I’m all for competition and they are getting better but they just miss the mark. While some of them are faster than the Steam deck, their frame rate lows and averages don’t get close to how stable it can be. Plus the touch pads, joy stick functions, 4 rear buttons. It’s everything you need and the price is better than theirs. I had the original LED since launch and have since upgraded to the OLED model and it was absolutely worth it. The improvements they made to the touchpads, reduced weight and a gorgeous screen are fantastic.
It baffles me how people get the ROG Ally over it. Maybe because they hear that some games may not run on Linux? Those are usually competitive FPS’ that I wouldn’t want to play on a handheld anyway and if you really wanted to you could just install Windows 10/11 onto a MicroSD and boot to Windows.
I got the ROG Ally over it because Bazzite feels mature enough to compete, I like the smaller footprint and higher resolution, but above all because the ROG Ally has a shit 2nd hand market and I could scoop one up for $300
Aren’t steam deck 64gb versions currently cheaper than that? Hell, i could easily sell my OG steam deck for 300$, but was only asking for 200.
How well does it actually run games? Isn’t the ROG still for all intents and purposes, on Windows?
Yes, but I like that form factor better and screen better, and while it ships with Windows I replaced it with Bazzite immediately and I’m pleased with the performance, I mostly run Indies but the FF7 remake runs 60 fps, on high graphics. But that’s the highest graphics game I have thrown at it
A full install of Windows runs games fine. It doesn’t last long though. Bazzite was not working well when I tried it a few weeks ago. There are a few things that don’t work properly including no control over RGB settings.
I put the stripped down IoT version of Windows on mine. It doesn’t have anything preinstalled. No store, no teams, no xbox, no nothing out of the box. Combine that with a basic telemetry disabling script and you can have better performance. The Armory Crate app handles all of the firmware and drivers. I’m able to stretch the battery almost an hour longer.
Windows actually can run kind of alright when you get rid of all of the bullshit. It’s not going to be as efficient as Linux, and it’s sure as hell not going to be as efficient as a Linux built around a specific set of hardware. It remains to be seen what kind of optimizations MS may introduce when they build a handheld.
if you really wanted to you could just install Windows 10/11 onto a MicroSD and boot to Windows.
You really shouldn’t. Running dual boot on your ssd is only slightly harder than installing windows, and there are step-by-step guides to show you how
Sd cards aren’t meant to be constantly written to, games are fine by themselves, but the windows OS is CONSTANTLY reading files, making changes, writing logs, deleting temp files, and writing over them, etc.
It won’t happen immediately, and it will depend on the grade SD card you get, but eventually your sd card is going to fail and you’re either going to lose data or your windows install will start chugging cause the SD can’t keep up with the writes anymore. Plus, the SSD will be closer to the bus and get faster r/w anyway.
I assume the people who go around saying its not a problem just got a higher end card or are lucky and haven’t had a problem yet.
Its essentially the same argument as “smoking will give you cancer”
