Steam Deck OLED vs ROG Ally - Which One Should You Buy?
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- Опубліковано 25 лис 2024
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![BEST Gaming Handheld in 2024!? [Steam Deck OLED | Ally X | Legion Go | Claw]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/czoKrKcgHaY/mqdefault.jpg)
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.
Then you havent looked at anything about ROG Ally cause they constantly are updated lol. There is a new update for it almost weekly
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
@@Twist3d420nah the support is not as good.
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
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.
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.
I returned my Oled because i couldn't see much difference and a better battery life is not worth extra 60$
@@kr1me2000 You... couldn't see much difference? Impressive!
@@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
The buttons were actually worse, speaker no difference.@@CJTheTokay
Exactly this. ROG Ally nutriders will tell you it's the greatest, but what's the point in a portable machine with an hour of battery life?
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.
P8
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.
Great to know about the SD card working
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.
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?
Nah, the rog is far better. It plays every single game at much higher framerates, while the deck doesn't.
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.
@@matthewmontgomery7764I have a Samsung s90c oled, and honesty the rog screen is great it’s not something that’s a problem for me .
Yes, the Ally is better at 25W, but at that wattage, you get like 1h of battery. So the portable factor ceases to make sense.
VRR is obviously a plus, but with some fidling you can just lock any frame rate and have a great experience, as long as there are no big drops. The safe bet is always just locking to 30fps (outside the heavy stuff like Returnal, UE5 games, etc).
Get the Steam Deck OLED lads, unless there are games you HAVE to have Windows for.
Who cares about that , everyone these days has massive power bank man. This argument should end right there. The is good to play old games.
@@DownUnder43 Yeah sure buddy, keep telling yourself that. I'm sure everyone is eager to the comfort of having a bulky device that needs to be connected with cable to play another bulky device.
What a gaming experience.
@@DownUnder43 Yes....then the Ally gets at least 2 hours of battery and the deck gets at least 5...
@@DownUnder43 a very small percentage of people own power banks i only know one person who does
Exactly this. Portability is measured by battery life. And the deck oled is the way to go
VRR is pretty much the only feature they shouldnt have omitted in the OLED Deck
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.
no. then rog ally beats the steam deck
@@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 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.
@@stvnoahc7249 at that point you’re better off just buying a gaming laptop with 4090 instead of Ally
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.
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.
As long as you never leave SteamOS, the Deck is seamless. It's when you dive into the desktop mode that things get wild
@@kylerclarke2689 this is true as the deck in desktop mode bricked one of my sd cards lol.
Steam running through a translation layer and performing this well is extremely impressive
This is a VERY good point, SteamDeck is on that “proton/WINE/etc” layer… the ROG Ally is 100% native. Completely overlooked that one.
@@alejmcwhy does this matter?
@@potatoes5829 a translation layer like protone or WINE, will always have overhead and performance cost, as it has to.. well translate the API calls and co from one platform to another(in PROTONs case, iirc, it translates for example DirectX API Calls to Vulkan API calls).
Native will always be better in terms of stability, functionality, and simple "working" as there is no Translation between the originaly intended "thing" and the actual used thing.
Its a 4 core ZEN2 cpu with a RDNA2 GPU, vs a 8 Core ZEN4 cpu with RDNA3 GPU. The Ally should be like twice as fast at minimum, but the overhead from windows kills it performance
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_dinero5155you can play non steam games on the Deck. Screen is miles better than the Ally minus the VRR
@@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.
It would be interesting if we could battery life normalize the performance metrics. Some sort of frame per minute of battery life or something.
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
This channel is a reliable source for information. Thanks guys.
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
OLED for me. The 45-60 minute battery life made it not worth it to me. I also didn’t like the back buttons which felt like plastic rocks, and the angled corners dug in after a while.
Just got my SteamDeck OLED. Absolutely love it, and SteamOS is pretty damn amazing. I'm definitely a fan going forward.
Except for its limited game compatibility.
18 watt is the sweet spot for the Rog Ally though. Also simply turning off cpu boost makes the gap in performance much much wider.
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
@@dio807015 watts is more like 1.30-1.45 minutes.
You are talking about the 25 watt power profile witch is basically just 1 hour.
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.
set down the thesaurus lil bro
You can install games from third party launchers even on the steam deck, while it does indeed require some effort, it’s not hard to do.
@@jal.ajeerathe steam deck doesn't have enough horsepower to play next gen games. The rog ally just needs more ram
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 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 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.
That's a fair take, but I would temper expectations with the whole "twice the single core performance"
I'm going to sell my Ally , bad battery+ drop frames + heating . I regret it
Im just curious, what games were you playing?@@قال_الرسول
@@1bdmonster569 I played resident evil4+ village+ re2 and other games AAA ..
Ally is just better except battery life .
ROG Ally is awesome docked for big screen real gaming when traveling. Also is awesome on handheld mode. Deck is great, I have both and took my Ally on my Thanksgiving travel. Loving it. Have a good battery pack for either one. Both have limited battery usage
Sorry but the Ally and OLED deck are in different leagues in terms of battery life.
@@meshen85 ok, however they are on different leagues when docked. Deck is pointless to dock
@meshen85 lol battery life isn't a problem with my ally. I paid $70 for a battery pack, that's it.
@meshen85 on the deck there's a lot of games that won't work at all
@@trabuco81 Not sure about 'pointless', but yes they are in different leagues there. I wasn't arguing that point though anyway.
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.
If the Steamdeck is what you call good then you have no standards for battery life
@@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.
@@Wylie288 What are you playing that makes it last that long?!
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.
I am one of those weirdos that went 100% windows on their Steam Deck. One of the reasons I haven't bought an Ally though is the wonderful trackpads on the Deck. I just really wish the deck had a little more CPU power for emulation is all.
Team ROG Ally! I have 4TB 990 Pro on mine (with a heatsink) It's insane!
As an owner of the SD, Ally and the latest Legion Go, Lenovo's handheld is my favourite! They advertise their handheld with the FPS mode but let me blow your mind....Consider it the 'RTS mode' try and play RTS games or parkbuilders on the SD or the Ally, it's doable but oh so crappy! The Legion Go's right controller transforming into a vertical mouse is a gamechanger! Also performance is on par with the Ally only the screen is SO much bigger, I can actually read everything comfortably! Give the Legion Go some love! It really deserves it!
Definitely took my Ally back and copped a LG. I’ve been having a great time.
I already finished 5 games in Rog ally. Legion Go is late for the party. Maybe next gen.
@@MicaelAzevedo I finished 25+ games on ally, even more on SD lol what does that have to do with anything?:p try the legion go, after that screen you really can't go back to the Ally's, it looks like a toy tbh :p
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”
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.
How's the sleep mode on it? That's the only thing holding me back after hearing mixed things at launch.
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...
lol coping so hard to justify your purchase
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.
no. no. no
@@onlysublimesuggest something better
Thanks for your suggestion 🙏
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.
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
Ease of access/set up and ability to use and play goes to steam for sure. ROG ally is more powerful but the user experience, set up and constant needing to update is not fun. Also not having some sort of mousepad on the handheld itself makes it difficult to navigate
Windows 11 isn’t user friendly on a smaller screen IMO. I sold mine and bought oled because of deck verified games and the overall UI and interface
Paying that much when I can just get a laptop 😂 Valve are being smart following Nintendo; optimization is king
I went with the steam deck mainly because I use Steam more often anyways. And I have a desktop PC and windows has been nothing but bloatware to my PC. I don’t want to deal with that operating system when I eventually get a new rig.
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.
How about Steam Deck Oled vs. Rog Ally vs. Legion Go? Happy Thanksgiving fellow Tech Geeks!
I had the Legion, loved it. It did mess up on me, M2 stopped being recognized so it wouldn’t boot. Took it back and taking a stab at the SD Oled. If it doesn’t hold up, sending it back and going back to LEGO!
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.
How is it going to struggle in a year when it already outperforms competitors?
I have both and like the Ally way more. About to get the Legion Go next month
I sold deck after getting the ally because I never thought the deck again
I've tried both but ultimately purchased the ROG Ally. Not dissappinted one bit.
PS Vita had an OLED screen too.
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.
The Steam Deck is a genuine handheld. The ROG Ally is basically a HTPC, you always need it plugged in, even at it's best it's battery life is subpar. You need be tethered to a wall!
Let me add my use case, as a 99.9% Mac user… just bought the ROG Ally and it fills a hole regarding old and new windows games that would never make an appearance on macOS, in handheld mode to boot.
Parallels Desktop and CrossOver have come a long way and quite nice, but don’t get me wrong, over the years mixing a mostly work/design environment with gaming feels bloated first. Having a dedicated device Switch style for that is nice (although totally a luxury at this stage).
Now, the one thing that I did not expect, connecting an Apple Studio Display to the ROG Ally (useful for playing those old school RTS games) just freaking works, the Camera, Mic, Audio Output, connected peripherals, everything just works. It outputs 5K no sweat (on the desktop that is, gotta lower it for games of course)… that just made my day when discovering it and it’s a perfect “Windows Gaming Handheld Emulation” companion console.
If I already had a windows PC, I would have totally gone Steam Deck too though I believe.
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 👏.
TBH at this point I don’t see a reason to use the Steam Deck if you have an Ally. Ally can play everything Steam deck can and more. Without as much tinkering. For me battery life is not an issue as I play mostly on my couch to keep the TV free.
Fun fact: the steamdeck is a console/pc mix. You can switch to desktop mode on a Linux front end. Which allows similar freedom as windows does.
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)
I had to wrestle with this and got the OLED, mostly because I don’t want to use Windows. The Steam Deck is just easier to use and the games I want to play work really well on it. It’ll last me until Steam Deck II.
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
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.
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.
Ah yes. The old “two very different things” that “crossover” and which “are comparable”.
😂
Good take John. I think the Rog ally is fine, but the steamdeck just makes more sense.
Sure bro, keep trying to justify your purchase avoid buyere remorse
@@BuzzingGoober literally don’t own one, but ok chief. 🤣
@@puregarbage2329ally fans coping so har rn 💀
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.
Bro wtf when they couldn’t argue that the ally is a better device they started comparing it to a laptop 💀
I went with the Steam Deck Oled. Just couldn't pass up that screen... holy crap am I glad I did! The thing looks amazing.
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.
For the my first handheld I brought the ally and I’m very happy with it no regrets
What about the legion go? Please review it! Would love to know your thoughts
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.
@dannyw9314 I did end up going with the rog but I hadn't thought of the cloud gaming aspect. I'll have to try it on the Rog thanks for the tip
maybe but cloud latency sux@@dannyw9314
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.
Ngl your probably looking at under a hour and half considering the overall tdp consumes more on the ally.
Ally’s good
@@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.
@@dio8070 really?! Woooow man that’s REALLY gnarly lol, why put it out there, like Alex said if you have to be plugged in why play a handheld at all.
because i live the van life... pc in a truck take to much place@@fullauto86
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.
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
@@johnsducks9816it's roughly 4% smaller
Can you guys please do a video taking a look at Lenovo’s Legion Go? I would love to know your thoughts. I have both of the devices in this video and aside from the Go’s Legion Space (which I’m sure will be polished over time through updates) I’ve very much been enjoying my time with the Go over them. The massive screen, the detachable controllers, fps mode, etc. I don’t know, I think there’s enough to talk about to merit a video on it.
They have a heavy bias for steam deck so its not different from rog ally
@@absurdh3roThat would be unfortunate. At the least it’s weird for a big gaming channel to omit any reports or even a first impressions video on a new handheld from a major computer brand, especially with how relatively new the handheld pc market is.
They are both great devices. Steam deck for ease of use and the ally for its versatility, vrr, and more power.
Personally bought the Legion Go for its larger screen and dual multifunctionality as a mini windows tablet ^.^
Update: Sold it - seems handheld gaming is not for me lol
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.
Rog is the way to go. VRR is truly a game changer
@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.
Steam deck bc of battery. Had both and I returned the Ally after a week. Gets low on battery in half an hour
ASUS ROG Ally is certainly a cool device as well, particularly VRR is a feature I wish the Steam Deck OLED had, but for now I'm sticking with Steam Deck devices. Steam OS is a much better experience for handheld PC gaming than Windows right now. It hits the perfect balance between the customizability of PC gaming with the accessibillity of console gaming. Also, while I have nothing against ASUS as a brand, I have so much trust in Valve to continuously make software updates and support the Steam Deck as they have been. They've already made so many improvements to the deck and Steam OS in the two years its been out. Given the Steam Deck is a much larger user base and community, this also means a huge amount of community driven support, mods and tools for the deck.
That’s fine using big picture mode or a front end like most people solves all that.
@@Bootlickerkicker No, big picture mode does not come close to providing the same experience as having a fully dedicated Steam OS. It's merely a front-end launcher, not a dedicated OS, so it misses a lot of core benefits that Steam OS provides. Additionally Valve can continuously improve the experience for the deck by updating and improving the OS, that can't be done when using Windows + big picture mode.
@@JonnyLin7 Definitely does. It’s why so many use it. Ever since August steam Os has been laggy. I get a way better experience on the ally than the deck. I’d rather play all my games than some of them at lower frame rates. I don’t care about any of steams features like the touch pads literally doesn’t matter.
@@Bootlickerkicker asus shill bugs are so pathetic. enjoy your bloated 40 minute battery less performant than deck off charger no trackpad toy
@@Bootlickerkicker Armory Crate actively fights against big picture constantly, because ASUS intends for AC to be their one stop interface. Except Armory Crate is flaming, stinky garbage... ...still better than hunting for launchers and troubleshooting Linus desktop though LOL
Get the Ally, much better machine for PC gaming. The deck needs more power
I said this in the comments of the full Direct:
Steam Deck OLED is the right choice for most people. It's nice and easy to use, has great battery life and a great screen.
If you are like me and play plugged in most of the time with occasional battery use and are very used to tinkering with Windows, the Ally is worth considering. Its display can't match the black levels and contrast of an OLED, but the colors are fantastic, and it's got almost double the pixels and 120hz + VRR. It's a very very good display, and VRR completely negates the need to adjust the refresh rate like you regularly do on the Deck. And the extra performance at 25-30w on the Ally can make some games (Starfield, Returnal) go from completely unplayable like on Steam Deck to very much comfortably playable. Not to mention, no need to mess with Proton or miss out on games that simply won't work on Linux. Everything boots and works. So there are still reasons to get the Ally, but again, only if you are very very used to using Windows.
steam deck dont run 60% of game i play.. so for me its a no go
Ally still number one for me. That being said the battery difference is massive. If you're on the go then the steamdeck. But i chill at home and take huge advantage of the ally
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.
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
Video= do you want a Honda civic that goes 180 km/h or a Mecedes that goes 185 km/h with double the price?
Brain-dead comparison. The Ally is shown here to be 40-60% faster. More like a car that tops out at 50kph vs 90.
@@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 😄
Steam deck gives you a console like Experience is its Is strongest suit and what I love about it
my big concern with getting a steam deck is how long before the requirement floor of new releases exceed the performance ceiling of the steam deck to keep a steady 30fps
To be honest, I don't think not even the ROG Ally will keep up with new releases even two years from now, if developers do not take the decision to support those devices directly.
thats an ongoing problem with gaming in general and especially pc gaming
I probably wouldn't get either to play AAA games, If you get parts on the used market you can build something that will keep up for the same price.
For me, I game on a very powerful desktop. The Steam deck OLED will be a "legacy "handheld as some of my favorite games from the past and a few new games will hit 60fps or near it. Being able to play the Resident Evil and Bioshock games are enough to sell me on it.
In my experience you usually dont play that many new releases on those consoles, many people start to play their hundreds of games back-catalog because the smaller indie games lend to those devices way much better than the newest AAA title!
If you have a big back-catalog of games then any device in this area might be good!
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.
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.
Not to mention about 3x to 4x better battery on 15 watts.
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.
What matters to me is battery life and on top of that bigger screen Oled with a sweet spot of 90 fps is nice especially with Fsr 3 coming soon
I hate using remote play on the Rog Ally compared to the steam deck. On the steam deck it just works and on the Rog Ally it hangs when I exit a game.
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 think the Steam Deck OLED is a superior companion to an already grand pc set up.
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
Anyone else checking their Steam OLED Shipping Status every 2-3 hrs to see if it has moved from “Packaged”🙄😅
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.
@@Saxon_hoo UK too….i thought shipped from Lux?
@@Saxon_hoosame here
I ordered on 18th Nov, still says packaged, i'm in uk too, what date did you order your oled?
Bro literally 😂😂
So glad to see soo many options in the hybrid PC market! I will wait to see what the next gen Switch can do, then draw my comparisons and buy the best one put by then; if the Switch 2 fails to deliver on any of my major expectations for it (1. Being a powerful hybrid and 2. Being backwards compatible).
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.
Games pass is a massive consideration here! Especially for those new to pc gaming with no existing steam library
The steam deck is amazing but I chose the ROG Ally only because of Game Pass, it saves me a lot of money on games
Cant you use gamepass on steamdeck?
@@murray821 unfortunately not
Fr I've never paid full price for gamepass and I've had it around a year thanks to different promotions
You can absolutely play game pass on the Steam deck. Been using it for months.
@@kylerclarke2689yes, you can
I was going to go with the Ally, until she walked into the room..... And her name was Legion Go.
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
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.
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.
If you're planning to get this right now, I highly prefer the Steam Deck OLED since it's already an improved version (of the previous model). If you can wait for a year or so, an improved version of ROG ally that improves the initial flaws of the previous system.
Can't get the SteamDeck in Australia easily, Rog Ally, is available off the shelf at retail stores, which means better warranty, easy exchange if DOA, and so on. Until Steam get a better distriubtion channel, it'll be the Rog Ally.
Steam Deck OLED is better overall.
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.
Until steam puts out a powerhouse i think the answer is going to be the same.
You want power and better performance at higher resolutions? Go with the ally. The steam deck just cant hang power wise.
You want better battery life, build quality, more back buttons, want to use an sd card and touchpads go with the deck.
If you can afford both this is basically what it boils down to. I play my ally more these days because i usually play in bed connected to an outlet. I have a conference next week. Im bringing both. Deck for travel and ally when im in my room each night