About four months ago, I ditched my Steam Deck for Asus’ ROG Ally. But with some distance, I’m going back to Valve’s handheld. Here’s why.

  • thingsiplay@kbin.social
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    1 year ago

    @AnonymousLlama
    The Steam Deck and other handheld PCs also rocks for emulation, not only for light indie games.

    Here is a part of the article which bugs me a byte:

    By nearly all objective measures, the ROG Ally is better than the Steam Deck. It has solid battery life, a nicer screen, more power, and Windows 11

    Having Windows 11 on the device is not an objective measure to be better. If anything, this is a subjective matter. In my opinion Windows is far worse as an operating system for a handheld PC (or any PC at all). Sure you have more games to play with, but the usability and customization sucks, plus Microsoft is spying on you.

    • donuts@kbin.social
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      1 year ago

      The dumbest thing about that statement is that nothing stops them from installing Windows on the Deck. I would never want to, but if someone felt that Windows was truly better for the device they certainly have the option of using it.

  • MJBrune@beehaw.org
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    1 year ago

    Stability is important and the Asus Rog Ally is a response to Steam Deck’s popularity to try to cash in on the concept. So of course the Rog Ally, with an OS that isn’t meant for controller navigation only, and with less time to develop stable drivers, is going to be less stable than a device that has an OS dedicated to it, with an app that’s running specifically developed for almost a decade now for controller navigation. Additionally, Steam included dual trackpads because they knew people would want that precision that we saw in the Steam Controllers.

    Asus has more experience overall with hardware development compared to Steam. Asus has been building mobile computers for decades but Steam has been building random gaming devices for almost a decade now. The PC mobile console was Valve’s original concept but I bet if Asus started on it when Steam did, we’d see Asus on top. As of now, Steam has a fighting chance to keep ahead of Asus.

    • wolfshadowheart@kbin.social
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      1 year ago

      I don’t know what anyone would expect from the company that brings us corporate malware? Seriously the ROG services are ridiculously invasive and difficult to get rid of and have a reputation for a reason.

      All that invasion just for a terrible program that can hardly sync your lights.

    • conciselyverbose@kbin.social
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      1 year ago

      I hate Windows, but the not having track pads to interact with the OS is worse.

      Edit: (OK, had to install windows to see if Madden is playable. Windows is almost as bad.)

  • elouboub@kbin.social
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    1 year ago

    I’m honestly glad Valve has a headstart on ASUS. Now it’s a competition. ASUS can’t rest on its laurels and has to put it a lot of effort to catch up which means the Steam Deck is the gold standard right now.