Soooo yeah, I sold my Steam Deck (which I love) in preparation to get an OLED but I was very curious about the ROG Ally, mostly for the performance and VRR, so I bought one.
Here’s a quick rundown of my experience:
- Took 2h or 3h just to get set up. Between Windows setup, windows updates, etc. it was very frustrating not being able to use the machine right away.
- After I thought I was mostly ready to install games, the machine was incredibly slow. Like, opening Explorer or Steam would take 30s+. Activity Monitor didn’t really show any high cpu processes. Just intermittent blips of 20% or 30% on some tasks but would go back down. Machine was unusable though.
- Googled for a bit and found there were lots of updates on MyASUS and Armory Crate. Two distinct pieces of software I had never used. Why two???
- After I updated everything and did a firmware update everything was speedy again, so I installed a few games.
- Started Sekiro as my first game since I had trouble hitting decent FPS on the Deck. The game would not respond to button inputs. And yes, I was in “game controller mode”. Quit out of the game and start it again: same thing.
- Decided to reboot Windows and voila, now it received button inputs. (sigh)
- The performance is indeed incredible. I was very impressed with VRR in particular.
- I then tried Guardians of the Galaxy. Crashed on the first run with no error.
- When I was finally in the game I was playing around with the power profiles / game modes / keyboard shortcuts using the Armory overlay or whatever it’s called. After changing a few settings the overlay froze. I was able to toggle it on/off but tapping the buttons did nothing.
- Force quitting Armory crate didn’t seem to work. Had to reboot. Maybe I had to force quit some other dependent service?
Anyway, I could go on but it was just frustration after frustration. I never thought I’d see the day Linux would be simpler and friendlier than Windows but here we are.
I returned it even though I liked the form factor, performance, screen, VRR, the quiet fans, etc. The hardware is great. Windows is a non-starter for a handheld console.
Let’s go OLED STEAM DECK!!!
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It’s the hard lesson people apparently need to learn the hard way. The Ally/Legion/etc. are Windows PCs with a controller attached. The Deck is a handheld gaming device. Every part of it has been engineered for gaming, from the form factor to the inputs to the hardware and software. Sure, it’s not the most powerful. There were already more powerful devices from Aya, GPD, etc. before the Steam Deck was even released. Nothing else, though, has nailed the whole experience like the Steam Deck has, and they just dunked on the competition even harder with the new OLED models.
I will admit I also have both and pick the ROG Ally first over my OG Deck every time , will probably change when I get the OLED Deck . It’s not plug and play like the SD but performs very well and requires tinkering to get right but I’m used to Windows handhelds and like the extra games I’m able to play .
AC does suck and G helper is so much better , can wait to order my OLED tomorrowLol I feel exactly the same way! I still have my deck but I picked up an ally today ( long story) and I didnt last 24 hours before I absolutely hated it and reset it to return asap ( would take it today but the sky seems to want to drown anyone foolish enough to set foot out of doors so yeah no) I think it took maybe 3 hours before it made me hate it? Maybe. Definitely getting the oled deck and I’ll give my og to my sister for Christmas most likely
Resetting the Ally took FOREVER… like an hour or so. I still love the hardware. If there was a SteamOS for Ally I would keep it!
Eh, I wouldn’t. But that’s mostly because for me the ally was very uncomfortable to hold. I never thought rounded corners could be so pointy lol 😂
This why I completely ignored the Ally and stayed loyal to Steam Deck. Don’t want to deal with all that mess that you have to do to set it up. I’m a least happy there’s competition for the Deck so Valve will always have some competition to keep them on their toes.
I have both and I love them both for their own reasons.
this isn’t a knock on anyone, but you can really tell who is the tinkerer crowd, and the who the “I just want a console” crowd is by how much they tolerate windows lol
I agree though that windows can be unnecessarily frustrating for pc handheld gaming though
The thing is: I dont mind Windows on a desktop PC. I guess I just found out that I have no patience for it in a handheld format. I need it to just work and be available at a moments notice.
SD is good they just need to improve performance with SD2 and add VRR.
Funny how many people here that claim they don’t support upgrading will be the first ones clicking F5 in a few hours to place an order.
We get it you hate the ROG ally. Everyone has been shitting on them for months that it’s just annoying now
I’m committed to my Deck, will be getting an OLED, the Deck has, without exaggeration, replaced by PS4 & Xbox One. I never played games on PC. And each day the Deck astonishes me more.
I’m giving my Ally to a relative but as I loath Windows for all kinds of reasons, including political ones, I did find it easy to use because: I used a few scripts and stripped it down to its bare minimum. It’s unusable as a PC. But it feels and even kind of works like a lightweight distro.
Note that I’m an atypical Ally user. I only play itch and Steam games, and emulations. But that’s what the Deck is for, and where it really shines. I have no use for Xbox pass or the latest heavy games etc., so the Ally turned out to be totally redundant, for me.
I can’t complain though, after stripping it down to the point of unusability as a PC, it was pretty easy to use as a games device.
Prime example of the better product not necessarily being the better product.
I liked my Ally a little bit more than my Steam Deck. Overall it game down to the screen and performance/quiet fans being big wins on the Ally, and everything else being a small win for the Steamdeck (except software which was a huge benefit of the deck). I think the OLED deck will be enough to push my back to team Steamdeck but their both good for what they are.
The experience with Windows can be rough. I just replaced the SD with Legion Go and after some tinkering I must say that Lenovo did a great job.
You just highlighted why software is where the battle is won, not hardware.
OP when he has to update game drivers and changing the voltage of the device impacts performance 🤯