-60 fps, then forcing a cap at 30fps with a nice OLED display.
@BigWisper haha that and valve seem to be allergic to bringing their products to Australia. I could do it but it's just a pain where I could just walk in a store and buy an Ally. But I'd still do ally anyway for my use case haha so no loss.
There is a right angle SSD adapter that allows the use of 2280 NVME drives. You can buy a 2tb drive and the adapter for less than $99. Who needs AN SD card reader at that point?
That's right, some people keep on saying that it plays cyberpunk and alan wake while the experience is garbage because you're sacrificing too much fidelity. I play on a desktop 4090, and i hardly appreciate the state of handheld pc at the moment, too much compromise on quality for portability
After years of PC gaming on a laptop, I bought a PS5 and started to play on my 32" TV in 1080p. I agree that there are some games that demands a large screen, and playing them on a small desplay, even if it is a 4K OLED one, makes them no justice. But the more and more I watch these kind of comparisons, console gamers bend towards the Steam Deck, while PC gamers who already suffers from Windows are going for the Ally. And even though I am/was a PC gamer, I like the Deck more. Hope to get one in 2024.
Depending on what you are playing. Ally have Console style input only, where Deck have trackpads that makes more PC games work much like on PC, so for me it is switched perspective. It is the only* portable device for strategy/tycoon/sim style games. (Legion Go seems both better and worse in that regard)
@@damianabregba7476 And FPS games. They are fucking awful on thumbsticks. Trackpads actually make playing without a KBM bearable for anyone not ignorance to much much better it is.
Steam deck appeals more to console gamers that want everything working out of box, ally is more for regular pc users that dont mind having to tweak a couple things in order to get something working or to get better performance. Theyre both amazing machines its all preference just choose what fits your needs every one is different. Cheers to handheld PC gaming 🍻
I fail to see any advantages the Ally has. Whilst having huge disadvantages It doesn't have the 4 back buttons, it doesn't have the fantastic steam controller customization, the right thumbstick is on the wrong spot. AND the touch pads in mouse mode destroy anything the thumbsticks can do on any controller every made. It actually make FPS games bearable on a gamepad. And that's just a comparison of the controls alone.
@@Wylie288 that's great. You're entitled to your own opinion 👍🏻 ally has controller customization and can take full advantage of steam input and custimazation also how is the stick on the wrong spot? Does that mean all Xbox controllers are incorrectly made? Also many people can care less for those back buttons I personally never use them. We all have our own preferences
I'll stick with my regular Steam Deck, plays great, and have had 0 issues with it. No need for these pushy (tiny) upgrades. I also have a Gaming Desktop (I rarely play), a gaming laptop I never use for games, an old 360, Xbox Series X, and PS5. So yeah I think I have too much tech as it is!! lol
It is quite interesting that the steam deck can at time out performe the ally... this must be that each component of the z1 apu is more power hungry and thereby some part,(probably gpu) is power starved. How is the performance difference if cpu boosting is turned of which has been (nativly) added to armory crate?
deck oled is my fav. i stream AAAs at home from my pc (so power is no problem), has quick resume, and the built-in steam controller 2.0 is godly -- ally is a behemoth on the go, sound quality is insane, (bring charger) -- legion go; amazing screen and power, has joycons, mouse, and scroll wheel. all devices are great in their own ways.
Got my oled steam deck. Coming from a switch massive upgrade with graphics and variety of games I can play. Only thing is the battery life really suffers unless you're willing to throttle the deck. Its just about passable for a proper portable in that regard but only just. I imagine the more powerful handhelds are going to be pretty impractical when it comes to portability and battery life.
Steam Deck OLED Limited and Lenovo Legion Go for me. ASUS lost my respect with how they handled the SD card fiasco as well as the whole AM5 CPU damaging motherboards.
the console like experience and UI of steamos, but the freedom of a PC, the plugins, community support with layouts, trackpads, battery life being servicable on lower end games/emulation, sd cards not being eaten, linux, and having better 1%lows and frametimes than the ROG ally makes it the best PC handheld for me.
Asus did a dirty. The RZ1 and RZ1 extreme. I was mistakenly given a RZ1 as gift. It can't be returned. The difference in price compares to the performance is ridiculous making the Extreme a no brainer. Unfortunately Asus weren't clear in this and most content creators don't mention the two versions. Ergo my predicament.
Now having both, I’d have to say the Ally. The performance improvements its received since launch in software and firmware updates cannot be understated. I might feel different if the Oled Windows drivers were ready and I could Pepsi challenge Destiny, but they’re not. So if I had to call it now, between a $550 Oled SD and the Ally on sale for $619, I’d go with the Ally hands down.
The difference between the deck and ally at 15 watts is marginal while the performance difference at 25w is literally transformative nearly doubling the frame rate.
Do you think parking the Rog Ally cores to 4 cores 8 thread and clocked to 3.5/4Ghz like the SD will allow it to allocate more watt to the GPU and peform better at 15w?
The opposite should be true. At very small amounts of power having fewer cores is better, as fewer cores with a proper amount of power will perform better than more cores that are starving for power. The APU with more, starving cores would likely take away power from the GPU to then give that power to the CPU so the cores aren't starving. I believe I remember seeing some power tests that showed just that; at very low watts the Deck was giving its graphics processing more power than the Ally was at the same wattage. That's also a good portion of the reason why the Steam Deck can go as low as 3 watts whereas the Ally bottoms out at about 9.
So I want a handheld that replaces my switch because Nintendo is just not my store for games. I’d tend to mir Indy like games but wouldt rule out aaa titles. But I’d like to have the Konsole more like a livingroom Konsole but at the same time take it for trips. Would the steam deck meet my docking expectations?
As an Ally and Deck(LCD) owner myself, if you can only get 1, then just go for the steam deck oled right now. That said though, don't write off the ally(or other windows handhelds). I think it's a great supplemental machine to use alongside the deck. There are some games that won't run on deck or are a pain to set up due to separate launchers or workarounds you have to do to get a game running. If you can afford both, you will find a reason to own both. I have all my indie games on my deck and all my AAA harder to run games on my ally.
No way, I can only do a full OLED ecosystem. OLED legion laptop with 4090, steam deck OLED, OLED LG TV, Switch OLED, and desktop 4090 with OLED monitor lol this is the way if you can afford it
The lack of sleep/wake is a total non-starter for me with these windows machines. I need to be able to stop my session in seconds at any time. Steam Deck wins.
i have both SD lcd and Ally. I play them almost everyday, for different kinds of games of course. I feel the experience are very similar overall. SD is slightly better in the UI side but huge pain when something is not working, like mods and all that. Ally on the other hand, is just as smooth as my windows pc laptop, so really not much complain here in terms of how to run my games and apps because i'm quit used to windows to behonest. Performace is better on the Ally obviously as it has new chip and vrr, there is no comparsion in that. SD is ok for most games i play, but I do perfer playing them on the Ally when I'm at home.
I love all my portables (ROG Ally, OG Steam Deck, and Switch). But I definitely love the Ally the most. It's smaller and lighter than the Steam Deck. I'm surprised you didn't test with the power supply connected because that's the high performance mode where it's 30W. I don't plan on getting the OLED model for the Steam Deck as I'm perfectly fine with the OG model.
Given that you're testing handhelds it makes sense to test them on battery. The reason I chose to upgrade to the Steam Deck OLED over getting an Ally was the battery life. Extra performance @ 25W doesn't mean anything if getting it pushes your battery life under an hour. I don't want to be chained to an outlet or battery bank...it's not smaller or lighter then.
@@onlysublime Maybe so, but I care about handheld performance. If I have to be plugged in I have a much more powerful desktop to use if I'm stuck in one place.
@@onlysublime Handheld performance...you can't ignore the impact on battery or you may as well be testing a desktop. We'll have to agree to disagree on this one. Like I said, if the device is plugged in there are much better performing choices than a compromised handheld.
I haven't seen the whole video yet, but ultimately, I think that there's only one answer to whether you should get the Ally or the Deck, and the right answer is different from person to person. That answer is whichever platform has the features you care about the most. I initially wanted the Deck but when I heard about the Ally, I opted for that (I have the Z1 Extreme variant) because I wanted something more powerful and the Ally seemed more futureproofed with the Z1 Extreme in comparison to the Deck. But the Deck also had some features that I wish the Ally had, which was a dedicated trackpad that can simulate mouse input because, while I enjoy playing most games on my Ally, my experience playing point and click games on it was clumsy and awkward.
I think this way of comparing them is wrong, ally APU at 15w draws waaay more than the deck APU at 15w, and the real difference comes with 11W, which is the sweet spot for the SD.
I'm still very torn about getting a Deck. I actually want to use it for less intense games, pixel art and as a regular desktop pc. Its relatively cheap and flexible, which is why I would buy it... but right now I'm still unsure if its worth it, since my budget is like 700-800 Euros. For more performance-hungry games I'm going to use my Ps5 anyway.
I don't get all the steamdeck defenders. I would much rather have the machine that can actually play all my games, with VRR and at a better performance. Of course that means the battery won't last as long but that's why you plug it in or get a battery pack. There is one piece of hardware that is demonstrably better than the other. To pick the steamdeck you have to twist yourself into pretzels to try and justify your choice. But people still do. If the intention is playing games why would anyone get the worse performing steam deck? Just makes you look like a cultist fan boys instead of objective reviewers.
Wow turbo mode blows it out of the park and as a streamer sells it for me. Can I set the ROG Ally to change modes automatically based on docked or not? And then on a per game basis?
The versatility of the ROG Ally wins it for me. I have Xbox Game Pass, and it works well with the Ally. The Steamdeck can do it too, but you have to jump so many hoops and ladders in order for it to work, and even then, it doesnt work flawlessly.
I doubt that the Ally will sell well to be honest. The Deck is a very niche product already, but the Asus handheld is even less appealing for the masses. In the end most people will take the Switch for mobile gaming anyway, since power isn't that important for handheld gaming.
Installing emulators on the Deck is just as simple as Windows: download a link to your desktop and double click it. Emulators install with minimal input from user, just like your exes. Also, Windows only updates itself, everything else must be updated individually. On Deck, either Steam or the OS does all that for you. Once you learn the power of the CLI, installing via the terminal is easiest & can be automated, unlike with Windows.
Rog Ally for me. Windows functionality and easy docking compared to a laptop. In laptop I have to connect 3 cables at least compared to a single one with ally.
I have both. Some games don't play well or at all on the Deck. Yes it has extra battery life and a friendlier OS, but what's the point if one of your favorite games isn't playable.
Really struggling to decide between the 2 here - I have a huge Xbox and PlayStation backlog so don’t want to have to repurchase these games… with the ally the tinkering and battery life are a big concern as I imagine I will be mainly playing on the way to and from work (train journey). With the steam deck I know there are apps which you can you to stream from your home console but would this work if not on the same network and could the steam deck handle them? Would the benefit of being able to download these games to the ally mean an improvement in performance to the steam deck where I guess I would have to rely on cloud streaming or re purchase again. And would the ally battery last long enough to enjoy this benefit?!
