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!!!
And a lesson for me the other way!
I listened to takes like yours and just assumed windows would be trash on handheld. I still see a lot of people parroting this false narrative without having first hand experience.
I’m super happy with my Ally. No desire at all to go back to a Deck.
I’m a PC gamer though. I know what I’m doing. I understand a lot of deck buyers are console gamers who need a more “guided” experience shall I say 😂
And that’s totally fine. Both are fine consoles. Just for different audiences.
I won’t be going back to Linux in a hurry though. So glad things “just work” now that I’m back on windows.
What a fuckin deranged take lol. Pick a lane for your opinion.
Yeah, I’ve tried going back to my Deck after having the Ally and I just can’t.
The display alone is so much better, not to mention the touchscreen on the Ally is actually functional.
So if by “guided experience” you mean a stable client with seamless usability without f@ckery with different stores, launchers, input mishandling from game to game, with predictable sleep/wake behavior and performance controls that actually work, then yeah, guilty as hell.
You know that steam big picture exists? Different stores is a feature, not a bug. You literally can’t play those games, lmao. I have to click a different button.
Sleep wake is fine. You’re mistaken.
No input mishandling. Do you guys think we didn’t play PC games on windows before the deck existed? Lmao.