The Asus ROG Ally and Handled Gaming in 2024

 Well! It's been eight months now since I got my Asus ROG Ally and I have had a lot of time to adjust to it, get it adjusted, and find a decent equilibrium. Of the various handhelds I own, this is the only one I tend to use anymore....with a caveat, that being that I spend about 75% of my time on the ROG Ally in docked mode these days. As a consequence, I am actually using the ROG Ally every single day now as a secondary docked desktop PC, and its handheld advantage arises during travel.

The ROG Ally on release needed some updates in firmware and Asus clearly had a problem with how they set up the heat dispersal to pass close to the Micro SD card location on the Ally. Many owners found an early problem with this, and I actually have simply decided not to use a Micro SD card with it after the thing almost cooked one of my cards. Instead, to expand the memory I picked up a M.2 SSD card and followed the instructions found across many online sources to clone the internal drive onto the new card, then swapped them out. Pro tip: cloning is the best and fastest way to do this, just make sure to find a good set of instructions online, Some vloggers opt to use the recovery feature on the Ally to restore the boot drive, and that is clearly a more laborious and time consuming process. Cloning was a piece of cake. 

So once I expanded the onboard memory to 2 TB I was able to properly load the ROG Ally with whatever I felt like. I then purchased the expanded multiport 60w power supply for the Ally, which served as an excellent second higher wattage power source, but it also includes a USB and HDMI port. I can now "dock" the Ally using this setup, connecting it to a display via HDMI and using the USB port to connect whatever else is needed. 

Here's my current setup:

Asus ROG Ally, sitting on a handy dock such as the recyclable one that comes with the Ally, with a 2 TB M.2 SSD to replace the original 512 GB card;

The 60w Dock with extra ports;

A wired mouse (only because I don't have a free bluetooth mouse right now) plugged in to the power supply;

A HDMI to mini HDMI cable, plugged into the 60w plugin, using a 16 inch portable 2K 120p screen with a sturdy mount I picked up on Amazon;

A decent bluetooth mini keyboard from Logi and an extra Xbox Series controller connected to bluetooth.

So yep, at this point my handled device is now essentially a decent budget gaming desktop that I can also disconnect and carry on the go. I'm actually typing this blog on the ROG Ally as we speak using the MX compact Logi keyboard connected wirelessly to it. When I am at home, I can and have enjoyed a lot of games on the ROG Ally on this setup with no issues, In fact, I primarily have games from my GOG collection and secondarily from Steam. Some of the games are simply better with a keyboard setup, so I have games like Guild Wars 2 as an example that work best this way (though I have worked on a GW2 controller setup in the ROG Armoury overlay). I maintain plenty of games on it that default to and work well with the ROG Ally handheld control scheme for the on the go moments. Since those are far less frequent than the stay-at-home time, this setup is working great for me.

Here's the interesting thing: this setup could work really well for just about anyone who wants a low-profile desktop with handheld option. It's probably not as cheap as purchasing a decent laptop (and I have a decent laptop) but it's a fun setup for just messing around. I can also use this setup with the Steam Deck exactly as-is, since the 60w power supply/dock works with it as well. I just happen to be a lot less interested in tinkering with the Steam Deck in Linux, and to be honest, most game content on Steam runs a bit better on the Asus ROG Ally on average. 

So what does this mean for the other portables I accrued over the last couple years? It means I have committed to not buying handhelds for at least 2024, that's for sure....but also, to be honest, I just don't need them at all except from a pure gadget/tech hobbyist perspective. Based on my setup today, I think that the ROG Ally works for exactly what I need in this market, and I no longer really need the Steam Deck or the Switch OLED. I can get nothing out of either of these devices that the ROG Ally isn't providing for already (except playing the Switch exclusives, I guess).

I feel slightly differently about the other two devices: the Backbone One for Apple, and the Switch Lite, both have a singular advantage over the rest, being their small profile and extreme portability still make them much easier to just throw in a bag or my pocket and go. The Backbone One advantage is that it, combined with my iPhone mini 13, is a very low profile gaming experience for odd moments and Apple's Arcade has a decent array of games. The downside is its still best for odd moments only, is still a bit awkward to carry and apply since you have to take a protective case off if you use one, and most of the games I enjoy on the iPhone are games I can play on the ROG Ally more efficiently.

That leaves the Switch Lite, which is insanely low profile and runs the full game lineup for Switch. This one generally ends up being my "grab and go for odd-moment gaming" because it fits in my pocket easily, and is quick to fire up. The ROG Ally is my "taking a trip" device as well as my "backup mini desktop" experience at home.

Anyway....long story short, these sorts of devices are numerous and can cater to the sort of special use case you imagine you may have. For me, I now realize I am not a hardcore "play in handheld mode" gamer but I like the ability to do so, and so for me the ROG Ally is the winner as I've been able to customize and kit it out to suit my needs, and I am more comfortable in Windows 11 than Linux. Meanwhile, Switch Lite remains my best "throw in the bag and play in the doctor's waiting room" experience. The rest of the devices are just a symptom of "gadget addiction" I need to work on.

The Handled Gaming Device Phenomenon - Two months in with the Asus ROG Ally vs. Steam Deck vs. Switch OLED vs. Switch Lite vs. BackBone

 I have written a bit about my time with all these handhelds, and one thing has become clear to me: I am not nearly enough of a handheld gamer to have much care or concern for them in the long run, and I should save my money going forward. My limiters on enjoying handheld games boil down to, in no particular order:

You Need Lots of Leisure Travel Time:  I travel a reasonable amount in state, but even when traveling rarely have the sort of free time it takes to pull out a handheld gaming device and play with it (and hey, I imagine every time I will have that sweet, sweet free time, but it's not nearly as often as I would like, it turns out); most of my travel is consumed by work related connectivity, it turns out.

This problem is not fixed by handhelds, but it does mean your handheld experience only needs to be as convenient as the actual time available. That means that, for example, if you only have 10 minutes free to play something light, you only need a device that accommodates short and easy play. 

When it comes to quick and portable, any of these consoles could be loaded with short quick-play games, but the king of the pack is either the Switch lite or the Backbone (a device that turns your phone into something approximating a handheld console), with the Switch OLED being a solid contender as well. Hauling a Steam Deck or Asus ROG Ally around to play Asteroids or Pac Man (or if you're hip and modern, then Dead Cells or Blashphemous) seem like overkill. 

Tiny Screens are for Young Eyes: My eyesight as I get older is just not as good with tiny screens. This does mean that really good tiny screens with clear resolution, readable text, and decent colors are more important to the experience, though. I know of others my age with distinctly bigger eyesight issues than me, so I imagine some of these handhelds would border on useless.

Of the devices I mentioned, I would say the Steam Deck and Switch OLED are great, chiefly because most games designed for the Switch account for small screen play (there are a few obnoxious exceptions). Steam Deck requires good judgement on what you load, but also has that magnify feature that is AMAZING. Switch Lite is an eye strain unfortunately, even though I love my tiny Switch Lite for its portability. Asus ROG Ally actively hates your eyes, but its higher resolution is very nice. If it had a magnification option like the Steam Deck does that would be much nicer....but its real problem is the tiny Windows 11 interface that is a pain in the ass. 

Get a Grip!: Form factor is super important; third party products such as Hori's Split-Pad Pro attachments capitalize on this because they know plenty of adults have Switches and need something that feels comfortable to play with. To their credit, both Steam Deck and Asus ROG Ally are very comfortable. So the Switch models lose out here, as they sacrifice ergonomic grips for portability and other features.

It Needs to Be Easy: the handheld is essentially a mini console, and its not something most people want to troubleshoot the OS on when you are flying of traveling somewhere with spotty internet. I am specifically calling out the Asus ROG Ally here, as its Windows 11 operating system has caused me no end of trouble diagnosing random crap that only Microsoft could be the cause of. The Backbone one is also a bit of a problem, unless you pay for their optional but useful Backbone app which helps make the product more useful, especially for streaming. The fact that so many ioS and Android games don't always play nice with it is a downside. So for Easy look to the Nintendo Switch and Steam Deck (unless you do a lot of modding in Linux on Steam Deck, in which case Nope.)

It needs to not Overheat: The Asus ROG Ally overheats. A lot. It's bad enough that it impacts performance at times, and its placement of the MicroSD slot is adjacent to a major vent, so sometimes the device works fine unless you are trying to run a game off of the MicroSD slot. This is just bad design, and after two months with the Ally I've decided that problem alone changes my relationship with the device from "I love it despite and because of Windows 11" to "I grudgingly put up with this dysfunctional relationship because its the device I can play Destiny 2 and my Epic Game store products on with the greatest ease." I have never had an overheating issue on the Switches or Steam Deck. FYI I have had an overheating issue on my iPhone 13 Mini but that's pretty rare. 

Final Verdict:

Asus ROG Ally is not worth it, unfortunately, unless you are willing to put up with its many problems with Windows 11 being suboptimal, its overheating, and its lack of a coherent user interface for travel (it tries with the Armoury Crate thing, but fails).

Steam Deck is worth it, as long as you don't dive down the Linux rabbit hole too deeply. or if you like doing that, then its a must-buy!

Switch OLED remains the most versatile device, as long as you don't mind being stuck in the available library of games. Rumor has it a new Switch will come out next year, so YMMV though. 

Switch Lite wins for the ultra-portable element, but it loses for being hard on the eyes and not ergonomic. It also can't be modified like the OLED as the controller portions are not joycons, and are permanently attached. 

BackBone One wins as being most portable, but I find the entire "gaming on my phone" experience, even with a decent controller, to be suboptimal and disengaging; it just ain't fun for this old guy. 

That said, I still find simply pulling out the old gaming laptop to be a perfectly viable solution, especially if you expect most leisure gaming time to actually be in a hotel room. So....yeah.

A Brief 8/20 Update Since I wrote this: Everything I said above is still 100% valid, but I feel it worth mentioning that in the last 9 days I have done most of my handheld gaming on the Asus ROG Ally and that is primarily because the games I am currently focused on are either best to play or can only be played on its handheld environment (Destiny 2, Diablo Immortal, Diablo IV, Outriders...which I owned on the Xbox store and not Steam). I also have been dabbling in Assassin's Creed Odyssey on the Ally. I can't play any of those game on the Steam Deck, for the most part, without diving deep into the Linux environment and spending a lot of time trying to make some of them work. So...for purposes of my own circumstance, I guess the issues with the Ally are worth putting up with just for the broader range of games I can access alone. 

The Asus ROG Ally Part II: 25 days in

 I mentioned I'd do a part II to this last time, and here I am. Has it really been 25 days since the device came out? Dang, time flies. Anyway, plenty of time to make the following observations. I'm just going to bullet point all of this for fun:

1. The TL;DR Winner of Handhelds: If you just want cheap gaming on the go and aren't particular, get a Switch. The Switch is still the king of this corner of portable gaming, hands down. But if you want to see your console library unlocked on portable devices, then of course the Steam Deck and Asus ROG Ally are requisites for you. What you're really choosing is "Linux or Windows" so pick wisely.

2. Battery Life: The Switch is the only device of the three that could probably keep you entertained for a full 2-3 hours before recharging becomes necessary. Both Steam Deck and the Ally are going to require fiddling with the settings to squeeze more than an hour of life out of their batteries. This essentially makes them portable in the sense of "I can plug this in to the hotel when I get there," but not "I can play this on the airplane/bus/tram/fishing boat/subway during commutes." I mean....the Deck and Ally could probably work here, if your commute is an hour or so. 

3. Updates: After 25 days and countless updates the Ally is working quite well. But my understanding is the Steam Deck had a similar growing pain phase in its initial release. Just make sure you are updating this thing for Windows 11, the Asus firmware, the bios and the Armory Crate and all will be fine. 

4. Heating Issues: I have never had an issue with overheating on the Steam Deck and of course the Switch would need to have a proper flame applied to it to overheat, but the Ally does have some overheating issues. Specifically, it has placed the MicroSD chip slot directly above one of the key heat vents. Asus has apparently released a firmware update that works on better fan output to assist here. Though I have had no issues other than some obvious stuttering in a game I tried playing from the MicroSD card that acted like it was having issues due to overheating,* stories are out there of people getting their microSD cards cooked. How common this is I am uncertain, but the good news is I have not experienced the overheating issue since the latest bios and firmware updates that just came out. But....the placement of the microSD was a poor choice on Asus's part.

MicroSD Formatting PRO TIP: Make sure if you get a MicroSD to format it in NTFS format if you plan to load any Xbox for PC games on it. I popped my 1 TB card in, saw it was preformatted, but did not realize it came formatted in exFAT which my understanding is better for photo storage, while NTFS is better for large files such as games. 

Outside of those specific points its been a fine experience. I have spent some time testing out various games, including Call of Duty Black Ops Cold War (and Vanguard), Outriders, XIII, Killer is Dead, Baldur's Gate Dark Alliance, Octopath Traveller, Halls of Torment, Diablo Immortal and Assassin's Creed Origins....all worked great, and to varying degrees each translated well into handheld mode. I have had the most fun with Destiny 2 on the Ally, interestingly. 

Honestly.....I would have felt less keen on investing in the Ally if it had been possible to play Destiny 2 and other games I had in my GOG, Battle.net, Xbox and Epic Games libraries on the Steam Deck. You can get some working....I did get a few on Epic to work on the Steam Deck with some painful effort. Xbox games was a bigger pain, and not all would play nice in the linux environment. GOG was a nightmare. Battle.net allegedly would work on the Steam Deck with the right proton downloads but every tutorial showed a completely different process that was often incomprehensible or didn't align with how my Steam Deck was working. 

Being able to just load all this stuff on the Asus ROG Ally and play it has been nice. There are some games I have which are especially suited to the "play while wandering around, or at the dinner table, or on break, or on a trip" style, such as incredibly long titles like Assassin's Creed Odyssey which has otherwise been a difficult title to pin down due to the time demand it calls for, so I am loving having it for spot play on the Ally. Destiny 2 is naturally suited for pick up and play like this. Likewise, being able to replay a Call of Duty campaign or load a private game with bots to pass the time is fun. I have not as of yet been brave enough to try live multiplayer, assuming I would get slaughtered. Have not loaded Modern Warfare though I'd like to, but that is a notoriously large download size (215+ GB as I recall). Stuff like Halls of Torment, Diablo and Octopath Traveller are practically made for the Ally. Alas, Torchlight II did not like the control scheme and was a real pain so I pulled it from the Ally. It's Switch version of course works just great.

I've encountered a few games that fall into the "this is fun, but the graphics are too tiny for me to really dig playing this in handheld mode" category. Champions of Alaloth is one, with graphics too dainty and text too precise for my eyes. Outriders borders on it, with text too small to read, but luckily a big chunk of that game is about the shooting, not reading. Torchlight II and III both ran like crap on it, no nice way to put it, though II probably because the PC edition has never been controller optimized, and Torchlight III is a bit janky and broken on anything you play it on, anyway. 

FYI Diablo IV is great on the Ally, but I am not playing it on the Ally because I want to enjoy that game for the time being on a nice big screen monitor.

Okay, that's it! I have too many hand-helds, but if someone made me ditch all but one I think I'd probably give serious consideration to making my decision in favor of the Asus ROG Ally. That said....it would be a very close decision between it and the Steam Deck as well as the Switch, which still manages to nail the "carry and play on the go" thing best. 

*In the Ally's defense I had been running the device for like 10 hours straight filling up the 1 TB card and doing loads of updates. So by the time I tried out that game it was quite hot. Probably a good sign not to run it for 10 hours straight, maybe. I tested a game located on the C drive for contrast and it ran just fine, and after letting it sit for an hour off to cool down the game (Outriders) then ran without any issues, so it was definitely an overheating issue affecting the MicroSD. Bad form, Asus. Some Youtube videos I've seen suggest that breaking in to it and installing a SSD card larger than 512MB might be the way to go, but we'll see. If you do that, make sure to register and back up your device in the ASUS cloud.  

ASUS ROG Ally vs. Steam Deck (Part 1)

 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.