Thank you so much for watching♥! Recently launched some merch in the shop below the video. Let me know what you think! What're your thoughts on the video? Which system is better? Why?
Also bought the Steam deck oled first followed by the Ally X. I decided to sell my SD as I didn't pick it up once I got the Ally X. Being a PC gamer it makes it a seamless experience. I docked the X to set everything up on my TV. As for the screen. The X is fantastic especially as I played at 1080p. The major plus for me is anti cheat and launcher's work great. I wanted to play Fc24 but didn't realise the Steam deck wouldn't play it. So PC is a must for me.
That’s a good point you made the Ally X is a better performance handheld but for me I don’t need a handheld that act as a PC setup because I already have a OP rig. I think the conclusion come down to preference, I love the steam deck because I can just relax on a sofa and play but when I want to play competitive gaming then my OP rig is the way to go. In reality there is no wrong choice it all depends on the user. You seem to know what you want which is great don’t let others dictate what you want no one is living your life but you.
@@acfeo890 I have a dedicated gaming room. But getting older and prefer handheld. Tried Switch, PS5 with Portal. Steam deck oled. But the Ally X is a sweet spot for me. Does everything my gaming PC can do in an handheld
Pretty fair review overall, but you overlooked the Ally’s biggest advantage for most of the people who are looking for an alternative to the Steam Deck: compatibility with Game Pass!! Being able to access a huge library of games right out of the box with no cost beyond the subscription price is HUGE for those of us invested in the Windows gaming ecosystem!
I'd be interested in how you set up the Ally X with a TV in a relatively seamless manner. It feels very much like I hooked my laptop or Desktop up to my TV, which is far easier and better if I just connect my laptop to the TV. I keep gravitating back to my OLED Deck because of how fluid the UI is compared to the PC desktop experience. By the end of the workday, I really can't stand spending any more time in Windows or MacOS so the console experience of the Deck is great.
@@Darkman03 I just used an Anker hub and keyboard and mouse. HDMI and came straight on. Set everything up on the TV. Took a few seconds to get everything on screen
If you have a gaming pc or gaming laptop the Ally x is useless in my opinion. The steam deck give you that console like experience that just hard for you to give up in my opinion.
I disagree, I have a 4090 desktop set up and love being able to still play those same games closely to my desktop pc on the Ally. The Steam Deck is great, but is too limiting at running AAA games, and it’s not as seamless as everyone keeps saying because more often than not you have to experiment with proton, and do things within konsole.
@Will_Bx_NYC_718 I have yet to need to do any of that and still completely believe based on my own experience with the device. The Ally X offers a poor experience for the end user. It’s janky and disjointed and isn’t a “good” product.
@@Will_Bx_NYC_718 most handheld owners don’t feel the same. It’s hard as heck to play COD on a handheld. it’s without question that the ALLY is more powerful and can play more games but the console like experience the steam deck have is hard to give up..
Maybe? I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that. Like I said in the video though. Even if you like windows, you can’t really argue that on a handheld it’s not as friendly as a user experience as something like Steam OS. I personally don’t hate windows. I just hate it when my only input is basically an Xbox controller.
@@AndrewTaylorYT yeah true I just been using a razer laptop for 4 years so I guess i’m used to it & really just got this for traveling & i’m in love with it. Fire video though you explained everything really well
@wishforglory thanks so much. Means a lot.😊 glad you’re enjoying it. At the end of the day. As long as you’re happy with the money spent and you’re having fun playing games, that’s what matters most. Thanks so much for watching.
I absolutely love the steam deck. It definitely is better when it comes ergonomics and the user experience. But I think you are definitely underplaying the Ally X. I have both and I personally choose the Ally X now while my wife uses the steam deck to play her “cozy” games. You clearly like the steam deck more and I don’t blame you it’s such a great product. But the Ally X is just way better at actually playing games. More power, bigger battery, vrr screen, bigger game selection. All the stuff that actually makes a difference when it comes to games is just better on the Ally X. For anyone trying to decide which to get, here my 2 cents. The biggest thing on a handheld is battery. Yeah the SD OLED has an ok battery but it doesn’t even come close to the Ally X. The screen on the X is a high end LCD with great colors and brightness. Don’t think the screen is bad just because it’s not OLED and with having VRR games feel so so much smoother. Saying FPS doesn’t matter when you are playing on a handheld is crazy to me. Going between 20-35 FPS to 45-60 FPS is such a huge difference compared to going from, 144 to 500 FPS. You get more FPS, smoother gameplay with VRR, more battery/playing time on the X. If you are only going to play indie games heads down steam deck all the way, no question, my wife loves it. But if you want to play actual AAA games, Ally X. I just finish playing Control. I tried on the steam deck and I was getting around 20-40 fps. On the X constant 50-70 fps and felt so smooth. If you have big hands, they make comfort grips. Now you have great ergonomics and the power to actually play games. I’m very excited for the next generation steam deck tho.
Yeah his comparison is very bias. I tried to take it seriously, but he made the Ally sound like it’s terrible. I own bo5 a steam deck and Ally, and I play on my Ally X more. Once I installed Bazzite on my Ally I hardly ever pick up the Deck, unless it’s to play emulators.
And there you have it.. the Steam deck is really the best bang for buck. I’ve just picked up my oled and even tho I mainly got it to play my old school PS2 games. I’ve been enjoying the triple A type games on it as well. Its track pad is SO good for Linux OS navigation as well.
I struggled between these two for like a month but ended up gong with the steam deck. I was scared because the ally x has better performance but you know what? I don't really care after getting the deck. The ease of use just makes it so nice. Plus the OLED is just insane to look at. I have fast wifi and if i need more power I just remote stream from my desktop and it works flawlessly. If its your only gaming device maybe look at the ally x but if you have a gaming desktop already get the deck for sure.
Oled owner here.. triple AAA games on the deck feel like a novelty more than anything. Played most of spiderman 2018 on it and had no complaints. Went back to my pc rig to finish it off and the visuals are night and day (2k monitor, 7800xt, 5700x3d, 32gb 3600 ram). You have to tweak and make sacrices for the newer games to run and it can still get the job done but does not feel like it was designed to do so. Where the device shines imo is playing older games in your backlog (for me.. games like alien isolation, borderlands 2, mad max, mgsv, darksiders 2, tomb raider trilogy etc. When you can get 60fps and even 90fps on these titles, it's pretty badass. Replaying gta IV and watch dogs just because i can. Not to mention all the indie games and emulation.. can't beat it with a stick. Ill pass on windows handhelds until MS comes out with a mobile OS with a kernal designed for gaming.. which will basically resemble steam os. So.. to each their own. If you play a lot of AAA, steam deck is probably not the right choice.
It doesnt "force" you to use Windows. It just comes installed with it. Thats like saying the SD FORCES you to use linyx. I'm someone who has no experience with installing other software. All I did was follow a step by step youtube video and installed Bazzite on my Ally. Now it acts just like Steam OS
I have both and the really underrated feature for me on the Ally X that really doesn’t get much credit is the VRR in the display. It makes games run soo much smoother. There would be games that I would play on the Steam Deck OLED where you would really notice the drop of FPS and screen tear but with the VRR display and more power it’s becomes a smoother gameplay experience.
VRR is a moot point once you dock it for playing on a larger screen though, a big selling point of the handheld PCs is using them like a Nintendo Switch. Windows is a bit finnicky about how it implements VRR as well, either it's set to Exclusive Full Screen apps or Windowed apps, and there are absolutely titles out there that only offer windowed / windowed Fullscreen or windowed / exclusive Fullscreen.
Thanks for the video. I was having a hard time figuring out which one to get. But at the end of the day just like your video showed it depends on what kind of gamer you are. If you want to relax and boot up a game and not be bothered much by the tech details then go for SD. If you want a portable PC with more power and more AAA games at your disposal then it's Ally X. I think both are good at what type of gamer they cater to.
for those who enjoy their deck but don’t want to play just indies, single player AAAs, yet limited to playing other games due to anti cheat? best solution for me is getting an AllyX and dual boot Bazzite steam OS boom, Best of both worlds of wins and steam os. regardless the ergonomics and display on the deck is unmatched and that’s why I kept mines while having allyX 😅
Haven’t watched the video yet, but I can’t imagine the Decknis better considering the price and specs. That being said I never felt the need to get a better system than the deck. It does everything I need it to. Particularly emulation up to Wiiu.
Worth reminding people that SteamOS is coming to Ally, and Bazzite already exists. Also you can setup the Ally to boot straight into Steam Big Picture mode, which does a better job of hiding Windows jank.
That’s means so much. Thank you🥺 I’m gonna keep working. Weekly videos. Like I said in the 1 year on TH-cam video. Gonna give this channel my full focus for 2 years and see if I can make it my day job. I love making stuff and hanging out with you guys so much. Hope to get twitch streams going a couple times a week here soon as well so we can all really hang out and have conversations. Thank you so so so much for the love and support.❤️
He's terrible. Look at his last video where he argued like a 5 year old in the comments against people who knew what they were talking about. He clearly has an inferiority complex & doesn't like being wrong. He got ratio'ed hard.
Really great video Andrew! I solely use my SD OLED for all games. For multiplayer titles I use XBPlay for my series x and Chiaki4Deck for my PS5, but am I missing out on anything by not having it natively play on a handheld ie rog ally x? Just wanted your thoughts. Thanks!
If you play casually and just have fun you probably aren’t missing to much. If you’re trying to get into competitive stuff then you’re missing out a bit. If you want to go competitive though you probably want to jump to a laptop or desktop. If you’re having fun that’s the most important thing! Thanks so much for watching!
I have both device steamdeck for 4 months and rog ally x for 3 weeks. Steam os (linux) so streamed line but so many restrictions (cant mod, anti cheat, limited games) while windows yes slighty trickier but it doesn't have all does problem. You can mod, you can play any game you want so rog ally x is not just slightly complicated handheld to own. For a price of flexibility. If you get a error on rog ally x theres a workaround if you get error on linux then its done no workarounds. A love the steamdeck oled but its design to play indie games or older triple A titles. Compared to the rog ally x which shocks me to play triple A current titles at ease. The difference is not just a simple couple of frames. The difference is clearly night and day. And as i own both dont let anyone say rog ally x is complicated for a casual techie like me i would say for difficulty for each handheld steamdeck oled will be 4 while rog ally x is 5 maybe 6 at best.
I played the black ops 6 beta exclusively on the ROG Ally X and it was good sometimes. If you really wanna give it a go id recommend picking one up from Best Buy. If you get the Best Buy plus membership (Its like 50 bucks a year and you get a ton of bonuses) you get 60 day return periods. Go grab one and play it for a month and make up a decision on whether you think it's worth it for you or not. That's what I would recomend personally. Thanks so much for watching.😊
I picked it up a few days ago. Been playing with it the last few days. Gonna do a video on it within the next couple weeks. Make sure to subscribe so you can see it when it’s out!!
Yeah, ROG Ally fans can be really defensive of their console. At the end of the day, if I want a console to play my *Steam* games, I'll choose a *Steam* Deck. 95% of my PC library is on Steam, it only makes sense.
I agree. I’ve felt the heat of the Ally X fandom. Returned my Ally X yesterday. Finally done with that thing. Hope to avoid the fan base from now on.😂 Thanks so much for watching!
As someone who owned both...the winner is the ally x for me. I'm dual booting bazzite and it's 90% steam deck like why 90%? Cus at times I find myself phantomly reaching for a track pad but other than that don't miss the steam deck. I emulate my ps2 and ps3 and Xbox 360 library. My macbook and pc can handle it but as far as the steam deck goes it can only do about 20% of my library and I had gotten the steam deck to have a portable ps3 and with the ally x I can have that.
That’s a great point that I did point out in the video. If you’re doing the 360/ps2 and up emulation a ton, the Ally X is much more reliable. I also stated that a lot of those games can be purchased and played on Steam anyway. Unfortunately I can’t say on camera why emulating and using ROMs might potentially be more financially… comfortable let’s say. Emulation is great! Make sure you buy every game though.😅
@AndrewTaylorYT I can attest my library is all backed up. During the rona I went on offer up and bought lots filled with all the ps2 games I missed out in high school and all the ps3 games I couldn't afford in college and my mid 20s. I spent probably $300 for a ps2 and ps3 that came with about 40 games each of physically games. Bought an optiplex pc for $70 that had a blu ray burner and used software to back up my games onto a 5tb hard drive I had from a few years ago. I keep them all in there. I invested in a few 512gb micro sd cards and loaded the roms there. I recommend the punisher on ps2. The 360 games I just went to a mom and pops retro game store and I told the owners son what I was doing backing up games. He asked me to back up the 360 games he had so he can play them on a mini pc and let me keep a copy of about 130 games he had at the store. And I let him have my ps2 and ps3 back ups that he now runs on his lenovo legion go.
As someone who did owned both , I sold my x . Steam deck gives you everything . I just wish x had bigger oled screen . Those big bezels and small screen is just not great .
yeah im not sure id call rog ally x a gaming console its more of a small laptop with built in controller i think operating system that runs on these devices is what makes one a console or not from end user perspective… imagine running windows on ur ps5 and calling it a “console”
I think it would depend on the PS5 if the controller was still the device that came with the system to control it. The user input is the most indicative aspect of really narrowing the intentions set for the device by the manufacturer. I’d honestly just segment consoles by their provided input. OS is a decent rule of thumb but when you start narrowing it down they all run off of a similar base level of code.
I currently have a Xbox series x, and I'm looking at getting my first handheld to replace my Xbox, as a busy dad a portable is the way to go for me for convenience not being tired to a TV or certain room, I have been looking at all the handhelds, I'm looking at the steam deck but can't help think is it still worth it when it's almost 3 years old plus they might be brining a new 1 out with in the next year or so, any body got any advice on this ? Thanks
The steam deck OLED is much newer and valve has come out an reiterated that we won’t see a “Steam Deck 2” until there is a reasonable jump in computing power. I doubt you will see a new steam deck next year. Maybe they make a larger one with the same specs for a near future release? The OLED was just hardware upgrades on the outside and battery. Nothing new regarding specs. I would highly recommend it over the competition. ESPECIALLY if you just want something to relax and play on for a little bit here and there.
@@Telh-l1b It seems like he's recommending the Steam Deck even though you mentioned already having an Xbox and wanting to replace it. He also didn’t consider whether you have a Game Pass subscription, which could be important. If you do, it's worth noting that Game Pass doesn't work offline on the Steam Deck. I’d suggest looking at alternatives like the ROG Ally, Ally X, Legion Go, or other Windows-based handhelds-it really depends on your specific needs. Dual-booting Windows on the Deck isn't ideal since its processor is optimized for SteamOS, whereas devices like the Ally or Legion Go perform well on Windows and can handle dual-booting with Bazzite smoothly. If SteamOS becomes available for the Ally, that could improve performance even more. Also, if battery life is important to you, the Ally X currently has the best battery life of any handheld, and game compatibility is generally better too.
@nathanjuan6042 the steam deck will be a far nicer experience. If you’re dropping Xbox I imagine you’re dropping game pass. You can get games on steam far cheaper. Also look at websites like G2A who sells steam keys for games even cheaper. You could go for the Ally X if you want to keep paying for subscription and a slightly marginally better battery I guess? Pair that with a downright abhorrent user experience and you’ll have an 800 dollars well spent :D. Trust me brother. I’ve done multiple videos on these products now. The steam deck is the happier choice. You’ll love it.
windows is bad for gaming cause theres so many bloat apps running in background whic drain battery . Steam os is design specifically for gaming. That's prob the only reason they hate windows handheld and since most of u guys would already have pc desktop or laptop gaming
I can't decide what to get. The price difference between the SD OLED 1TB and the Ally X 1TB is only $80 where I am. I like the controls on the SD, but the better performance of the Ally X is making it really tempting.
The steam deck comes with a solid carry case. You’ll have to purchase one separately for the ally x. You could also get a 512 GB OLED and add a larger SD card or something if you wanna cut the budget back. I gave all my thoughts on the definitive handheld console in the video.
I have the original 512 lcd steam deck, rog ally z1 ext, and Steam deck Oled. I don’t like the ally at all. I have chosen a side. Nothing will ever compare to the steam deck. I wanted a new portable PlayStation but there’s no need for it now. #DeckTheWorld
Many people in these comments seem to like the Ally X more or at least give it more credit than it actually deserves. Sure performance wise it’s better than the Deck. But that’s basically the only positive side of it. Maybe a bit better battery. People however seem to forget that the Ally X costs almost DOUBLE than the Steam Deck. So not only is the Steam Deck better in almost every way but it is also A LOT cheaper. I mean of course the Ally X will have better performance if it costs almost double the price of a Deck.
Double the price of the original deck maybe, the only deck worth buying is the oled and if you want to install more than 3 modern games at a time you have to get the 1tb model and that's $650.
@@Dragon969Reviews Still A LOT cheaper than the Ally X. The msot expensive Steam Deck ist still around 100-200$ cheaper than the Ally X. And nobody forces one to buy the 1TB Steam deck. The 512gb is 100$ cheaper. So even if the Ally is not double the price of the Oled, it’s still A LOT more expensive. It’s even more expensive than a standard PS5 or Xbox for fucks sake 😂 You can even build a decent pc for the price of an Ally X There is absolutely no reason to buy it, except if you have the money and the Steam Deck isn’t enough.
For me i think the steam deck perfectly combines the portability and user friendliness of handheld consoles with gaming pc versatility and variety. Sure its not a device that has the most absolute pinnacle of gaming pc specs but its good enough for me and absolutely enjoyable. I think some people just feel likenthey need the absolute top of the range and most expensive of everything and often forget about the having fun part
I’ve noticed this too. I’m assuming it’s maybe a PC master race thing? I can’t even respond to everyone because they either don’t watch the video or they come out with arguments that are so dumb you can’t even discuss.
@@AndrewTaylorYT I dunno. I have to clarify that I have nothing against the Ally or any windows handheld pc. It’s just that they are too expensive for what they actually are. The Steam Deck finds a very good balance between price and quality. And it feels like a console which is the most important thing for most people. They don’t want to fumble around with windows.
The thing about steam deck reviewer won’t mention about these downside of steam deck is irritating me a lot. I have steam deck oled but there some things that I hate about it: - pixilated graphics especially if you turn on fsr - black bars on top and down on some games (Elden ring, DMC5, yakuza) so irritating - can’t play AAA (you can, but it feels like you force the device to play it) -performance: you don’t have enough versatility in term of improving game performance, you can only tweak 800p to 720p and that’s it. This is the biggest thing that ROG ally done it so well in term of performance tweaking, you can play any game, literally any game will run smooth on rog ally x, why?, because you have huge versatility in performance tweaking For example: 1080p 30fps, you can downscale to 900p and get 40s fps, and no pixelated Or you can play 720p with ultra settings and get 40s fps or even 60, and no pixelated (I’m talking AAA games) and VRR is so so underrated you won’t notice the clunkiness of 30 fps. And for the price of these devices: This guy didn’t mention that steam deck is $700 after tax. You pay more a lilbit and you have a huge boost of performance and no black bars and pixelated The only thing I’m getting rog ally x is to play baldur’s gate 3, oled on deck is good but I think the performance on steam deck is unplayable sometime. At the end of the day we only need a playable experience to play a game.
There is a lot more tweaking you can do on the steam deck. You can mess with the clock speeds , upscale from lower resolutions, allow tearing if you want. There is an even more with plugins.
@@drunkengame5468 what exactly don’t I get? I’m not saying the ally isn’t more powerful I’m simply addressing what you said about lack of tweaking available on the steam drck
Valve has confirmed that they are working with Asus to bring Steam OS to the Ally. So the biggest (and from what i've seen only) problem with Ally can be changed
@@AndrewTaylorYTwell i want the better specs of the ally x but i hear so many good things about how user friendly the deck is and how its an “emulation beast” and there’s other games i have no clue if ill be able to play
@zoom5773 what games are you wanting to play that you’ve got no clue about? The proton DB website is the best place to check for steam deck compatibility and id highly recommend installing their badges plugin if you get the deck. My 5 tips for the Steam deck video explains that stuff. What games though? I’m happy to search them up for you if it helps. The steam deck is 100% an emulation beast and far more user friendly and like I said in the video. I recommend the steam deck oled over the ally x as I just think it’s a better all around device.
@zoom5773 if you’re already leaning toward the steam deck oled then I don’t think you’ll be disappointed. It’s honestly one of the best things I’ve ever purchased. It’s such a fantastic gadget and you can tell that valve just wanted to make the most enjoyable hardware that they could.
wow what a bad way to compare devices. Pinpointing their strength and weaknesses is better than being a steam deck fanboi the whole video. not recommended if you're planning to buy
Thanks man.😊 While I did state facts I do want to point out that most of it is my opinions. There is no perfectly correct answer here. I just favor an integrated hardware and software experience. I feel like it lends towards a more positive user experience. The Ally X is disjointed and the hardware just isn’t as enjoyable to us IMO. Thank you so much for watching!!
I tried both devices before deciding, and right out of the box I was able to play the games I wanted on the Ally. In the deck I had to install a millón more apps and watch so many videos to make the game work. Playable was the key word for me, the SD gave me the impression that in the long run was not going to handle AAA games. I will have to say, steam deck customer service and community are great. The beauty of the handheld market at the moment is choice.
Exactly! Everyone says the Steam Deck is just pick up and play which it’s absolutely not. More often than not you have to download and experiment with different proton layers. And or change things in konsole. Also in the long run it’s not gonna run AAA games well. Hopefully 5r second gen device does. But for now I’m on team Asus. I mainly use my steam deck to play emulators.
@Will_Bx_NYC_718 what are you talking about? You boot up the steam deck out of the box and can start gaming immediately. It can run current triple A games just fine. You don’t have to go through countless updates. You boot up login and hit download and start playing. The day I got my deck I opened it up and installed 5 different games and started playing. Ally X I had to leave over night to get things going and even after that I booted a game and had to then go get an AMD driver. This isn’t even mentioning how miserable the OS navigation is if you don’t dock it and use a keyboard and mouse. I’ve literally never experimented with different proton layers and I play almost all of my games on the deck.
@@AndrewTaylorYT I’m glad you had a good experience with it, I didn’t. Most of my favorite games are from Ubisoft, Epic and EA, and sadly there is always some tinkering you have to do extra, that sometimes don’t work. I have to deal with Windows which is not great, but I can play my games.
@@caxs01 It feels like he's only considering his own point of view and gets quite defensive when other perspectives are mentioned. His review seems very biased toward the Steam Deck. I do get you since I have games on gamepass, EA, Epic, UBISOFT and Steam. FF16 plays better on ally and Starwars JEDI as well which the deck cannot even play a lot of games is not playable on deck even on its own store because of anti cheat, and underpowered chipset and ram add the fact that your locked on steam.
Ally does 1080p as far as I’m aware. If you’re goin off the display alone I don’t blame you. The LCD steam deck did not have a great display. The OLED model is best in class. The HDR is also amazing oof. Return both the ally and LCD and get yourself a SD OLED.
Complete fanboy comparison. I own both devices and you make the Ally seem like a horrible device which it’s far from. I tried to take your comparison seriously, but couldn’t after five ,I ties into the video.
I genuinely think the ROG Ally X offers a poor user experience for a premium. Few hours into testing the Lenovo legion go right now and this is already a far better windows handheld. The ROG Ally X has some higher end computational specs in it. That is all it has going for it.
The Ally X is extremely uncomfortable, heavier, has useless back buttons, doesn't support true game / UI suspension (even in hibernate), lacks trackpads for RTS / UI navigation, and the right thumbstick is either too stubby or too close to the screen & causes the UI to switch after touching the screen when aiming. When you can get an LCD Deck for under $300 or an Ally X for $800, those are some mighty big hurdles to overcome just to be able to play CoD and EA titles.
I know. Thats on me and my camera. Need to figure that out. All the banding is from one shoot. It’s all the final b roll I filmed. I’m thinking maybe it’s because I under exposed? I normally shoot at 1.7 stops over exposed and I shot those at 1 stop over. Shooting in S-log 3 on an A7IV if you can advise. Still figuring out more with the camera every video.
The one that runs lossless scaling is better. It’s not even a debate. This could only ever be a question for someone who sadly doesn’t know what lossless scaling is. That’s like someone riding a horse and carriage to work b/c they have no idea what a car is.
If game has fsr, lossless is worse option in anyway, it amazing for older games that have no scalings at all. And frame gen is hit and run, depends on game, it can be "fine" or terrible, for FF10 it has nice fps boost but some glitches kill your eyes, well X3 seems to fix it little but but you start of from base 30 fps and that's not great, 60fps is minimum for minimum glitches and eye hurting visual bugs.
@@artursobkow2680 I don’t know if you have tested lossless recently in a month or 2 using a 7,000 or 8,000 series chip but it’s the only hit in miss in terms of can you run games at 4x which many you can or maybe you have to go down to 3x or 2x for a small handful of games. It does nothing but boost every game I have and is minimally “buggy” in very few. There has been rapid improvement of this tech so if you are going off info that is even 3 months old then it’s way too old. This tech hit a crazy level of optimization in a short span of time. If you set the frame limit of your device to match the x3 or x4 frame gen then the game will run smooth & consistently & the exact level of your frame cap & it’s unlikely any experience most have likely never had in gaming. Yes you can run brand new games at 120 fps or 144 fps were it hits that number stays on that number never deviates from that number & no discernible bugs are detected. There is no noticeable fracturing. I can’t imagine you have run this tech recently with a 7,000 or 8,000 series chip. The steam deck is a different experience b/c it doesn’t have this chip or an equivalent. It’s under powered. You are going to get more fracturing and more bugs at higher levels of frame gen. Obviously.
If you frame gen horizon west you might get “flickering” as you quickly rotate the camera that occurs on the avatar of your character this is only b/c the game is far more demanding then average. This might happen only if you try to 4x your frames. Even then it’s still easily playable. Most bugs on high end games prolly will occur as a result of panning the camera. Those games are still playable anyway but if you turn the gen level down it’ll prolly go away anyway. I bet you can run 70% of games at 4x & not see bugs like this tho b/c that’s how refined the tech is today. But only today. x amount of weeks ago, the experience would have been different.
i play ps3 emulation and unfortunately steam deck doesn't do that well.... otherwise the rest i give it to steam deck and you can sideload windows for those stubborn games. Performance wise its about the same, maybe rog ally x has a few games that will win on the top, but there are FSR3 hacks. Battery life both are good with Rog ally x being a bit better about half hour to 45 extra min of play time
Pretty solid take. I know I mentioned that the later PlayStation gens don’t do to hot in emulation on the deck. A lot of those games are available and playable on Steam. Thanks so much for watching!😊
Doesn't even mention VRR lol Edit: This is a terrible review and has the issue that I find most reviewers fall into when it comes to the SD, they down play the need for more FPS. At one point you say 30 FPS is good enough, sure if you have a Switch. Any game should be trying to reach that 60 fps minimum for a fluid experience. Also frame fluctuation leads to screen tearing which the ally x fixes with VRR. You say for a more compettive experience you use your desktop which is beefier but than on handhelds you dont care for performance. Performance always matters and the opposite should be true, on a HH you want to eek out as much as you can because you always strive to just hit 60, where as on a PC you had tons of headroom. If you don't want to be spending thousands on a PC, plus a HH , just get the Ally X, if offer the most power and best battery life. As for OS, you can always change it if you don't want windows and want to severly limit your gaming selection. Most reviewers are just so disconnected to the average person, that they would maek arguments against performance is wild to me.
Actually buddy I think you’re disconnected to the average person. The average person wants to play games and have fun. This is why we have current gen consoles that play games at 30 fps at times. 30-60 is a perfectly fine sweet spot. You can lock frames on the deck and eliminate screen tearing. The user experience is paramount on a portable device that is made to do one thing. The Ally X serves up a worse user experience for the sake of “frames”. The games are wonderfully playable and responsive on the deck. The steam deck offers a much better all around user experience than the Ally X and for a cheaper price it makes it such a valuable device for the end consumer. The average consumer wants to play games and have fun. You are apart of the vocal minority my friend. By all means though. Go fill the niche you think is there. Become a reviewer for the consumer you think is being under served. More content is good for everyone. Thanks so much for watching!😊
@@AndrewTaylorYT I don't see the point of even bringing up consoles. But if you want to go there, just look at Starfield and the blow back it received from being limited to 30 FPS. No one wants and finds 30 FPS acceptable. Also the cost of these handhelds is more than most consoles. Definitely luxury items. Sure you can enable vsync and add input delay and lower the FPS. But that is my point about Oled, it comes with a compromise. As does the IPS panel, but at least Asus gives you 1080p, VRR, 120hz. The Ally does serve up a worse user experience for the sake of completeness. Thousands of games simply do not work on the SD. We are talking about some of the most popular titles as well, Fornite, Destiny, FC24, CoD. My point is this. If you want to play any game, better graphics, better battery life, better emulation, cheaper upgrade options (because 2280 SSD are cheaper than 2230, come in higher size), and an easier OS, get the Ally. Linux is not user friendly, when you run into something that does not simply work, it is a headache to deal with. There is a reason why Windows is over 95% of all gaming machines and this all while linux is free.
@FierroSev Thanks Sir ! Also if you want a steam deck experience just make a portion of your nvme for Bazzite and the other portion Windows . The only thing left would be track pads . Other than that the Ally x is the best but more expensive offer ! Vrr , ram,chipset,battery Nuff said !
I would have to do super strict tests because they’re both very similar and operate fine. The steam deck uses less power on average so possibly the deck but that’s not based on hard data. Just assumption. The deck runs less power and an OLED display takes less juice.
The steamdeck is the weakest handheld out there 💀 comparing that to the rog ally x shouldn't have happened the weakest onexplayer, ayaneo or aokzoe is miles far stronger and better than the weak deck
@fuegodragos I’ll take the complement thank you but by definition they literally are. If we are calling these handheld PCs then a modded Nintendo DS is a PC and so is an Xbox 360. These are all personal computational devices. They exist in consoles. The distinction between a console and a “PC” is purely the intention of the hardware created around the “PC” inside of it. These lil guys are gaming consoles.
How much money did you get from Steam to promote this cheap console? You can play any game on rog ally x and Valve is very limited and I said all what it matters!
You act like the steam deck is an arcade cabinet and doesn’t play anything. It plays most games. The difference is more of an Xbox vs PlayStation type ordeal. Also, why in the world would you think Steam pays creators like me??😂
30 FPS on SD and 60-70 FPS on Ally X? Nah man, I dont need that OLED screen, I need more games with more FPS. Its not fair comparison at all, and you know that every game is better to play on Ally X, but "its enough comfortable to play with 30 FPS on SD", yeah yeah....
I don't understand how anyone can compare these two devices, they're totally different. The rog ally x Is substantially more powerful Than the steam deck. I love the steam deck, but the ally Is a superior device.
Thank you so much for watching♥! Recently launched some merch in the shop below the video. Let me know what you think! What're your thoughts on the video? Which system is better? Why?
Also bought the Steam deck oled first followed by the Ally X. I decided to sell my SD as I didn't pick it up once I got the Ally X. Being a PC gamer it makes it a seamless experience. I docked the X to set everything up on my TV. As for the screen. The X is fantastic especially as I played at 1080p. The major plus for me is anti cheat and launcher's work great. I wanted to play Fc24 but didn't realise the Steam deck wouldn't play it. So PC is a must for me.
That’s a good point you made the Ally X is a better performance handheld but for me I don’t need a handheld that act as a PC setup because I already have a OP rig. I think the conclusion come down to preference, I love the steam deck because I can just relax on a sofa and play but when I want to play competitive gaming then my OP rig is the way to go. In reality there is no wrong choice it all depends on the user. You seem to know what you want which is great don’t let others dictate what you want no one is living your life but you.
@@acfeo890 I have a dedicated gaming room. But getting older and prefer handheld. Tried Switch, PS5 with Portal. Steam deck oled. But the Ally X is a sweet spot for me. Does everything my gaming PC can do in an handheld
Pretty fair review overall, but you overlooked the Ally’s biggest advantage for most of the people who are looking for an alternative to the Steam Deck: compatibility with Game Pass!! Being able to access a huge library of games right out of the box with no cost beyond the subscription price is HUGE for those of us invested in the Windows gaming ecosystem!
I'd be interested in how you set up the Ally X with a TV in a relatively seamless manner. It feels very much like I hooked my laptop or Desktop up to my TV, which is far easier and better if I just connect my laptop to the TV. I keep gravitating back to my OLED Deck because of how fluid the UI is compared to the PC desktop experience. By the end of the workday, I really can't stand spending any more time in Windows or MacOS so the console experience of the Deck is great.
@@Darkman03 I just used an Anker hub and keyboard and mouse. HDMI and came straight on. Set everything up on the TV. Took a few seconds to get everything on screen
If you have a gaming pc or gaming laptop the Ally x is useless in my opinion. The steam deck give you that console like experience that just hard for you to give up in my opinion.
I 100% agree. The Ally X just gives you a worse traditional experience while the steam deck gives you a unique and fun experience.
I disagree, I have a 4090 desktop set up and love being able to still play those same games closely to my desktop pc on the Ally. The Steam Deck is great, but is too limiting at running AAA games, and it’s not as seamless as everyone keeps saying because more often than not you have to experiment with proton, and do things within konsole.
@Will_Bx_NYC_718 I have yet to need to do any of that and still completely believe based on my own experience with the device. The Ally X offers a poor experience for the end user. It’s janky and disjointed and isn’t a “good” product.
@@Will_Bx_NYC_718 most handheld owners don’t feel the same. It’s hard as heck to play COD on a handheld. it’s without question that the ALLY is more powerful and can play more games but the console like experience the steam deck have is hard to give up..
am I the only person who really likes the windows on the ally x...?
Maybe? I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that. Like I said in the video though. Even if you like windows, you can’t really argue that on a handheld it’s not as friendly as a user experience as something like Steam OS. I personally don’t hate windows. I just hate it when my only input is basically an Xbox controller.
@@AndrewTaylorYT yeah true I just been using a razer laptop for 4 years so I guess i’m used to it & really just got this for traveling & i’m in love with it. Fire video though you explained everything really well
@wishforglory thanks so much. Means a lot.😊 glad you’re enjoying it. At the end of the day. As long as you’re happy with the money spent and you’re having fun playing games, that’s what matters most. Thanks so much for watching.
Windows had good as pc system but not game I which if all Windows drivers on deck oled
Ppl that hate windows on handhelds are silly geese
My steamdeck is an indie/emulation machine i love it
I love it to. Thanks so much for watching!
I absolutely love the steam deck. It definitely is better when it comes ergonomics and the user experience. But I think you are definitely underplaying the Ally X. I have both and I personally choose the Ally X now while my wife uses the steam deck to play her “cozy” games. You clearly like the steam deck more and I don’t blame you it’s such a great product. But the Ally X is just way better at actually playing games. More power, bigger battery, vrr screen, bigger game selection. All the stuff that actually makes a difference when it comes to games is just better on the Ally X.
For anyone trying to decide which to get, here my 2 cents. The biggest thing on a handheld is battery. Yeah the SD OLED has an ok battery but it doesn’t even come close to the Ally X. The screen on the X is a high end LCD with great colors and brightness. Don’t think the screen is bad just because it’s not OLED and with having VRR games feel so so much smoother. Saying FPS doesn’t matter when you are playing on a handheld is crazy to me. Going between 20-35 FPS to 45-60 FPS is such a huge difference compared to going from, 144 to 500 FPS. You get more FPS, smoother gameplay with VRR, more battery/playing time on the X.
If you are only going to play indie games heads down steam deck all the way, no question, my wife loves it. But if you want to play actual AAA games, Ally X. I just finish playing Control. I tried on the steam deck and I was getting around 20-40 fps. On the X constant 50-70 fps and felt so smooth. If you have big hands, they make comfort grips. Now you have great ergonomics and the power to actually play games. I’m very excited for the next generation steam deck tho.
agree with u way more than him
Yeah his comparison is very bias. I tried to take it seriously, but he made the Ally sound like it’s terrible. I own bo5 a steam deck and Ally, and I play on my Ally X more. Once I installed Bazzite on my Ally I hardly ever pick up the Deck, unless it’s to play emulators.
Love your puffin background!
Thank you!
And there you have it.. the Steam deck is really the best bang for buck. I’ve just picked up my oled and even tho I mainly got it to play my old school PS2 games. I’ve been enjoying the triple A type games on it as well. Its track pad is SO good for Linux OS navigation as well.
100% agree
I struggled between these two for like a month but ended up gong with the steam deck. I was scared because the ally x has better performance but you know what? I don't really care after getting the deck. The ease of use just makes it so nice. Plus the OLED is just insane to look at. I have fast wifi and if i need more power I just remote stream from my desktop and it works flawlessly. If its your only gaming device maybe look at the ally x but if you have a gaming desktop already get the deck for sure.
I agree with this very much. Thanks so much for watching!
Oled owner here.. triple AAA games on the deck feel like a novelty more than anything. Played most of spiderman 2018 on it and had no complaints. Went back to my pc rig to finish it off and the visuals are night and day (2k monitor, 7800xt, 5700x3d, 32gb 3600 ram). You have to tweak and make sacrices for the newer games to run and it can still get the job done but does not feel like it was designed to do so. Where the device shines imo is playing older games in your backlog (for me.. games like alien isolation, borderlands 2, mad max, mgsv, darksiders 2, tomb raider trilogy etc. When you can get 60fps and even 90fps on these titles, it's pretty badass. Replaying gta IV and watch dogs just because i can. Not to mention all the indie games and emulation.. can't beat it with a stick. Ill pass on windows handhelds until MS comes out with a mobile OS with a kernal designed for gaming.. which will basically resemble steam os. So.. to each their own. If you play a lot of AAA, steam deck is probably not the right choice.
Frames don't matter? Frames are all that matter!
It doesnt "force" you to use Windows. It just comes installed with it. Thats like saying the SD FORCES you to use linyx. I'm someone who has no experience with installing other software. All I did was follow a step by step youtube video and installed Bazzite on my Ally. Now it acts just like Steam OS
I have both and the really underrated feature for me on the Ally X that really doesn’t get much credit is the VRR in the display. It makes games run soo much smoother. There would be games that I would play on the Steam Deck OLED where you would really notice the drop of FPS and screen tear but with the VRR display and more power it’s becomes a smoother gameplay experience.
VRR is a moot point once you dock it for playing on a larger screen though, a big selling point of the handheld PCs is using them like a Nintendo Switch. Windows is a bit finnicky about how it implements VRR as well, either it's set to Exclusive Full Screen apps or Windowed apps, and there are absolutely titles out there that only offer windowed / windowed Fullscreen or windowed / exclusive Fullscreen.
Thanks for the video. I was having a hard time figuring out which one to get. But at the end of the day just like your video showed it depends on what kind of gamer you are. If you want to relax and boot up a game and not be bothered much by the tech details then go for SD. If you want a portable PC with more power and more AAA games at your disposal then it's Ally X. I think both are good at what type of gamer they cater to.
They’re both solid! Thanks so much for watching.😊
for those who enjoy their deck but don’t want to play just indies, single player AAAs, yet limited to playing other games due to anti cheat?
best solution for me is getting an AllyX and dual boot Bazzite steam OS boom, Best of both worlds of wins and steam os. regardless the ergonomics and display on the deck is unmatched and that’s why I kept mines while having allyX 😅
Haven’t watched the video yet, but I can’t imagine the Decknis better considering the price and specs. That being said I never felt the need to get a better system than the deck. It does everything I need it to. Particularly emulation up to Wiiu.
Steam deck is my first portable pc console or whatever you want to call it. I absolutely love it.
It’s a great machine for sure. I play on it still all of the time.
Had both
Hated Both but I enjoyed the video 😂
That’s fair! Why did you hate both? Just curious. Not a fan of handheld gaming in general?
The most honest comparison on TH-cam. I also have gaming pc. Leaning toward picking up deck oled to play on the go seamlessly.
I would highly recommend that! It’s the way to go.
Worth reminding people that SteamOS is coming to Ally, and Bazzite already exists. Also you can setup the Ally to boot straight into Steam Big Picture mode, which does a better job of hiding Windows jank.
Thanks for your comparison!
No problem! Thank you for watching!
Really important to mention that these are COMPUTERS put windows on both, put Linux on both. Do what you want, not limited like actual consoles
You are a talented content creator. Love your videos, keep it up :3
That’s means so much. Thank you🥺 I’m gonna keep working. Weekly videos. Like I said in the 1 year on TH-cam video. Gonna give this channel my full focus for 2 years and see if I can make it my day job. I love making stuff and hanging out with you guys so much. Hope to get twitch streams going a couple times a week here soon as well so we can all really hang out and have conversations. Thank you so so so much for the love and support.❤️
He's terrible. Look at his last video where he argued like a 5 year old in the comments against people who knew what they were talking about. He clearly has an inferiority complex & doesn't like being wrong. He got ratio'ed hard.
Really great video Andrew! I solely use my SD OLED for all games. For multiplayer titles I use XBPlay for my series x and Chiaki4Deck for my PS5, but am I missing out on anything by not having it natively play on a handheld ie rog ally x? Just wanted your thoughts. Thanks!
If you play casually and just have fun you probably aren’t missing to much. If you’re trying to get into competitive stuff then you’re missing out a bit. If you want to go competitive though you probably want to jump to a laptop or desktop. If you’re having fun that’s the most important thing! Thanks so much for watching!
I have both device steamdeck for 4 months and rog ally x for 3 weeks. Steam os (linux) so streamed line but so many restrictions (cant mod, anti cheat, limited games) while windows yes slighty trickier but it doesn't have all does problem. You can mod, you can play any game you want so rog ally x is not just slightly complicated handheld to own. For a price of flexibility. If you get a error on rog ally x theres a workaround if you get error on linux then its done no workarounds. A love the steamdeck oled but its design to play indie games or older triple A titles. Compared to the rog ally x which shocks me to play triple A current titles at ease. The difference is not just a simple couple of frames. The difference is clearly night and day. And as i own both dont let anyone say rog ally x is complicated for a casual techie like me i would say for difficulty for each handheld steamdeck oled will be 4 while rog ally x is 5 maybe 6 at best.
Great review liked that you where honest with rog ally x review have steam deck but really wanna play black ops 6 on the go.
I played the black ops 6 beta exclusively on the ROG Ally X and it was good sometimes. If you really wanna give it a go id recommend picking one up from Best Buy. If you get the Best Buy plus membership (Its like 50 bucks a year and you get a ton of bonuses) you get 60 day return periods. Go grab one and play it for a month and make up a decision on whether you think it's worth it for you or not. That's what I would recomend personally. Thanks so much for watching.😊
I want the legion go so bad. Do u have it?
I picked it up a few days ago. Been playing with it the last few days. Gonna do a video on it within the next couple weeks. Make sure to subscribe so you can see it when it’s out!!
Yeah, ROG Ally fans can be really defensive of their console. At the end of the day, if I want a console to play my *Steam* games, I'll choose a *Steam* Deck. 95% of my PC library is on Steam, it only makes sense.
I agree. I’ve felt the heat of the Ally X fandom. Returned my Ally X yesterday. Finally done with that thing. Hope to avoid the fan base from now on.😂 Thanks so much for watching!
As someone who owned both...the winner is the ally x for me. I'm dual booting bazzite and it's 90% steam deck like why 90%? Cus at times I find myself phantomly reaching for a track pad but other than that don't miss the steam deck. I emulate my ps2 and ps3 and Xbox 360 library. My macbook and pc can handle it but as far as the steam deck goes it can only do about 20% of my library and I had gotten the steam deck to have a portable ps3 and with the ally x I can have that.
That’s a great point that I did point out in the video. If you’re doing the 360/ps2 and up emulation a ton, the Ally X is much more reliable. I also stated that a lot of those games can be purchased and played on Steam anyway. Unfortunately I can’t say on camera why emulating and using ROMs might potentially be more financially… comfortable let’s say. Emulation is great! Make sure you buy every game though.😅
@AndrewTaylorYT I can attest my library is all backed up. During the rona I went on offer up and bought lots filled with all the ps2 games I missed out in high school and all the ps3 games I couldn't afford in college and my mid 20s. I spent probably $300 for a ps2 and ps3 that came with about 40 games each of physically games. Bought an optiplex pc for $70 that had a blu ray burner and used software to back up my games onto a 5tb hard drive I had from a few years ago. I keep them all in there. I invested in a few 512gb micro sd cards and loaded the roms there. I recommend the punisher on ps2. The 360 games I just went to a mom and pops retro game store and I told the owners son what I was doing backing up games. He asked me to back up the 360 games he had so he can play them on a mini pc and let me keep a copy of about 130 games he had at the store. And I let him have my ps2 and ps3 back ups that he now runs on his lenovo legion go.
As someone who did owned both , I sold my x . Steam deck gives you everything . I just wish x had bigger oled screen . Those big bezels and small screen is just not great .
yeah im not sure id call rog ally x a gaming console its more of a small laptop with built in controller i think operating system that runs on these devices is what makes one a console or not from end user perspective… imagine running windows on ur ps5 and calling it a “console”
I think it would depend on the PS5 if the controller was still the device that came with the system to control it. The user input is the most indicative aspect of really narrowing the intentions set for the device by the manufacturer. I’d honestly just segment consoles by their provided input. OS is a decent rule of thumb but when you start narrowing it down they all run off of a similar base level of code.
I currently have a Xbox series x, and I'm looking at getting my first handheld to replace my Xbox, as a busy dad a portable is the way to go for me for convenience not being tired to a TV or certain room, I have been looking at all the handhelds, I'm looking at the steam deck but can't help think is it still worth it when it's almost 3 years old plus they might be brining a new 1 out with in the next year or so, any body got any advice on this ? Thanks
The steam deck OLED is much newer and valve has come out an reiterated that we won’t see a “Steam Deck 2” until there is a reasonable jump in computing power. I doubt you will see a new steam deck next year. Maybe they make a larger one with the same specs for a near future release? The OLED was just hardware upgrades on the outside and battery. Nothing new regarding specs. I would highly recommend it over the competition. ESPECIALLY if you just want something to relax and play on for a little bit here and there.
@@AndrewTaylorYT thanks for the reply dude I'm a new sub great vids
@Telh-l1b thank you so much. Working hard to make content that makes y’all proud to sub. ❤️
@@Telh-l1b It seems like he's recommending the Steam Deck even though you mentioned already having an Xbox and wanting to replace it. He also didn’t consider whether you have a Game Pass subscription, which could be important. If you do, it's worth noting that Game Pass doesn't work offline on the Steam Deck.
I’d suggest looking at alternatives like the ROG Ally, Ally X, Legion Go, or other Windows-based handhelds-it really depends on your specific needs. Dual-booting Windows on the Deck isn't ideal since its processor is optimized for SteamOS, whereas devices like the Ally or Legion Go perform well on Windows and can handle dual-booting with Bazzite smoothly.
If SteamOS becomes available for the Ally, that could improve performance even more. Also, if battery life is important to you, the Ally X currently has the best battery life of any handheld, and game compatibility is generally better too.
@nathanjuan6042 the steam deck will be a far nicer experience. If you’re dropping Xbox I imagine you’re dropping game pass. You can get games on steam far cheaper. Also look at websites like G2A who sells steam keys for games even cheaper. You could go for the Ally X if you want to keep paying for subscription and a slightly marginally better battery I guess? Pair that with a downright abhorrent user experience and you’ll have an 800 dollars well spent :D. Trust me brother. I’ve done multiple videos on these products now. The steam deck is the happier choice. You’ll love it.
windows is bad for gaming cause theres so many bloat apps running in background whic drain battery . Steam os is design specifically for gaming. That's prob the only reason they hate windows handheld and since most of u guys would already have pc desktop or laptop gaming
I can't decide what to get. The price difference between the SD OLED 1TB and the Ally X 1TB is only $80 where I am.
I like the controls on the SD, but the better performance of the Ally X is making it really tempting.
The steam deck comes with a solid carry case. You’ll have to purchase one separately for the ally x. You could also get a 512 GB OLED and add a larger SD card or something if you wanna cut the budget back. I gave all my thoughts on the definitive handheld console in the video.
I have the original 512 lcd steam deck, rog ally z1 ext, and Steam deck Oled. I don’t like the ally at all. I have chosen a side. Nothing will ever compare to the steam deck. I wanted a new portable PlayStation but there’s no need for it now. #DeckTheWorld
Many people in these comments seem to like the Ally X more or at least give it more credit than it actually deserves.
Sure performance wise it’s better than the Deck. But that’s basically the only positive side of it. Maybe a bit better battery.
People however seem to forget that the Ally X costs almost DOUBLE than the Steam Deck. So not only is the Steam Deck better in almost every way but it is also A LOT cheaper.
I mean of course the Ally X will have better performance if it costs almost double the price of a Deck.
Double the price of the original deck maybe, the only deck worth buying is the oled and if you want to install more than 3 modern games at a time you have to get the 1tb model and that's $650.
@@Dragon969Reviews Still A LOT cheaper than the Ally X. The msot expensive Steam Deck ist still around 100-200$ cheaper than the Ally X.
And nobody forces one to buy the 1TB Steam deck. The 512gb is 100$ cheaper.
So even if the Ally is not double the price of the Oled, it’s still A LOT more expensive.
It’s even more expensive than a standard PS5 or Xbox for fucks sake 😂 You can even build a decent pc for the price of an Ally X
There is absolutely no reason to buy it, except if you have the money and the Steam Deck isn’t enough.
For me i think the steam deck perfectly combines the portability and user friendliness of handheld consoles with gaming pc versatility and variety. Sure its not a device that has the most absolute pinnacle of gaming pc specs but its good enough for me and absolutely enjoyable. I think some people just feel likenthey need the absolute top of the range and most expensive of everything and often forget about the having fun part
I’ve noticed this too. I’m assuming it’s maybe a PC master race thing? I can’t even respond to everyone because they either don’t watch the video or they come out with arguments that are so dumb you can’t even discuss.
@@AndrewTaylorYT I dunno. I have to clarify that I have nothing against the Ally or any windows handheld pc. It’s just that they are too expensive for what they actually are.
The Steam Deck finds a very good balance between price and quality. And it feels like a console which is the most important thing for most people. They don’t want to fumble around with windows.
thats not a vrs video thats a bash on the ally x
Imagine a product winning in a versus. Can’t even be considered a versus.
Steam OS is fantastic 👌
Agreed!
The thing about steam deck reviewer won’t mention about these downside of steam deck is irritating me a lot.
I have steam deck oled but there some things that I hate about it:
- pixilated graphics especially if you turn on fsr
- black bars on top and down on some games (Elden ring, DMC5, yakuza) so irritating
- can’t play AAA (you can, but it feels like you force the device to play it)
-performance: you don’t have enough versatility in term of improving game performance, you can only tweak 800p to 720p and that’s it.
This is the biggest thing that ROG ally done it so well in term of performance tweaking, you can play any game, literally any game will run smooth on rog ally x, why?, because you have huge versatility in performance tweaking
For example: 1080p 30fps, you can downscale to 900p and get 40s fps, and no pixelated
Or you can play 720p with ultra settings and get 40s fps or even 60, and no pixelated (I’m talking AAA games) and VRR is so so underrated you won’t notice the clunkiness of 30 fps.
And for the price of these devices:
This guy didn’t mention that steam deck is $700 after tax. You pay more a lilbit and you have a huge boost of performance and no black bars and pixelated
The only thing I’m getting rog ally x is to play baldur’s gate 3, oled on deck is good but I think the performance on steam deck is unplayable sometime.
At the end of the day we only need a playable experience to play a game.
Not to mention AFMF making it even more smooth.
There is a lot more tweaking you can do on the steam deck. You can mess with the clock speeds , upscale from lower resolutions, allow tearing if you want. There is an even more with plugins.
@@michaelbahu2528 you don’t get it
@@drunkengame5468 what exactly don’t I get? I’m not saying the ally isn’t more powerful I’m simply addressing what you said about lack of tweaking available on the steam drck
Valve has confirmed that they are working with Asus to bring Steam OS to the Ally. So the biggest (and from what i've seen only) problem with Ally can be changed
i’m going insane trying to figure out which one to get😭💀
What're you hung up on between the two? I might be able to help.
@@AndrewTaylorYTwell i want the better specs of the ally x but i hear so many good things about how user friendly the deck is and how its an “emulation beast” and there’s other games i have no clue if ill be able to play
don’t know how to get the best of both worlds but i’ve been really leaning towards the steam deck
@zoom5773 what games are you wanting to play that you’ve got no clue about? The proton DB website is the best place to check for steam deck compatibility and id highly recommend installing their badges plugin if you get the deck. My 5 tips for the Steam deck video explains that stuff. What games though? I’m happy to search them up for you if it helps. The steam deck is 100% an emulation beast and far more user friendly and like I said in the video. I recommend the steam deck oled over the ally x as I just think it’s a better all around device.
@zoom5773 if you’re already leaning toward the steam deck oled then I don’t think you’ll be disappointed. It’s honestly one of the best things I’ve ever purchased. It’s such a fantastic gadget and you can tell that valve just wanted to make the most enjoyable hardware that they could.
Touchpads. Next question 🗿🍷
Haptic Touch pads👑
What are everyone’s thoughts on the thumbnail? Starting to design them myself and finally was able to ditch adobe and get a photoshop alternative.
wow what a bad way to compare devices. Pinpointing their strength and weaknesses is better than being a steam deck fanboi the whole video. not recommended if you're planning to buy
It was an excellent and factual video .
Thanks man.😊 While I did state facts I do want to point out that most of it is my opinions. There is no perfectly correct answer here. I just favor an integrated hardware and software experience. I feel like it lends towards a more positive user experience. The Ally X is disjointed and the hardware just isn’t as enjoyable to us IMO. Thank you so much for watching!!
I tried both devices before deciding, and right out of the box I was able to play the games I wanted on the Ally. In the deck I had to install a millón more apps and watch so many videos to make the game work. Playable was the key word for me, the SD gave me the impression that in the long run was not going to handle AAA games. I will have to say, steam deck customer service and community are great. The beauty of the handheld market at the moment is choice.
Exactly! Everyone says the Steam Deck is just pick up and play which it’s absolutely not. More often than not you have to download and experiment with different proton layers. And or change things in konsole. Also in the long run it’s not gonna run AAA games well. Hopefully 5r second gen device does. But for now I’m on team Asus. I mainly use my steam deck to play emulators.
@Will_Bx_NYC_718 what are you talking about? You boot up the steam deck out of the box and can start gaming immediately. It can run current triple A games just fine. You don’t have to go through countless updates. You boot up login and hit download and start playing. The day I got my deck I opened it up and installed 5 different games and started playing. Ally X I had to leave over night to get things going and even after that I booted a game and had to then go get an AMD driver. This isn’t even mentioning how miserable the OS navigation is if you don’t dock it and use a keyboard and mouse. I’ve literally never experimented with different proton layers and I play almost all of my games on the deck.
@@AndrewTaylorYT I’m glad you had a good experience with it, I didn’t. Most of my favorite games are from Ubisoft, Epic and EA, and sadly there is always some tinkering you have to do extra, that sometimes don’t work. I have to deal with Windows which is not great, but I can play my games.
@@caxs01 It feels like he's only considering his own point of view and gets quite defensive when other perspectives are mentioned. His review seems very biased toward the Steam Deck. I do get you since I have games on gamepass, EA, Epic, UBISOFT and Steam. FF16 plays better on ally and Starwars JEDI as well which the deck cannot even play a lot of games is not playable on deck even on its own store because of anti cheat, and underpowered chipset and ram add the fact that your locked on steam.
900p on the Ally looks very good with RIS. Coming from an SD LCD, I don't think I'm going to return to SD unless there is a Steam Deck 2.
Ally does 1080p as far as I’m aware. If you’re goin off the display alone I don’t blame you. The LCD steam deck did not have a great display. The OLED model is best in class. The HDR is also amazing oof. Return both the ally and LCD and get yourself a SD OLED.
Nah, I'm good. That is not the only reason for the transition. Game compatibility, familiar software (windows) & performance increase.
@@izcondoralexander He is trying too hard to sell the deck even tho you already said your satisfied with the ally. Shows how biased he is on the deck.
I’m trying to sell it so hard. Valve pays me 200k a year to share my personal opinion. It’s crazy man.
@@AndrewTaylorYT 🤣
Complete fanboy comparison. I own both devices and you make the Ally seem like a horrible device which it’s far from. I tried to take your comparison seriously, but couldn’t after five ,I ties into the video.
I genuinely think the ROG Ally X offers a poor user experience for a premium. Few hours into testing the Lenovo legion go right now and this is already a far better windows handheld. The ROG Ally X has some higher end computational specs in it. That is all it has going for it.
The Ally X is extremely uncomfortable, heavier, has useless back buttons, doesn't support true game / UI suspension (even in hibernate), lacks trackpads for RTS / UI navigation, and the right thumbstick is either too stubby or too close to the screen & causes the UI to switch after touching the screen when aiming. When you can get an LCD Deck for under $300 or an Ally X for $800, those are some mighty big hurdles to overcome just to be able to play CoD and EA titles.
You do have huge bhands, the ally x looks like a switch lite in your videos
I know. Thats on me and my camera. Need to figure that out. All the banding is from one shoot. It’s all the final b roll I filmed. I’m thinking maybe it’s because I under exposed? I normally shoot at 1.7 stops over exposed and I shot those at 1 stop over. Shooting in S-log 3 on an A7IV if you can advise. Still figuring out more with the camera every video.
The one that runs lossless scaling is better. It’s not even a debate. This could only ever be a question for someone who sadly doesn’t know what lossless scaling is. That’s like someone riding a horse and carriage to work b/c they have no idea what a car is.
If game has fsr, lossless is worse option in anyway, it amazing for older games that have no scalings at all.
And frame gen is hit and run, depends on game, it can be "fine" or terrible, for FF10 it has nice fps boost but some glitches kill your eyes, well X3 seems to fix it little but but you start of from base 30 fps and that's not great, 60fps is minimum for minimum glitches and eye hurting visual bugs.
@@artursobkow2680 I don’t know if you have tested lossless recently in a month or 2 using a 7,000 or 8,000 series chip but it’s the only hit in miss in terms of can you run games at 4x which many you can or maybe you have to go down to 3x or 2x for a small handful of games. It does nothing but boost every game I have and is minimally “buggy” in very few. There has been rapid improvement of this tech so if you are going off info that is even 3 months old then it’s way too old. This tech hit a crazy level of optimization in a short span of time. If you set the frame limit of your device to match the x3 or x4 frame gen then the game will run smooth & consistently & the exact level of your frame cap & it’s unlikely any experience most have likely never had in gaming. Yes you can run brand new games at 120 fps or 144 fps were it hits that number stays on that number never deviates from that number & no discernible bugs are detected. There is no noticeable fracturing. I can’t imagine you have run this tech recently with a 7,000 or 8,000 series chip. The steam deck is a different experience b/c it doesn’t have this chip or an equivalent. It’s under powered. You are going to get more fracturing and more bugs at higher levels of frame gen. Obviously.
If you frame gen horizon west you might get “flickering” as you quickly rotate the camera that occurs on the avatar of your character this is only b/c the game is far more demanding then average. This might happen only if you try to 4x your frames. Even then it’s still easily playable. Most bugs on high end games prolly will occur as a result of panning the camera. Those games are still playable anyway but if you turn the gen level down it’ll prolly go away anyway. I bet you can run 70% of games at 4x & not see bugs like this tho b/c that’s how refined the tech is today. But only today. x amount of weeks ago, the experience would have been different.
i play ps3 emulation and unfortunately steam deck doesn't do that well.... otherwise the rest i give it to steam deck and you can sideload windows for those stubborn games. Performance wise its about the same, maybe rog ally x has a few games that will win on the top, but there are FSR3 hacks. Battery life both are good with Rog ally x being a bit better about half hour to 45 extra min of play time
Pretty solid take. I know I mentioned that the later PlayStation gens don’t do to hot in emulation on the deck. A lot of those games are available and playable on Steam. Thanks so much for watching!😊
Doesn't even mention VRR lol
Edit: This is a terrible review and has the issue that I find most reviewers fall into when it comes to the SD, they down play the need for more FPS. At one point you say 30 FPS is good enough, sure if you have a Switch. Any game should be trying to reach that 60 fps minimum for a fluid experience. Also frame fluctuation leads to screen tearing which the ally x fixes with VRR.
You say for a more compettive experience you use your desktop which is beefier but than on handhelds you dont care for performance. Performance always matters and the opposite should be true, on a HH you want to eek out as much as you can because you always strive to just hit 60, where as on a PC you had tons of headroom.
If you don't want to be spending thousands on a PC, plus a HH , just get the Ally X, if offer the most power and best battery life. As for OS, you can always change it if you don't want windows and want to severly limit your gaming selection.
Most reviewers are just so disconnected to the average person, that they would maek arguments against performance is wild to me.
Actually buddy I think you’re disconnected to the average person. The average person wants to play games and have fun. This is why we have current gen consoles that play games at 30 fps at times. 30-60 is a perfectly fine sweet spot. You can lock frames on the deck and eliminate screen tearing. The user experience is paramount on a portable device that is made to do one thing. The Ally X serves up a worse user experience for the sake of “frames”. The games are wonderfully playable and responsive on the deck. The steam deck offers a much better all around user experience than the Ally X and for a cheaper price it makes it such a valuable device for the end consumer. The average consumer wants to play games and have fun. You are apart of the vocal minority my friend. By all means though. Go fill the niche you think is there. Become a reviewer for the consumer you think is being under served. More content is good for everyone. Thanks so much for watching!😊
@@AndrewTaylorYT I don't see the point of even bringing up consoles. But if you want to go there, just look at Starfield and the blow back it received from being limited to 30 FPS. No one wants and finds 30 FPS acceptable. Also the cost of these handhelds is more than most consoles. Definitely luxury items.
Sure you can enable vsync and add input delay and lower the FPS. But that is my point about Oled, it comes with a compromise. As does the IPS panel, but at least Asus gives you 1080p, VRR, 120hz.
The Ally does serve up a worse user experience for the sake of completeness. Thousands of games simply do not work on the SD. We are talking about some of the most popular titles as well, Fornite, Destiny, FC24, CoD.
My point is this. If you want to play any game, better graphics, better battery life, better emulation, cheaper upgrade options (because 2280 SSD are cheaper than 2230, come in higher size), and an easier OS, get the Ally. Linux is not user friendly, when you run into something that does not simply work, it is a headache to deal with.
There is a reason why Windows is over 95% of all gaming machines and this all while linux is free.
@FierroSev Thanks Sir ! Also if you want a steam deck experience just make a portion of your nvme for Bazzite and the other portion Windows . The only thing left would be track pads . Other than that the Ally x is the best but more expensive offer ! Vrr , ram,chipset,battery Nuff said !
What should I get if I only care about battery life?
I would have to do super strict tests because they’re both very similar and operate fine. The steam deck uses less power on average so possibly the deck but that’s not based on hard data. Just assumption. The deck runs less power and an OLED display takes less juice.
Steam deck oled better longer age unlike and 6 months we see new ally 😂
Something like that? Thanks for watching!
The steamdeck is the weakest handheld out there 💀 comparing that to the rog ally x shouldn't have happened the weakest onexplayer, ayaneo or aokzoe is miles far stronger and better than the weak deck
I agree with everything you say but their not consoles, their hand-held pc. 👍
Literally the same thing. Thanks for watching!
@@AndrewTaylorYT no it's not the same. Great video though 👍🏾
@fuegodragos I’ll take the complement thank you but by definition they literally are. If we are calling these handheld PCs then a modded Nintendo DS is a PC and so is an Xbox 360. These are all personal computational devices. They exist in consoles. The distinction between a console and a “PC” is purely the intention of the hardware created around the “PC” inside of it. These lil guys are gaming consoles.
I thought I'd see some benchmarks..
Wrong channel for benchmarks!
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How much money did you get from Steam to promote this cheap console? You can play any game on rog ally x and Valve is very limited and I said all what it matters!
You act like the steam deck is an arcade cabinet and doesn’t play anything. It plays most games. The difference is more of an Xbox vs PlayStation type ordeal. Also, why in the world would you think Steam pays creators like me??😂
30 FPS on SD and 60-70 FPS on Ally X? Nah man, I dont need that OLED screen, I need more games with more FPS. Its not fair comparison at all, and you know that every game is better to play on Ally X, but "its enough comfortable to play with 30 FPS on SD", yeah yeah....
Obviously I’m lying because Gaben paid me to talk about my experience with the steam deck and Ally X.😂
I don't understand how anyone can compare these two devices, they're totally different. The rog ally x Is substantially more powerful Than the steam deck. I love the steam deck, but the ally Is a superior device.