Current Events > Steam Deck vs Lenovo vs Ally

(+) Yeah! (+)

I got all 3 of these. I'd say get an OLED deck because the performance to battery ratio is amazing, Linux at this point runs things better than Windows and fans keep making apps/mods for it.

The LEGO is my second pic as the thing is simply insane. It's massive, the controllers detach (and have amazing battery life) and you can set it up on a table like a surface tablet, the screen is HUGE and nearly matches the OLED deck in color and vibrancy, it has two USB c ports compared to the competition, higher refresh rate for the games that can run it and so on. When I want to splurge I use the go.

I personally would avoid Asus as a whole. Look up the newest video of gamers Nexus, they cover how scummy they are when covering warranty. Mine suffered from a broken as adapter like many did but I fear sending it and then have asus fuck me over. That aside I don't like the colors nor ergonomics of this thing, but at least the companion software is better than Lenovo that's for sure. Oh and vrr if you care/can notice it's benefits. I personally regret getting this one though.

The deck

Yeah, I love my OLED Deck. My LCD before it was great too.

I had another option, the Ayaneo 2, until the battery crapped out then I accidentally broke a critical cable (that replacements for aren't sold) while installing the new one.

Awesome device. It's a fair bit more powerful than the Steam Deck but not quite on par with the Legion Go or ROG Ally; spec wise, and real world tests in reviews seem to confirm this.

If I were getting a new one, I would rule out the Deck immediately. This is with the caveat that the reason for this is that the handheld would also be my main PC (docked when doing non-gaming stuff). Even without the extra steps involved in running Windows (or a normal Linux distro) on the Deck, the lower specs make it a poor deal here when the cost difference isn't that huge (I understand the difference is bigger in some places). Performance is somewhat a factor too, but in the absence of using it as a main PC, the Deck would at least be worth considering, though I'd still likely go for one of the others.

Between the Ally or the Go, I think I'd go with the Ally. The lower res screen will be better for battery life and lower resolution (especially when we're just talking 1080p vs 1440p) is hardly a problem at sizes that small. Go also seems to overdo it a bit with the gimmicky stuff; I could see the back buttons in particular getting in the way.

Overall though, I'm gonna hold off buying a new one until there's an option locally available with 32GB RAM. People who intend to use it solely for gaming / light tasks (streaming videos etc) will be perfectly fine with the 16GB in current models.

Bruh you forgot the MSI Claw. lol

Anyway the Deck provides the best general gaming environment and battery life, but its hardware is outdated for triple A games at this point unless they optimize specifically for the Deck (devs will usually grant an optimization patch within a month of release if they see a lot of players want the game to work on the Deck), forcing you to compromise on graphic quality and frames per second. Also some multiplayer games use anti-cheat systems that block SteamOS (ex. Call of Duty, Destiny, Fortnite, etc.), which is unfortunate since SteamOS is way better for gaming than Windows otherwise.

But if you're stuck with a Windows handheld for whatever reason then the Ally is the best option. It's 1.5x stronger than the Deck (though that doesn't show as much as it should, since all else equal Windows runs games worse than SteamOS) and has a bigger 1080p screen with the best color quality of the non-OLED handhelds. The Ally X is also releasing soon with substantial improvements to battery life and SD card management, the main hardware weaknesses it had compared to the Deck.

The Legion Go is huge and unfortunately doesn't have variable refresh rate abilities like the Ally does, so trying to actually fully utilize its 1200p screen can cause FPS hiccups for many games. The Deck doesn't have VRR either but it's less of an issue there because its screen is 800p and honestly you're probably gonna run into some other bottleneck on Deck anyway.

Diceheist posted...

Bruh you forgot the MSI Claw. lol

Literally zero reason to consider that one. In the absence of a discrete GPU, never pick Intel over AMD for gaming. (Even with a discrete GPU, AMD still wins, but Intel are at least viable.) Their integrated graphics are, while far better than they used to be, nowhere near AMD's level. Likewise for power efficiency, which isn't a concern in a desktop and maybe not even a laptop but is quite important in a handheld.

A Claw together with an eGPU might be more viable, if you don't mind being, y'kno, tied to the eGPU. But then you could get that same eGPU and use it on most of the AMD handhelds too (aside from the Steam Deck).

Diceheist posted...

The Ally X is also releasing soon with substantial improvements to battery life and SD card management, the main hardware weaknesses it had compared to the Deck.

*fingers crossed for a 32GB RAM option*

EDIT: Quick Google suggests the only RAM option will be 24GB. I mean... that's still a decent improvement over 16.

Never heard of the Ally

Hexenherz posted...

Never heard of the Ally

I thought the Ally was pretty much the second most well known handheld PC (after the Steam Deck) tbh.

All I can comment on is the Deck, it's real good

I love my OLED Deck. The price is good and performance is good enough it can still play most games and Steam OS just works so well.

Trumble posted...

I thought the Ally was pretty much the second most well known handheld PC (after the Steam Deck) tbh.

Well I knew the asus rog, didn't realize it's the rog ally fml.

I'd choose that over Lenovo for sure

Battery life is the problem with the handhelds that are more powerful than the Steamdeck.

If I was to buy a PC handheld right now? I'd go OLED Steamdeck. As it stands though, currently I don't travel often enough to warrant it since I have a very capable PC already. When the Steamdeck 2 comes out? Well, might be a different story then, who knows since it seems that my work is having us travel more and more as the years go on.

Trumble posted...

*fingers crossed for a 32GB RAM option*

EDIT: Quick Google suggests the only RAM option will be 24GB. I mean... that's still a decent improvement over 16.

Didn't know it was boosting the RAM, that probably puts it solidly ahead of the rest. People have complained about the X still not being OLED but honestly the screen is already so good it doesn't really need to be.

I definitely respect the effort the Ally puts into hardware (early SD card issues aside). The Deck unfortunately, while otherwise masterfully crafted, heavily prioritized its GPU cores over its CPU cores to ensure that triple A games worked. Personally I'm not a heavy triple A gamer, most games I play aren't remotely graphically intensive, but because some feature a ton of gameplay calculations the CPU limitations can effect even them (and god forbid your game is both GPU and CPU intensive, like Starfield or BG3). Like how the Go's lack of VRR can effect even indie games, since players often take advantage of their lack of graphical intensiveness to try to run them at high FPS instead. While the Ally basically has all bases covered on the hardware side.

There's an entire UI and Library among other systems that support Deck. Its not even close.

luigi33 posted...

There's an entire UI and Library among other systems that support Deck. Its not even close.

Not even sure what you're trying to say here. If you're trying to say something about what games they support, for the most part it's the same between all three. A very small number have issues with Steam Deck's Windows "emulation"; and there are a couple that don't work properly on the Windows handhelds (Guacamelee 2 comes to mind here; it won't start if no keyboard is connected on Windows); there's likely also a very small number that Steam Deck isn't powerful enough to run but the 6800U / 7840U / Z1 Extreme based handhelds can just manage. For the most part though, the libraries are the same.

Cant really go wrong with the rog ally. PC gaming still favours windows, so running windows is better. Im not denying the progress the Steam Deck has made towards making Linux more palatable for gaming but its only good at the moment so long as you stick with specifically that database of whats compatible on the steam deck and dont venture outside of that

Rika_Furude posted...

Cant really go wrong with the rog ally. PC gaming still favours windows, so running windows is better. Im not denying the progress the Steam Deck has made towards making Linux more palatable for gaming but its only good at the moment so long as you stick with specifically that database of whats compatible on the steam deck and dont venture outside of that

Most stuff not officially listed as compatible still does work. The major exception being certian multiplayer games with anti-cheat.

But yeah... definitely seems like waiting for the Ally X is the best move right now, if you're not in a rush to get one.

Rika_Furude posted...

Cant really go wrong with the rog ally. PC gaming still favours windows, so running windows is better. Im not denying the progress the Steam Deck has made towards making Linux more palatable for gaming but its only good at the moment so long as you stick with specifically that database of whats compatible on the steam deck and dont venture outside of that

If I could justify having both I'd use the Ally for anything that requires Windows (currently using the Switch as a cheap substitute ) or better hardware than the Deck has, and the Deck for everything else.

Gaming on Windows is mostly only better when your game literally requires Windows, otherwise all the background process bloat is a drain on performance, since Windows just isn't purely dedicated to gaming. There are also older games made for older Windows versions that now run better on Deck because Proton retains their dependencies while modern versions of Windows either got rid of them or modified them beyond recognition, or because SteamOS has built-in bypasses for physical accessory requirements that portable Windows doesn't yet.

And I guess emulation-wise Windows is way better for Android emulation than SteamOS, since Valve went with a Linux distro that doesn't easily emulate it unfortunately. Missed opportunity.

Trumble posted...

Not even sure what you're trying to say here. If you're trying to say something about what games they support, for the most part it's the same between all three. A very small number have issues with Steam Deck's Windows "emulation"; and there are a couple that don't work properly on the Windows handhelds (Guacamelee 2 comes to mind here; it won't start if no keyboard is connected on Windows); there's likely also a very small number that Steam Deck isn't powerful enough to run but the 6800U / 7840U / Z1 Extreme based handhelds can just manage. For the most part though, the libraries are the same.

I mean infrastructure

Does the ROG still have that thermal issue, that kills your memory card?

008Zulu posted...

Does the ROG still have that thermal issue, that kills your memory card?

Newer models come with a hardware fix for the issue. And the Ally X places the SD card reader far away from the fan exhaust so there's no issue to begin with.