A Year with Steam Deck & Rouges: My Insights After a Decade of Gaming

Key Takeaways

• SteamOS offers a smooth gaming experience with Game Mode and controller optimization, outshining Windows on handhelds.
• ROG Ally boasts superior gaming performance, resolution options, and screen quality, but suffers from poor battery life.
• The Ally wins for game compatibility and local game streaming, while the Deck excels in ergonomics and software usability.

I’ve been using my Steam Deck since the tail end of 2022 and a ROG Ally since July 2023. In that time I’ve used both enough to form some strong opinions. Here are my thoughts on the two handhelds, which I prefer, and the reasoning behind my decision.

Software-Wise, I Strongly Prefer SteamOS

Steam

SteamOS has come a long way from the janky OS found on the first wave of Steam Machines to a proper Windows replacement for gaming purposes, with support for more than 10,000 games. I love it. I love Game Mode and the fact that a casual user doesn’t have to switch to Desktop Mode even once because Steam Deck’s Game Mode has everything you need to play your Steam games.

I also love Game Mode because it looks great, runs even better, and is optimized for controller navigation. I love SteamOS Desktop Mode because it functions like Windows, and thanks to the inclusion of dual trackpads, it’s easy to navigate compared to relying on an analog stick alone. The overall experience is in not as involved as you might think a Linux-based OS would be. You can do plenty of things without typing anything in Konsole or just copying and pasting commands you find online.

On the other hand, Windows on gaming handhelds is a chore to use and navigate around. It would be great news for every Windows gaming handheld owner if we got a controller-friendly UI sometime in the future. Maybe Microsoft will unretire the Metro UI , which could work fantastically with a controller. Perhaps the next ROG Ally comes with a trackpad. At the moment, navigating around Windows with a thumbstick is unpleasant at best, and frustrating at worst.

Then you have the updates associated with Windows that can spoil gaming performance or install apps without your knowledge. These can end up causing games to crash until a random ROG Ally owner identifies the problem and kindly shares their findings on Reddit. You can also end up with Windows replacing your GPU drivers making your games run like crap.

Other issues include a bunch of preinstalled shovelware apps that have no place on a gaming handheld. Specific options degrade gaming performance, like Memory Integrity which is turned on by default, or Windows Modern Standby which can fully drain your Ally’s battery overnight. You have to spend an afternoon or two just updating and optimizing stuff on your Ally, which you don’t have to do on the Steam Deck.

ASUS’ custom software, known as Armoury Crate, works pretty well on the Ally. It’s not a looker but it’s a pretty solid control center app that includes all the device-specific options and tools. Navigating around it with a thumbstick or D-pad feels fine. But even after completing the initial Windows setup, I have to use Windows UI quite frequently. I would love to be able to find all the settings and tweaks I need inside Armoury Crate, but the truth is that I cannot escape the Windows UI.

SteamOS isn’t perfect either. I have experienced weird glitches and issues after multiple updates, slow download speeds over Wi-Fi, and I have to jump through multiple hoops to make non-Steam games work. But at the end of the day, I strongly prefer SteamOS to Windows as my OS of choice on a gaming-centric handheld.

When It Comes to Power and Battery Management, It’s a Tie

When it comes to power, the ROG Ally is a beast that runs circles around the Steam Deck. That said, I’m still impressed with the level of performance my Steam Deck can deliver with its max TDP pegged at 15W. Also, while the Ally is quite potent for a handheld, it needs at least 12W-13W to show its muscles, while the Deck can run less demanding games with less than 10W of power.

In my experience, 18W is the sweet spot for a custom power profile on the Ally. This is a game changer for performance because I can drop the resolution to 720p and apply the Radeon Image Sharpening (RIS) filter to get massively improved performance compared to the Steam Deck. Even better, many games don’t even need to drop to 720p. 900p, which looks almost indistinguishable from 1080p on the Ally’s 7-inch screen, is the sweet spot performance-wise for a bunch of demanding games.

The Deck is the better handheld at lower TDP values, but the Ally is the overall winner here thanks to its superior gaming performance, three different resolution options, and the fact that it can leapfrog the Deck by using only 3W more power.

But when it comes to battery management, the Deck is way better. Not only do I get 50% longer battery life when gaming with a max TDP on my Deck compared to my Ally—about one and half an hour on my Deck versus just below an hour on the Ally—but you can have double the battery life compared to the Ally if you get a Steam Deck OLED, with the OLED offering almost two hours of battery at max power.

The ROG Ally’s battery life is dismal , and I hope that the ROG Ally X delivers on its promise and packs a much larger cell than the 40Wh found in the OG Ally.

The ROG Ally Has Better Build Quality, Controls, and Ergonomics

Goran Damnjanovic / How-To Geek

The build quality is fantastic on both my Deck and Ally. They’re both well-built machines that I have had zero issues with up until this point. I’ve opened both the Deck and Ally multiple times, and reassembling them always went smoothly.

Design-wise, the Deck definitely looks better. On the other hand, the ROG Ally looks like a plain ol’ gaming handheld, only bigger.

Controls are slightly better on the Deck thanks to its dual trackpads and the positioning of the thumbstick and face buttons. I also like the super wide triggers on the Deck. The bumpers on the Deck are too mushy so I prefer the bumpers on the Ally. D-pads could’ve been better on both devices, but since I managed to beat the Basic mode in Lumines Remastered on my Ally but not on my Deck, I’d take the Ally’s D-pad over the Deck’s any day of the week.

Thumbsticks feel better on the Deck since they’re tighter; the ones on the Ally are too loose for my taste, but I can use them without issues. The sticks isn’t on both the Deck and the Ally could be grippier; I recommend owners of both devices to get a pair of thumbstick grips. The face buttons are slightly better on the Deck. The Ally’s face buttons are a bit too rattly, but that doesn’t necessarily make them less responsive.

The Ally has a much better screen than the Deck, at least the LCD Deck. It’s very bright, with nicely saturated colors and variable refresh rate (VRR) support. This is a massive advantage on a handheld where frame rates can be erratic. I haven’t yet had the chance to see the OLED Deck in person, but from my current experience with OLED screens, I reckon that the image quality of the OLED screen is noticeably better than the Ally, especially if we consider the HDR support.

Lastly, let’s talk about ergonomics. During short gaming sessions, I prefer holding the Deck. Its chunky grips and gentle curves make it fit nicely in my hands. During longer sessions, however, the Ally’s a clear winner because the Deck is simply too heavy. As someone who exclusively games on my handhelds in semi-supine and prone positions, propping the Deck for more than half an hour results in noticeable wrist pain.

But I can play games on my Ally for hours on end while lying down without even feeling a trace of wrist discomfort, let alone pain, making the ROG Ally a winner of this round. Sure, the Deck looks nicer and has those sweet dual trackpads, but its weight, combined with the way I use my gaming handhelds, results in it landing just behind the Ally in terms of ergonomics.

The Game Compatibility Trophy Goes to the ROG Ally

Jason Fitzpatrick / How-To Geek

This is one area where I have a clear winner. While the Windows-on-handheld experience is less than stellar, at least you know that you’ll be able to play any PC game you want (as long as the Ally has enough oomph). Better still, I can seamlessly mod games on the Ally, I just need to hook a keyboard and mouse so I don’t pull my hair out while doing it.

The whole process of installing games is very straightforward, with the biggest pain being typing your passwords into different game launchers. I use a password manager , meaning all of my passwords are super long and filled with non-alphanumeric characters, which is a pain to fill out with a virtual keyboard.

On the Steam Deck the process of installing and playing games is pretty straightforward most of the time as well, unless you want to play a non-Steam game. In that case, you have to visit Desktop Mode, install third-party launchers such as Heroic , and sometimes even run Konsole or find your way through the system to apply some fixes, update Proton, or perform some other procedure needed to make a game run at all, which can be a huge pain. At least the process of setting up your emulators with EmuDeck is pretty painless.

Extra Features and Docked Mode: Another Tie

Valve

I rarely use my Deck and Ally docked, but when I do, they both work great when paired with the cheap dock I own. I’ve had no issues with docked mode, but you should note that a number of ROG Ally owners report not being able to use the 30W power profile when docked. I also have had no issues when using these handhelds with a mouse or keyboard . They work great with wired, Bluetooth, and 2.4GHz wireless peripherals.

SteamOS automatically switches to Desktop mode when docked, and Windows is Windows. If you plan on getting a Deck and using it for games and work, I reckon you’ll be fine because Linux offers plenty of productivity apps, and web-based apps work without issues.

The Ally has a massive flaw in the form of its temperamental SD card reader. Many owners have had their card reader break and while I’ve been lucky that my card reader’s still alive, there’s a good chance it might die sooner or later. Luckily, swapping the default SSD for a larger capacity drive is a breeze, even if you’re not tech-savvy. I can say the same about the Deck, where the entire SSD replacement procedure took me less than half an hour.

For content consumption, the Ally is a clear winner over my Steam Deck LCD. Since I don’t own a tablet, I often find myself connecting my Ally to my PC not to play games but to stream TV shows. Web browsing in handheld mode is a pain on both devices. On the Deck, the virtual keyboard is awful, but you’ve got trackpads. On the Ally, the Windows virtual keyboard is much better, but no trackpad means a worse overall user experience.

When it comes to emulating games, you’ve got EmuDeck for both the Deck and Ally, with the setup being more straightforward on the Ally. On SteamOS, you’ve got to switch to Desktop Mode, and locating the various folders used for games, emulators, and firmware can be a chore. But once you finish the setup, you can add your emulated games to Game Mode on the Deck, whereas you cannot add them to Armoury Crate on the Ally, which is a shame.

Local game streaming with Moonlight and Sunshine works better on my Ally. Despite disabling the 2.4GHz band on my router, which resulted in a massive improvement in download speeds and overall network stability on my Deck, I can still notice occasional stuttering when streaming games. Conversely, I experience almost no stuttering on the Ally. There might be a dropped frame or two in the first few minutes, but it’s smooth sailing all around after that. This, coupled with the fact that I can stream at 120 frames per second to my Ally, makes it a better device for local game streaming. The situation is probably better on the Deck OLED since it comes with a Wi-Fi 6E module and you can stream at 90fps.

The Rog Ally Is My Favorite, With One Exception

The ROG Ally is my personal favorite. Sure, the Windows experience is subpar, but nowadays, I rarely have to leave Armoury Crate except to install games. It’s still janky and annoying when I do, but not as much as it was in the first couple of months of owning the device when I had to constantly navigate around Windows to tweak and optimize stuff for a better gaming experience.

The Ally is, at least for me, more comfortable to use during long game sessions. The controls are slid, and my only wish is that the ROG Ally X includes tighter thumbsticks. Game compatibility is great, especially when it comes to installing mods. The Ally also packs a stronger punch when it comes to gaming performance, which is important to me because I tend to play AAA and indie titles and anything in between, so I need a device that can run all those games at playable frame rates.

And since I mostly stream my games when at home, the superior local streaming experience found on the Ally is another massive plus. The poor battery life doesn’t matter to me because I either stream games, in which case the battery lasts me almost four hours, or I play near an outlet. I love having VRR on a gaming handheld. It doesn’t play a major role when streaming games, but when I run them natively on my Ally, it makes a world of difference compared to the Deck.

I still use my Deck as my primary emulation machine. I just love SteamOS and its Game Mode, and since the Deck is perfect for emulating systems that interest me and I already had my entire emulation collection set up on my Deck when I got my Ally, I’ve kept using it to play classic games. And because I only use it like once or a couple of times a week on average, the wrist issues aren’t as big of a deal as they were when I used my Deck daily.

Last but not least, I just want to clarify that I love both handhelds. They’re both engineering marvels, and at the end of the day, I’m just happy I can finally play all my games on a handheld , be it the Steam Deck or ROG Ally.

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