Different strokes for different folks.

Personally considering the OLED steam deck, but here are some pros and cons.

ROG Ally > Steam Deck

• Performance is straight up better due to stronger APU, thus is likely able to run some games slightly better than the deck, as well as support a small subsection of games the deck couldn’t.

• Higher resolution screen and 120hz and VRR. Neat in some situations, pointless in others.

• Available in many regions where steam deck isn’t officially sold.

• Windows based. Pros and cons there, can be more familiar to users yet also actually provide a poorer experience due to windows not exactly designed for a handheld gaming platform. As such, it can be a lot easier setting up stuffs, such as emulators or essentially non steam games. Want to run xbox game pass stuff? You can easily get it done. You kinda have to jump through hoops on steam deck.

Steam Deck > ROG Ally

• Better battery life at straineous gaming.

• Significantly better low TDP performance. It seems that steamOS and the deck is well optimised for that while it felt like it doesn’t really work properly on the Ally when you try to turn down the TDP. You get way worse battery than steam deck and significantly poorer performance for unknown reasons.

• Sleep mode that works. Steam deck feels a lot like the switch, you can put the deck to sleep and resume it later like how it works on the switch.

• Consistent updates to proton and new features for SteamOS. Games that ran poorly a while back had significant improvements over the past half a year. You can see the development effort that is put into and maintaining the steamdeck, while the Ally IMO felt like its in maintenance mode after their big push during the release. I’m not expecting much improvements to the software experience over time on the ally.

• OLED 90hz screen kinda made the ally’s 1080p 120hz screen which was the biggest advantage it had over the original deck very moot. IMO for a handheld this size, 800p and 1080p barely makes any visible difference, but the performance and battery hit is going to be a thing. So in fact, I very much think 800p screen is good enough and any higher resolution isn’t really winning much more points than the marketing material makes it out to be.

• Steam deck OLED is also cheaper than the Ally, so there is that.

• Bigger community of steam deck users than Ally, essentially means better community support and tools as well. Not that Ally needed a lot since its on windows and is very familiar to most users, but community support can definitely extend the lifespan of a device far longer than expected.

I guess that sums up the general points I had after reviewing the Ally, Legion Go and Steam deck. Personally I am leaning hard towards the OLED deck and am considering getting it. My gaming pattern suits the deck, I don’t need the new AMD APU because the games I play are not demanding. And demanding games don’t run well on both devices so I would rather play on my PC.

Depends, if you’re going to just use it for steam games/emulation (though it does support other launchers)? Steam deck all the way, and you’ll be amazing support as well.

Anything that requires Windows? (Quite a few multiplayer games with specific anti-cheats come to mind) then I’d go with the Ally, though I do have some gripes that would keep me from it, like battery life. Though it does, from what I understand, handle windows way better than dual booting the deck