I just saw the ASUS handheld in the wild. It was running some FPS game pretty well.
Can anyone help me compare the two - Steam Deck OLED vs comparable ASUS version? Which do you prefer? Pros/cons?
I’m almost decided to buy the Deck OLED, but seeing that in the wild made me pause. It looks nice.
I have both, mainly got the Ally as an experiment. The Deck is absolutely the way to go. Windows is a dreadful experience in general, but especially so on a handheld. No touchpads means awful mouse control, but Windows means an OS designed around mouse control. Asus’ software feels like a big hack (because it is) haphazardly glued on top of a stock Windows desktop. Steam Big Picture works OK but the Steam menus are limited in functionality compared to using them on SteamOS and the Deck. Meanwhile, the Deck is an incredibly polished product and the SteamOS interface is controller-first. You can still go to the desktop and use it as a PC, but you won’t wind up there accidentally like you will on the Ally. The SteamOS gaming mode is built around operating with a controller and everything works well.
As for running Linux on the Ally? It is doable, but the experience is nowhere as good as the Deck. No seamless sleep and resume< issues with button mapping, limited tweaking of power limits, and more. Just get a Deck OLED and be happy.
This is a Steam Deck community, so I expect the answers will all be pro-steam deck, so keep that in mind.
I generally believe the Deck is better, but the Ally does have its strengths.
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The ally is more powerful, at the cost of battery life. Battery life is also comparatively terrible on low power games, games that last 8 hours on the deck will kill the Ally in ~2.5 hours for some reason.
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The ally, being windows based, supports some multiplayer games that won’t run on the Deck due to anti cheat. So if your main focus is a call of duty or fortnite handheld, you’ll either want the Ally or to install windows on the Deck. Here’s a list of anticheat games and whether they work on the deck or no. For any non-anticheat games, you can usually assume they’ll work.
The deck is going to be better on most everything else, from being able to suspend/resume mid game (I can’t overstate how important this is for how I use the deck), controls, user experience, battery life, compatibility with older games, warranty coverage, and more.
So if you only want to play the newest most demanding AAA games or one of the non- supported multiplayer games, you may want an Ally. But for everything else I would recommend a Deck.
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Valve actually gives a shit about its consumers, and is working hard on making its OS competitive. ASUS just dumps specs on the market and then abandons it.
There are many handhelds now, but none use Linux to my knowledge except the Steam Deck, which puts the SD ahead due to working straight with Steam.
Steamdeck is a company innovating and putting money into full time devs improving and building a community and ecosystem. This has long term value. Everyone else is trying to privateer (legal piracy) on the backs of Valve using marketing nonsense and contract manufacturing. The only full time employees involved are the warehouse staff. It is not even a choice.
No touch pads? No deal. They’re just that good.
What do you use them for? I never touch mine
You want nexus mods? You’re gonna want the touch pads. Or even some games that aren’t perfectly supported on handhelds or by controllers benefit from touch pads. They allow you to access to menus that controllers dont recognize
The on screen keyboard. Strategy games (civ and stellaris in my case). Desktop mode. Sometimes even 1st/3rd person view games when I’m not in the mood for gyro controls. Browsing (did you know you can usually “spin” your left touch pad iPod-style to scroll?). Stuff like that.
GN has a fairly thorough review and comparison of the Oled deck vs the asus ally. There’s pros and cons to each. https://youtu.be/egdV0NLoL-c?si=7ZdbYdMzG2PbJy0T
I got the Ally to play Destiny 2, and it works perfectly. I play almost daily at lunch time in my car. I love it so much. Can’t do that on a Steamdeck. Granted, the Steamdeck is a marvel, but I really needed a Windows machine.
Only FPS I have played on Steam Deck are Call of Duty World at War and Black Ops 3. Both run extremely well
Asus is a bit faster. Steam deck is cheaper.
I believe there’s going to be a new rog Ally soon too.
Steam Deck runs GNU/Linux while Asus ROG Ally does not. An instant disqualification for the latter.
I have the OG deck, 64GB self-upgraded to 512, and don’t have the Asus one. Ally wasn’t launched back then but there were quite a few Ayaneo ones.
My thought was this, I’m not sure you’re old enough to live through iPod days, but non Deck ones seems like the non iPod mp3 players. There were plenty of choices, cheaper (at least per GB). But 3-4 years down, when you simply need a battery replacement, which one do you think you can the replacement of? Or just look at accessories, cases, skins, etc.
You can get hundreds of performance comparisons all over youtube, I personally don’t think it matters as much. You’re not going to maxed out all the settings on either. They both can play recent games pretty well.
