Hi all! I’ve seen a few posts going either way on this, but I wanted to ask myself because of the new OLED plus a recent sale on the Ally that has come up! In Canada, the SD 512 GB is $690, while the Ally is currently on sale for $700.
I generally play AAA games, and battery life is a factor but not determinative (as I’m usually playing just around the house). Conversely, while most ofy library is on Steam, I do play some games that are on other platforms and/or use their own launchers, and my understanding is it is a bit awkward to get games with their own launchers running on the SD. Open to any suggestions and thoughts! Thanks!
The Ally has enough QC issues that my local best buy has enough open box returns to equip a platoon.
The Ally also has hardware issues like a still unaddressed tendency to damage SD cards, which the Ally community has responded to with Stockholm-syndrome esque “it’s okay, I’ll just install a 2tb SSD so I don’t need an SD card!” behaviors.
And the worst part? The very worst? For all its vaunted performance, it isn’t actually much better in the AAA games the Deck actually struggles with. Returnal is still unplayable. Starfield is still okay everywhere but cities, where it chugs. RDR2 will get you to 45-50 fps instead of 30-40, but you’re still on all low settings at 720p res, except now you’re using upscaling to fit the Ally’s 1080p screen.
Disclaimer: My view of the Ally is tainted by how I stupidly allowed myself to be roped into tech support for my friend’s lemon of an Ally because “Hey, Facehugger, you have a Steam Deck and you’re good with tech, right?” The Ally I have actual hands on experience with was probably a demonic engine from the pits of hell made to torment me.