Ive looked up tons of reviews on preferences and game compatibility. But i want to know how it actually works in day to day life. Was it a device that will be put to the side in a couple weeks?
The hardware on the ally is better but the software is weaker in some key areas (while being stronger in others!). Ally has a much more powerful chip (yes 10w exists, these devices all have 2 hour batter lives in games that need power anyways), it has quiter fans, a better screen, and is available potentially at your local best buy.
For software, anti cheat is still a massive hurdle for Linux so if you play any games that have issues on Linux, tough luck. General game compatibility can also still be a problem with Linux, coming from someone who’s been using Linux on their main system for 5 years now. Proton updates can break some games, some games work better with certain versions, need extra fixes, or some won’t work at all. New games will also tend to have extra issues, as can game launchers other then steam.
The deck makes up for that by being streamlined in plenty of other ways, so if you want the most console like experience then the steam deck is your option. It has resume on wake, it has a very streamlined ui, gamescope and mangohud built in, etc. If you want the best hardware and want all your games to work even if the interface is worse, then just get an ally.
And yes you can install Linux on the ally or Windows on the deck, I wouldn’t bother with that though. Just get the device that best suites your needs.
I also think the gyro and touchpads are super useful on the Steam Deck, I may not use them all the time, but I wouldn’t want to live without them
I just got an Ally yesterday and have not used a Steam Deck, so I can’t give a full comparison. That being said, the Ally is rather impressive.
I’ve been playing Dying Light 2 on it. For the most part, graphics settings are set to high, I’ve enabled upscaling on it and I think I bumped down antialiasing a notch or two from maximum. For upscaling, I set it to linear performance mode.
Doing so, on battery I achieve frames around 30-45, and on charger it ranges a bit but tends to stay in the 50-60 range. Battery life on that game with those settings though will last a little over two hours, so for longer gaming sessions I’d advise bringing the charger.
I mapped one of the paddle buttons on the back to the Xbox button since out of the box it doesn’t have that, which is annoying.
Speakers are great. You get distortion at max volume, but I tend to leave mine at about 40% since they are plenty loud.
It’s light and comfortable to play on, but it does get hot playing demanding titles, and that makes it a little warm in the hands. Not uncomfortably so, but it’s noticeable.
It seems you can upgrade the SSD if you want, but I’ve been doing just fine with a fast micro SD card. Loading times aren’t super long, but they probably would be faster on the internal SSD.
Anyway if you have specific questions, let me know and I’ll try to answer.
If I didn’t have a Steam Deck already I would still get one.
- It’s one of few devices with Linux preinstalled.
- The battery life is better.
- It’s much cheaper. Especially if you get the discounted 64 GB version and buy a larger SSD.
- The touchpads, gyro, additional back buttons and Steam Input integration make it much better suited for playing general PC games that would never work on a gamepad.