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.
Steam Deck runs GNU/Linux while Asus ROG Ally does not. An instant disqualification for the latter.
The deck is probably going to get more support for longer even though it’s slightly weaker. Even after valve stops supporting it down the road there are already a bunch of Linux distros for the deck
Given the Steam Link still gets updates, I wouldn’t worry about the Deck for at least a console generation’s lifetime
Hopefully longer
Both play games. If you want to play games, get one. They both do it
No touch pads? No deal. They’re just that good.
What do you use them for? I never touch mine
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.
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
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.
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
Only FPS I have played on Steam Deck are Call of Duty World at War and Black Ops 3. Both run extremely well
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.
I presume ally is better for someone who can’t stand much outside of windows and doesn’t mind using it at home most of the time.
I dont think the Ally is better in any regard, raw performance doesn’t really matter when playing on such small screens and isnt worth the tradeoff of other features.
I’d say if you’re going to keep it as a primary windows PC docked at home, but with the added gimmick of it being a handheld, ally isn’t that bad of an option. I just think Deck is way more interesting as a grownup toy and much more bang for its buck.
It’s not really about the OS, it’s about the integration. Sure if you wanna do advanced stuff outside of the integration, then it’s OS, but someone who can’t stand anything but windows is only going to want an integrated experience
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 the steamdeck using marketing targeting imbeciles. Hardware specs and marketing are for idiots. These companies operate by paying a series of highly skilled contractors to quickly create the needed hardware design and checklist of software. Each group works for a short time, finishes the checklist, gets paid and never works on the product again. This is all orchestrated by venture capital. The only goal is return on investment and whatever nonsense you need to hear to make a dumb decision without returning the product quickly enough. The steamdeck is a bunch of slightly less skilled devs with a stable job working full time to make your experience better. Long term, the steamdeck has value. Second hand, only a moron will buy the other hardware, the real world reviews will be terrible, and the thing will fail to work all together within 1-2 years because no one will maintain the kernel for the device and it will be a worthless orphan kernel that the community can never support. This isn’t even a contest. The choice is obvious.
Ally has better specs, support for games which are easier to mod (because windows). It has no touch pads, worse battery life, and windows isn’t great for handheld. Might be good for an alternative windows “laptop” you can also game well with.
Deck has a really good community, is repairable, has touch pads, Steam OS desktop is built for mobile and insanely customizable thanks to Linux (I made mine behave Mac-like). Better battery. Not all games are guaranteed supported (many publishers ignore Linux, so the community or Steam itself usually puts the work in), some require tinkering, and publishers can bust games unexpectedly with anti-cheat efforts. That said, none of the games I’ve ever cared about have been affected. Desktop mode can be used for productivity, but you won’t be able to get away with as much as you would with a more mainstream Linux distribution because Steam OS is read-only and an update might remove some advanced functionality you might have installed. I’m not a Linux user, so I can’t really elaborate on that. Also Arch Linux (which Steam OS is built from) is like the Dark Souls of Linux distros, and not very good for newcomers.
Between the two: if you like windows, modding games, and don’t mind being tethered to a wall in exchange for a little more oomph, go Ally. If you like community support, good controls and battery efficiency is more important than raw performance, go Deck.
In my experience, modding isn’t any more difficult on Linux if you’re using a more manual method (like in Stardew Valley) or using Mod Organizer (for Bethesda games). The main issue is running Vortex, which doesn’t have a native Linux port
Yeah modding isn’t that much more difficult, but sometimes you have to drop a file in a specific folder that can be tricky to find since the directed paths aren’t always 1:1 with windows due to the wine bottling thing. It helps you can right click on a game in Steam desktop for a shortcut to a game’s specific folder, though. That and the community is usually willing to help you figure stuff out.
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.
The Orange Pi Neo will ship with a custom version of Manjaro, and is imho the only Steam Deck competitor that is even worth considering.
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.
In my opinion there are 2 reasons to buy the Ally:
- You absolutely have to play competitive games that require kernel-level anti-cheat (these won’t work on Linux/Deck).
- You absolutely have to have the highest graphics possible (resolution/frame rate), battery life be damned.
If you care more about the overall experience, ease of use, battery life, input options, color, sharpness, repairability, customer service, software options, etc. etc., SD is the answer.
Why anyone would want to play a competitive game with a controller is lost on me.
SD has a 800p/90Hz display. This is a higher pixel density than the MacBook Retina display. And a higher frame rate than you’ll want to run most games at. But not enough for some, I guess.
Asus is a bit faster. Steam deck is cheaper.
I believe there’s going to be a new rog Ally soon too.
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.
