Yesterday my anticipated reserved ASUS ROG Ally came in for pickup, and I spent most of the day waiting patiently for the Windows 11 environment (and Armory Crate, and the firmware, and the bios...) to update, after which I loaded a variety of games from different platforms to test it out: Epic, Steam, Xbox so far, GOG coming soon.
You might be looking at one of these bad boys and wondering if the $699 pricetag is worth it over the equivalent Steam Deck for $629. Here's some observations I have made in the last day and a half of messing around with the ASUS ROG Ally to contrast with the Steam Deck, which I have had for about a year:
LINUX vs. WINDOWS: The Ally operates on Windows 11 with heavy use of the touch screen interface. Steam Deck, by contrast, is a Linux product, which has its own advantages and peculiarities. Right off the bat I can tell you that my many years of grudging experience working in Windows encironments means I find the Ally a more comfortable device to work with; I know what to do with it. The Linux environment of Steam Deck has been an interesting learning curve, and my greatest victory there has been getting some Epic games to work on it....while also failing to do so on almost every other level; my acumen for Linux is just not strong enough to figure out how to successfully do things like get Battle.net to work right, or run emulators, things Youtube Techies all seem to take for granted. Maybe my kid can figure it out, he's heavily into the modding scene these days.
So for now, the ASUS ROG Ally's Windows 11 based environment makes sense for me over Steam Deck, but it is nice to have an incentive to learn how to play in the Linux environment. Sort of.
GAME COMPATIBILITY: everything I have loaded so far has run without issue (after all updates were applied....there are a LOT of updates). I have several Epic Game store games running, Fortnite, Destiny 2, Outriders, Diablo IV, and so forth....all working great. By contrast, Steam Deck is running smoothly for the most part as long as its in the Steam environment and has met the Linux compatibility issues. Some games don't cut it, though, as they may be online titles that require anti-cheat software that doesn't play nice with Linux, or weird general compatibility issues with control schemes, graphics, or other issues. So far (but we'll speak more as I have time to properly test) the Ally is better here simply by virtue of supporting the OS most games are built for.
CONTROLS: For games with native console support so far both the Ally and Steam deck are totally fine. Both provide extensive options for community or custom setups, through the Armory Crate app and Steam's own support system respectively. All games I've tried on the Ally so far worked just fine with controller support. Steam Deck has more than enough games without issue, but some games rated yellow or "?" on their platform may have....special issues with controller setups.
Issues both decks will face include games that are heavily mouse and keyboard dependent. Surprisingly I was able to get World of Warcraft running on the Ally, and it played surprisingly well (wouldn't team up on a raid with it, but for soloing? sure). I did not know that WoW now had controller support which you can enable using /console commands.
Although the mouse pad on the Steam Deck is cool and works well for it, the only mouse movement (without attaching a mouse) on the Ally is the right analog stick. The Ally makes up for this by being very touchscreen friendly. The downside is the Windows environment is by default assuming a larger screen so touching the right area with big fingers can be frustrating sometimes. Windows 11 really needs a "portable touch edition" that works well. Win 8.1, the version used for the Surface, was a good start in that direction.
GRAPHICS: Both of these machines look good, and I like that the Steam Deck I have uses etched glass to reduce glare. Ally does shine just a bit brighter as it seems to be able to run smoothly at a 1080p setting with higher average framerates and graphic settings. Must test more on this, though.
STORAGE AND CONNECTIVITY: So far great for both. Ally, once fully updated, has some blazing fast speeds on the UHS I and II microSD cards it supports, make sure you get at least the A2 designation (it's faster, trust me), but A1 is perfectly fine. Given both units have 512GB onboard storage, you will want to expand this a bit.
ERGONOMICS: The Steam Deck is a clear winner here for comfort in holding and using it, but the ASUS ROG Ally is also pretty comfortable to use...just slightly less so due to being a bit more compact. The Ally is abotu the same size as my OLED Switch with the HORI Grips, and fits into the same size case. My official ASUS ROG Ally case arrives tomorrow, though, so I can let you know how that fares.
So far though, in terms of portability the Ally is ever so slightly more portable.
BATTERY LIFE: time will tell! I'll discuss this more in Part II. I can say Steam Deck's battery life is rarely as good as I wish it were, and I suspect the Ally will probably be just as bad, but I will report more soon.
Okay, this is only Part I! More later, maybe next week, once I've had some time to really mess around with it.
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