ASUS ROG Ally releases in June priced competitively to the Steam Deck

I do not think Valve is preoccupied of this device, I think they are enthusiastic about it. The purpose of the steam deck was to open a new market to increase the sales on the steam store. Pushing other companies to produce more mobile devices to play PC games was exactly what they was aiming at. The fact that this device runs windows is only a trivial technical detail. It is literally an "Ally" of Valve

This ROG Ally is a competitor for Linux gaming but it can also be positive. A new mobile device will keep the moment on the media even for the steam deck. A bigger market means more attention from the developers and the Valve's Steam Deck compatibility evaluation system will push the gamers in our direction. I hope the evaluation system will not be changed to cover the windows devices.

For now Valve has one year head start on the software: UI workflow, performance optimizations, drivers, integration with the Steam environment, the compatibility evaluation system etc... The only advantage (and burden) of the ROG Ally is windows. It has probably been developed in close collaboration with microsoft, I am curious to see how the software will evolve in future (spoiler: not necessarily for the better).


Last edited by stormtux on 11 May 2023 at 9:13 pm UTC

I do not think Valve is preoccupied of this device, I think they are enthusiastic about it.

This is full of win for Valve. The biggest chunk of the games to be played on this device are going to be bought on Steam, which is money in Valve's pocket. Someone else is shouldering the logistics task of expanding the number of handheld gaming devices, which puts more pressure on game developers to address things like controller support and text size on a tiny screen. And even with direct support from Microsoft to hit this price point, all the reviews are saying, "you know what? Windows is kinda crap; Linux is way better." The only thing that could make Valve happier is if Asus release a subsequent version that comes with Linux instead.

Steam Deck has touch pads. Steam Deck wins.

ASUS generally makes good to great hardware. You can't really go wrong with their motherboards and they were the makers of the legendary Google Nexus 7" 2013 device. Their cell phones aren't bad either. One are where they've fallen short in my opinion is on the software side of things. I do not have great hopes for this being a good experience since it's ASUS software trying to interact with Windows 11. I may look at picking one of these up second hand once linux support is solid for the device.


Last edited by psycho_driver on 11 May 2023 at 10:42 pm UTC

Available at BestBuy... Physical presence or only online? This could hurt the Steam Deck.

As someone else pointed out, I doubt if Valve cares much. They're investing in linux and proton to keep Microsoft honest about trying to do a walled garden app store for windows. They make their bajillions of dollars off of Steam, so the more people gaming on PC the better for them. The Steam Deck is irrelevant to their bottom line.

Wonder how many people go into retail stores these days. I'm a terrible example, I don't go into retail stores very often anymore!

Same. Whenever I see a good deal at Best Buy I do the curbside pickup option so I don't even have to go in the store.

That's because you don't have Windows chugging greenhouse gasses underneath the hood. The Wired magazine review of the Ally said it was drawing like 6 watts just idling, which is all the Steam Deck draws even when it's running Stardew Valley.

This is a good point. My Steam Decks draw 1.9w at idle on a dock. 29w peak in an all-out gaming session.


Last edited by psycho_driver on 11 May 2023 at 10:48 pm UTC

Still cheaper to get a Steam Deck $399usd and upgrade SSD for $50-70 since NVME/SSD suitable are getting a lot cheaper now, its not so much of a expense.

Sure you miss the etched glass but honestly I don't think its worth it given basic LCD.

As usual... Linux is just more user friendly! :D

No it's not, but that is not the issue. Linux can be much more customized and optimized for a handheld and doesn't have MS services and DRM baked in.

Valve technically own their spin of Linux via SteamOS and no other company can come along and go, hey lets insert some analytics here and a edge advertisement here, and weather app over there... lol


Last edited by TheRiddick on 11 May 2023 at 10:51 pm UTC

It's going to hurt the Steam Deck for sure

With lastest event asus image like rog image stay go to the turmoil

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cbGfc-JBxlY [External Link]

some funny parts

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Resuming personally asus is a no go now




Last edited by mrdeathjr on 11 May 2023 at 11:21 pm UTC

. Essentially, even XBOX is not that interesting to them. It is not a huge money maker.

i dont know, spending 70 billion on a company is much even for microsoft standards.

8.6 tflops is crazy number for a handheld device, it is twice bigger than ps4pro, on par with rtx2070 tier GPU, and just a bit behind current gen consoles. you literally can replace a decent gaming pc with it

It's also being severely restricted by memory bandwith. Even asus's and amd's own marketing materials show just how much of a waste of silicon those extra tflops are.


Last edited by emphy on 12 May 2023 at 3:15 am UTC

Still cheaper to get a Steam Deck $399usd and upgrade SSD for $50-70 since NVME/SSD suitable are getting a lot cheaper now, its not so much of a expense.

Sure you miss the etched glass but honestly I don't think its worth it given basic LCD.

As usual... Linux is just more user friendly! :D

No it's not, but that is not the issue. Linux can be much more customized and optimized for a handheld and doesn't have MS services and DRM baked in.

Valve technically own their spin of Linux via SteamOS and no other company can come along and go, hey lets insert some analytics here and a edge advertisement here, and weather app over there... lol

Linux is definitely more developer friendly. And I wouldn't say it's less or more user Friendly, all depends on the user!

But as you point out, you can customize and optimize it in a way you can't with Windows. If you watch LTT's latest review on the Ally you can tell a lot of the ways the Deck beats the Ally is definitely because it's optimized for that lower resolution and hardware of the Steam Deck, as like for like in resolution / settings, the Deck performs better.

it's optimized for that lower resolution and hardware of the Steam Deck, as like for like in resolution / settings, the Deck performs better.

no one forces you to use the ally in max resolution that the screen support.

For now Valve has one year head start on the software: UI workflow, performance optimizations, drivers, integration with the Steam environment, the compatibility evaluation system etc

the issue is, the end user dont know about this, UX is only relevant for the people who currently own an product, not the ones who gonna purchase it.
unless the reviews come and talk about those issues.

I feel this device has drawn attention because a) Windows gaming fans feel threatened because I have never understood why

there are a few reasons for that, linux users trash talking windows dont help much...
fanboys will defend their favorite platform no matter what, especially when its attacked by others, an playstation fanboy might not have anything against xbox, but if he saw an xbox fanboy trash talking playstation the trend will be for him to start hating xbox.


a lot of people have their reasons to love windows/microsoft (emulation, backward compatibility and everything being compatible with it) and dont have a good impression on linux, it didnt help much that we tried to promote linux since it was in a... barebones state, i mean didnt had much support for games and stuff.

For those also not paying attention, which I forgot to mention, ASUS have been doing some seriously anti-consumer stuff.

"I'm sorry ASUS... but you're fired!"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wZ-QVOKGVyM [External Link]

"Scumbag ASUS: Overvolting CPUs & Screwing the Customer"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cbGfc-JBxlY [External Link]

And so on and so on...

Who is going to trust them when the Ally breaks?

Still cheaper to get a Steam Deck $399usd and upgrade SSD for $50-70 since NVME/SSD suitable are getting a lot cheaper now, its not so much of a expense.

Sure you miss the etched glass but honestly I don't think its worth it given basic LCD.

As usual... Linux is just more user friendly! :D

No it's not, but that is not the issue. Linux can be much more customized and optimized for a handheld and doesn't have MS services and DRM baked in.

Valve technically own their spin of Linux via SteamOS and no other company can come along and go, hey lets insert some analytics here and a edge advertisement here, and weather app over there... lol

Linux is definitely more developer friendly. And I wouldn't say it's less or more user Friendly, all depends on the user!

But as you point out, you can customize and optimize it in a way you can't with Windows. If you watch LTT's latest review on the Ally you can tell a lot of the ways the Deck beats the Ally is definitely because it's optimized for that lower resolution and hardware of the Steam Deck, as like for like in resolution / settings, the Deck performs better.

Which video, this one?

https://youtube.com/watch?v=qLVgr29NMA0 [External Link]

8.6 tflops is crazy number for a handheld device, it is twice bigger than ps4pro, on par with rtx2070 tier GPU, and just a bit behind current gen consoles. you literally can replace a decent gaming pc with it

It's really just a number. What I see so far is that in real life the Z1 Extreme is only a little bit faster than the Z1 due to bandwith limitation to the RAM.


Last edited by kaktuspalme on 12 May 2023 at 11:41 am UTC

ASUS generally makes good to great hardware. You can't really go wrong with their motherboards.

Perhaps you should ingest some recent videos on Gamers Nexus and JayzTwoCents...

Just speaking about the value of the Ally... From what I read from different sources, I'm totally unconvinced... Like most of the PCGamers, I already have a more powerful PC... That's why I use my Steam Deck in handheld mode 95% of the time. The other 5% is for couch coop gaming and these games are not usually resource huggers. In my case, battery autonomy is make or break. If all this raw power is wasted because you need to cap everything to gain minutes of playtime... What are you getting? A little more powerful Steam Deck with less input options, unreadable 3rd party apps, crapy os interactions and still worse battery autonomy (the Steam Deck's autonomy is already to the limit)?

If it's a handheld as long as your power cord (who first said that? 😉), It kinds of defeat the purpose and makes it feel like a big marketing smokescreen, to me.

If so, I'll wait for the Steam Deck 2, in this case.


Last edited by Mohandevir on 12 May 2023 at 2:55 pm UTC

Still cheaper to get a Steam Deck $399usd and upgrade SSD for $50-70 since NVME/SSD suitable are getting a lot cheaper now, its not so much of a expense.

Sure you miss the etched glass but honestly I don't think its worth it given basic LCD.

As usual... Linux is just more user friendly! :D

No it's not, but that is not the issue. Linux can be much more customized and optimized for a handheld and doesn't have MS services and DRM baked in.

Valve technically own their spin of Linux via SteamOS and no other company can come along and go, hey lets insert some analytics here and a edge advertisement here, and weather app over there... lol

Linux is definitely more developer friendly. And I wouldn't say it's less or more user Friendly, all depends on the user!

But as you point out, you can customize and optimize it in a way you can't with Windows. If you watch LTT's latest review on the Ally you can tell a lot of the ways the Deck beats the Ally is definitely because it's optimized for that lower resolution and hardware of the Steam Deck, as like for like in resolution / settings, the Deck performs better.

Which video, this one?

https://youtube.com/watch?v=qLVgr29NMA0 [External Link]

That's the one.

In my case, battery autonomy is make or break. If all this raw power is wasted because you need to cap everything to gain minutes of playtime... What are you getting? A little more powerful Steam Deck with less input options, unreadable 3rd party apps, crapy os interactions and still worse battery autonomy (the Steam Deck's autonomy is already to the limit)?

It occurs to me that this bad feature of the Ally would compound with a bad feature of the OS they're using--with little battery time it seems to me you'd really want to be able to easily suspend a game and stop using battery, but someone was saying with Windows it won't do that.

Just speaking about the value of the Ally... From what I read from different sources, I'm totally unconvinced... Like most of the PCGamers, I already have a more powerful PC... That's why I use my Steam Deck in handheld mode 95% of the time. The other 5% is for couch coop gaming and these games are not usually resource huggers. In my case, battery autonomy is make or break. If all this raw power is wasted because you need to cap everything to gain minutes of playtime... What are you getting? A little more powerful Steam Deck with less input options, unreadable 3rd party apps, crapy os interactions and still worse battery autonomy (the Steam Deck's autonomy is already to the limit)?

If it's a handheld as long as your power cord (who first said that? 😉), It kinds of defeat the purpose and makes it feel like a big marketing smokescreen, to me.

If so, I'll wait for the Steam Deck 2, in this case.

It's totally a big marketing smokescreen. Asus and Microsoft have a ton of money, and they partnered together to release what is unquestionably a monster in terms of performance. They know it'll look good on all the bar graphs and that enthusiasts with money to burn will run out and buy it just to say they have the fastest handheld. A year from now, Asus will have moved on, and the promise of a Microsoft Windows that's handheld friendly will have taken a back seat to whatever new Xbox announcement pops up. Neither is committed to this the way Valve is.