ASUS ROG Ally vs Steam Deck -- Deep Dive Comparison

[Music] hey everybody this is Russ from Metro game core today we're going to do a deep dive comparison between the Asus Rog Ally and then the valve steam deck these are probably the two most talked about handheld PCS right now and I know there are people out there considering getting one over the other so that's what we're going to focus on here in this video today now in terms of just technical specifications that's not really my strong suit if you want to learn more about benchmarks things like that there was a good video released by ETA Prime yesterday I'll leave that link down below and then also my friend the fox just got his review unit so he's working on something as well I'll leave his channel linked down below too if you want to check that out instead what I'm going to focus on here is about 20 different characteristics that I think are important when making a big purchase like this we'll talk about things like comfort and ergonomics and then just the overall experience of using one of these over the other so if you are thinking about buying one of these or maybe switching over from this steam deck to the Ally I think this might be helpful for you it's probably going to be a long video so go ahead and grab a drink in your favorite snack and let's go ahead and dive in foreign as we get started here for a baseline I'm just going to assume that you know a little bit about the steam deck and the Rog Ally already like you've gone to their websites and looked up the specs or maybe you've watched a review or two and so as I talk about each of these categories I am going to go a little bit in the weeds with the understanding that you at least know the basics for our first category here we're going to talk about size for example you probably already know the steam deck is a rather large handheld PC and that the rot Ally is supposed to be a little bit smaller and for the most part I would agree with that after all the Rog Ally is a little bit smaller than the steam deck but all the same when it comes to just portability you know carrying it around it's about the same both of these devices have large screens and a pretty luxurious control scheme as well which means that you're not going to feel very cramped when playing it but all the same in order to have that kind of larger size it is going to make the device bigger overall as well and yes I would say overall the steam deck is larger it has these track pads right here on the front which do make it have the larger size but then also because it has a 16 by 10 aspect ratio you on the screen it's a little bit taller as well but my main point here in this section is that the difference is not that significant for example this case right here which is my favorite one for the steam deck is a really great fit for the steam deck itself it basically just fits perfectly you can even use the kill switch case and it works as well I've done a whole video about this but when you actually get the Rog Ally inside of the steam deck case like this it actually isn't a big difference as you can see right here there's a little bit of wiggle room but not much and so I expect in the future that companies will be making cases for this device but there's nothing that fits it perfectly just yet and so I was surprised to find that by using the steam deck one it was a pretty good fit and in the end what that signifies to me is that the size difference between the two is not that much so if you're thinking it's going to take up less room in your backpack or just easier to take around I'm not really sure about that the way I framed it in my review video is that if you think that the steam deck is way too big then the Rog Ally is still going to be too big for you however if you think that the steam deck is just a little bit too big then maybe the Rog alley will be the perfect size in the end yes the Rog Ally is smaller but they're still both pretty big now let's move into a category where there are some Stark contrasts that's going to be the screen now both of these devices have a seven inch display but that's where the similarities end for example the steam deck has a 16 by 10 aspect ratio display compared to 16x9 on the Ally that means that the steam deck one is going to be a little bit taller and then the screen resolution is different as well the steam deck is 800p whereas the Ally is going to be 1080P and what this means is that for any PC game that doesn't support 800p natively you're gonna have to probably play it in 720p instead not only that there's a big difference in refresh rate so the steam deck can go up to 60 hertz altogether whereas the Ally can go up to 120 hertz the first handheld that can do that and while the device is not powerful enough to play like AAA games at 120 frames per second the 120 hertz screen has a lot of nice benefits to it for example with 120 hertz that means we can scale it down to some rounder numbers for example 60 hertz 40 Hertz and even 30 are all easily divisible by a 120 and that means if you want to play games at a locked lower refresh rate it's going to be very easy and then the other benefit that comes with that 120 hertz refresh rate is that it has vrr or variable refresh rate this means you'll have support for advanced features like freesync and so if you play a game and it has a variable refresh rate like it's going between 40 and 50 it's still going to feel very smooth now when I'm playing a game I typically will not actually stare at the numbers I'll just kind of play it and then when something happens where I feel a hiccup then I'll take a look and I found that when using the Rog Ally when I have a higher refresh rate I'm just playing I didn't notice any sort of dips at all now of course the frame rate will fluctuate for example with Horizon zero Dawn right here but all the same it's a very smooth experience and so that's one of the benefits of the Rog allies screen now there are some other factors to consider for example if you get the high-end steam deck it will come with an etched glass screen and that's what I have on my steam deck and it gives it a bit of a smoky texture and I really like it and so if you are playing in like a bright lit environment you won't see those Reflections as much now the screen on the Rog Ally has what they're calling anti-glare and it's definitely less reflective than something like a piece of glass but all the same it is more reflective than what's on the steam deck and again bear in mind that the etched glass version of the steam deck is the one that's 650 dollars now in terms of color balance and accuracy the Rog Ally wins again and there's been a bunch of different tests on the internet to show that basically the Rog Ally is about 99 accurate whereas the steam deck is something around 80 instead and if you look at this side-by-side comparison right here I feel like the steam deck tint is a little bit on the green side and bear in mind that I'm using a saturation plug-in here on my steam deck so it has an additional 10 15 of saturation either way out of the box I do think that the Rog Ally has a better screen when it comes to colors and accuracy now one additional benefit of having that taller screen on the steam deck means that 4x3 content is going to look bigger as well for example when playing a Super Nintendo game you can see right here that we're getting about six and a half inches of screen real estate on the steam deck but only about six inches on the rot Ally and so if you are looking to play retro games in as big as a screen as possible then the steam deck is going to win there next let's talk about the overall brightness and dimness of these screens I think this is really important when it comes to just playing around the house and outside and things like that now Asus says that the Rog Ally has a 500 nit screen which is pretty bright for a handheld and I think valve says that theirs is 400 nits but other people have done tests and found that it's actually in fact a lot brighter and in a side-by-side comparison like this you can see that at Max brightness the steam deck does look brighter than the Ally but for me personally I never really play these devices Outdoors so brightness isn't really a huge factor for me but what is is dimness and that's because most of the time when I want to sit back and play a game I'm usually doing it like in the evening time in a darker environment and in this regard the steam deck Takes the Cake this one is much dimmer than the Rog Ally when they're both at minimum brightness so if you wanted to have one specifically to play in a very dark environment like in bed at night then the steam deck is going to be about better pick so in the end I think that both of these devices have good screens but they have different purposes the 120 hertz panel with the variable refresh rate means that you have just a lot more freedom and flexibility with the Rog Ally and when you combine that with the higher resolution and color accuracy I think that one's going to be the winner here next we're going to test the audio quality let me give you a couple caveats here in the beginning number one I think these both have very good audio quality they're some of the best that you can find in any other handheld device Bar None part of that has to do with the fact that they both have front firing speakers and they sound excellent and in this test right here I'm going to do 100 volume so you'll get an idea of the volume between the two as well as the clarity of the overall sound [Music] foreign [Music] and honestly I'm a little bit torn between these two I think that the Rog Ally has a really good mix between the high and the low ends it just has a very balanced sound meanwhile I would say that the steam deck has a little bit of a crisper sound the high-end notes really stick out from the rest and so overall I would say that one's a little bit brighter and clearer and honestly I don't really have a favorite between the two because they are both excellent anytime I play either of these devices I'm usually very impressed by the sound and so for this I think it's about a tie next we're going to talk about the controls this is going to include the buttons themselves but then also the ergonomics and overall comfort and let's start by talking about the steam deck first this one has some really chunky grips to it which makes it really easy to hold like this in fact this feels like holding like an Xbox or PlayStation controller but in a more tablet kind of style and so because that I just really love using the steam deck it feels very natural to hold like this my fingers just naturally grip on it and then of course I can access the shoulder buttons and triggers very easily as well I also like the four function buttons on the back these are completely programmable and I never accidentally we press these they're a little bit harder to press down on but I actually like that feature it means I have to be very deliberate when I press down on them and when it comes to the d-pad and analog sticks I think they're very good the analog sticks themselves are a little bit smaller than like a console's controller but all the same I really do like them and same thing with these face buttons they're a little bit on this small side compared to a console controller but again I think they're a very good size for the device itself now the Rog Ally is a bit of a different experience and I go into detail in my review but the gist of it is that it's a flatter experience you end up pushing your palms directly into like these parts right here on the controller and so because of that you're just kind of holding it a little bit more flat like this and honestly this is still very comfortable but it is a bit unnatural I had to train my brain to basically hold it like this but once you figure out the control scheme it does all kind of fall into place for example my bottom two fingers rest right here and then my middle fingers are above these back buttons and then the top ones are right here and like I said this is a comfortable experience I can play this for hours on end and have no cramping whatsoever now there are a couple things I don't like about the controls the first one in here is going to be these back buttons I ended up pushing these a lot more than I expected I would now thankfully these are programmable or you can just turn them off but then also within the default settings it has it set so that if you press this and then another button it'll do a function and that ends up working out the best for me for example initially I had this set to just show the desktop and that was a nightmare because I would accidentally press it and then all of a sudden I was booted out of my game and so that's one of the things I don't like about the Rog allies controls which is this design of the back buttons here now the analog sticks and d-pad are also very good on here this one has a circular design to it but it feels more like an Xbox One or an Xbox series controller I think it's rather good and again I went into detail about this in my review also the analog 6 are very good they feel like a smaller version of a console's one as well and these have a nice range of motion and smooth feedback too I also like the fact that they have RGB lighting around them however something that also needs a little bit of work on the rot Ally are the face buttons these have a little bit of play or wobble to them and that means that when you press down on them they can kind of move at a different angle now I've heard other people say say that they've had buttons that stick when they're playing on it that doesn't really happen to me I think it happened one time in the entire week that I've been testing other than that it's very hard to replicate that at least in the way that I play however what bothers me is that wobble because it gives it a clackier sound let me give you a test right here Now by contrast there is much less play on the steam deck buttons although they are still rather loud let me give you a sample here so for me the volume difference between the two is not that much but the overall feel is much more stable on the steam deck than the Rog Ally and then finally within this section I want to talk about like gyro and track pads and stuff like that now the Rog Ally is capable of Gyro but it's not enabled in the software just yet and so I have not been able to test it and get it working but that's probably going to be coming in a software update now of course the steam deck also has gyro and a lot of people really like that it has these sensors on the analog sticks that if you just touch them with your thumb it's going to enable the gyro and so a lot of people use that for precision pointing with like first person shooter games and when it comes to the overall amount of control options the steam deck is going to win hands down number one it has these track pads which means that if you're going to be playing a game that doesn't really work well with controllers you can use these instead a real-time strategy game where you're going to have Mouse movements are going to be really handy on here and I know there's a lot of people who enjoy playing first person shooters with these track pads as well especially when they combine that with the gyroscopic controls they have a very precise movement and then on top of all of that there is the steam Control Function within the steam deck this is something that's been around for years at this point it was first implemented with the steam controller and it's just been building since then and so valve has many years of research and development work with their control schemes and it's amazing you can set different profiles and configurations per game and they all work really well and on top of that you have Community controller profiles there's just a million different ways that you can configure each and every game on the steam deck the Rog Ally is trying to do that they have a Gamepad profile option and you can set it on a per game basis within their Armory crate software but all the same they are years behind the steam deck in that regard and so overall when it comes to controls I think both devices are very good but I would say that the steam deck is a little bit more natural to hold in your hands and you have a lot more control options with the track pad and then all the steam profiles and things like that okay next let's talk about the i o or the ports that they have available on each of these devices and honestly they're about the same up top you can see you have very similar options a power button volume button headphone jack and then each of them have a single us USBC Port here on the top now the Rog Ally also has a special connector we'll talk about that in a later section and they both have SD card slots although the Rog allies on the top and the steam decks on the bottom I really would have liked to have seen usb-c port for either of these here on the bottom and this is something that we see in a lot of other handheld PCS just not these two right here and it's unfortunate because it would be really nice to have a dock like this this is the eye Neo multi-dock station but it has a little bottom Port right here so you can just plop your device directly onto it and then all of a sudden you can charge it hook it up to a TV all those things that you want to do with a dock and all you have to do is just set it inside meanwhile for both of these devices you'll have to use a dock like this one this is the official valve one you'll basically put the steam deck inside and then you'll plug it in like this you'll still get all the access to everything here on the back but all the same it's just one extra step this is kind of a pain and I do want to mention here that the official valve dock does not fit with the Rog Ally it's just a little bit too thick however the third-party docks like this one here from eyeballer has a little bit more space and so this one does fit very nicely but again you're gonna have to use that overhead charging thing right here another thing to think about too is that the third-party docks like this one here are rated for 45 watts and not 65 watts of power and that's because the steam deck itself takes a Max of 45 Watts so that's what the manufacturers made and so if you are going to use a steam deck dock like this one it's not going to charge as fast as it would if you used a 65 watt brick and of course I do expect to see third-party Solutions sometime in the future either way when it comes to IO it's very similar between the two and I'm kind of disappointed in both by not having a port in the bottom however in this category I will give the Rog alley a leg up because it does have that special proprietary Port which we'll talk about in a different category okay up next I want to talk about the software experience of using either of these devices now the steam deck ships with what they call Steam OS and this is basically a Linux based Operating System created by a valve specifically for the steam deck and I think it's a very good setup it's a console-like experience in the fact that you can navigate through your games but there are some nice features for example if you go into the library you can see all the steam deck games that you own and there's a special tab that says great on deck and so you can actually see the games that are going to work really well with the steam deck too and the reason why they have this category in the first place is that not every game is going to work on the steam deck it's a Linux based operating system so it either has to run on Linux or a special proton layer and we'll talk about that more in the game catalog section for now we're really focusing on the user experience another aspect here is the fact that you can go directly into the steam store and so if you are heavily invested into the steam ecosystem you can basically just stay within this and have everything you need not only that you have the ability to launch into what they call desktop mode this is basically going to be a full-fledged Linux PC experience and So within here you can use the trackpad to move around like a mouse and then you can install apps or maybe do some productivity right here but of course bear in mind that if you're not Savvy with Linux this can be quite unintuitive meanwhile the Rog Ally is like the opposite end of that Spectrum this is a Windows based handheld PC and so the way I like to think about it is that it's basically a laptop without like the keyboard function of the laptop itself so if you think about it all those experiences you've had on a Windows PC you will also have in the Rog Ally for better for worse for example any PC game that works on a Windows machine will work on here as well so all those different game stores and everything else like that will be available on the Rog Ally and of course if you prefer a Windows desktop environment this is going to give you a full desktop replacement you can basically hook this up to a monitor then a Bluetooth keyboard and mouse and then all of a sudden you've got a full desktop right there now of course this steam deck can do that as well but you will be limited to a Linux distribution and it's also possible to install Windows on the steam deck you don't hear about it as much and that's because it's a little bit unintuitive and quite an advanced topic either way if you do enjoy the Windows Experience you want to have all the flexibility that comes with that then yes the Rog alley is going to win in that regard and I have to say that navigating through just regular old windows on a handheld like this is kind of a pain in the butt and so overall when it comes to navigating through a Windows Experience I think it's basically required to have an external keyboard and mouse if you don't want to pull your hair out in the process and I think that's part of the beauty of steamos with the steam deck is that you can basically just use the controls right there and everything's going to work fine it gives you a more console-like experience and you can kind of get there with the Rog alley they have their own special software called The Armory crate and that basically allows you to navigate through the games and launch them from there but you have to remember that's just another app that's layered on top of Windows itself so it's still going to be a very Windows Experience and there are many times when you're actually going to need to have a keyboard and mouse anyway and a lot of that has to do with the stability of the software so let's move into that category next in this category is probably one of the hardest for me to make a judgment on just because the Rog Ally is very new it's not even released yet at this point meanwhile the steam deck's been out for over a year and so they've been tweaking that software like crazy but there are a couple things that we can touch on and number one is going to be sleep mode or suspension when it comes to the steam deck it's a pretty nice experience you can be playing a game and decide that you want to pause it and all you have to do here is just tap on the power button it's going to put the device into sleep and then from there all you have to do is just tap on it again and you're right back into your game now it's not perfect on this steam deck I've heard that there are some games that'll just straight up crash if you try to do suspend mode but for the most part in all my game playing I've never really had an issue and so I really do enjoy it meanwhile on the Rog Ally you have the same sleep function that you do on any other Windows PC and so if you own a Windows laptop and you try to close the lid or put it to sleep it's going to be that same experience but there may have been times where you actually put your device to sleep and you come back to it and all of a sudden it's wide awake and you're trying to figure out how that happened it's a very common occurrence on Windows there's just some ghosts in the system that do that and unfortunately it's going to be a similar experience with the Rog Ally it's going to be the same thing with any other windows based handheld PC so for me personally I only put it in sleep mode if I know I'm going to come back to it in a few minutes if I want to leave it overnight I usually will just actually turn it off and so from a pure functionality standpoint I do think that the steam deck has a better suspend mode it's just a little bit more reliable and speaking of reliability the other thing is that the Asus software is a little bit buggy right now now granted steamos was pretty buggy when it came out too but all the same when we're talking talking about what we have to deal with right now between the two I think that the Asus one is just a little bit worse one of the most common problems I'm having right now is with the command center when I try to bring this up and then switch between the different performance modes it'll often hang up or maybe take a full minute to swap between them and that can get really frustrating on top of that there have been many times when the GamePad itself just doesn't get recognized properly and so I try to toggle between the desktop and Gamepad modes here in Control Center and nothing seems to work there have been hours that I've lost in my testing because these two things mess me up and of course some of this has to do with the fact that this is an early test unit and the software is still in development but all the same when we're comparing the two as they are right now steam deck is just way more stable at this point so I think it is a little bit too early to make a judgment at least for this category here but I did want to bring up these two points okay next we're going to talk about battery life which will lead into our performance comparison too to start let's bring up this graphic here for my review and there's a few things I want to make a point of number one if we try to play at the lowest settings here with like GameCube for example we can expect about three and a half hours of battery life on the Rog Ally and then also make note right here with steamroll Dig 2 on silent mode which is an 8 watt TDP where we're getting about three hours of battery life altogether and then finally with Horizon zero Dawn with a 14 watt TDP on 720p low settings with a 40 frames per second cap we're getting about two hours of battery life altogether and when it comes to low power performance trying to play some lightweight games the steam deck is much better in this regard if we look here with steamworld Dig 2 you can see in the top left we have all of our metrics and what I want to focus on right here is going to be the overall power draw which is a little bit to the right of the battery percentage and you can see with this game the full power package is about six and a half Watts altogether and right below that you can see that the estimated remaining time here is over six hours of gameplay as a reminder on the Rog Ally I got about three hours of gameplay now that was with that 120 hertz versus 60 but even then if I tried to play this game at 60 frames per sec second on the Ally I would only expect about three and a half hours and so the difference here between over six hours and three and a half hours is quite significant and so if you are looking to play low spec games then the steam deck is going to win hands down now I'm hoping that people in the community or even Aces themselves can fix these power profiles at the low end and so we will get better battery life but at least as it stands right now the steam deck is winning handily let me give you another example with low power emulation we're going to use Donkey Kong Country on the Super Nintendo here on the steam deck you can see we're getting a total power package of about 6 Watts altogether and again you can expect about six hours of battery life in that regard meanwhile the same game on the Rog Ally has a 12 watt total power draw and so again right here I would expect about three and a half hours with the Ally now as you start moving things up it gets a little bit more interesting for example the Wii U can play at the silent power mode on the Rog Ally and that's going to require about 14 watts altogether which is not that much more than the bottom floor of 12 Watts that we saw with the Super Nintendo meanwhile the steam deck has to work a little bit harder to get this game running at full speed and so because of that the power draws about 16 or 17 Watts for Wii U and so when it comes to mid-tier emulation the Rog Ally will probably actually give you better battery life and I think a lot of that has to do with the more advanced chip that's on the Rog Ally it can just play some of those harder games with a little bit less effort and I think that's going to be The Sweet Spot when you can find it is to play those games that are not going to take as much effort to actually run really well compared to the steam deck and so with this next Point here in order to really capture it I have to kind of move over to the performance comparison as well so let's kind of do that together with the battery and let's start here with the steam deck I'm running this at 720p resolution with a 40 frames per second cap with low settings I've also turned on FSR to ultra quality and you can see here we're getting a pretty stable 40 frames per second you're definitely going to see some dips here and there as you're playing it but all the same I think this is perfectly playable and if you look the total power draws about 15 watts and according to them that's going to last about 2 hours and 45 minutes and if you remember from my battery life testing with the Rog I use these exact same settings and got a little bit over two hours and so with this game with the exact same settings we're actually getting better battery life with the steam deck however although you are going to get less battery with the Rog Ally you're going to get much better performance for example if I remove the frame rate cap from 40 frames per second and just kind of Let It Go Buck Wild you can see here that the settings are going to be closer to like 55 or even 60 frames per second here with 720p in low settings and you can definitely feel the smoothness here compared to something like the steam deck and so if I had two hours to kill and I wanted to play this game and I had to choose between these two I would much rather play on the Rog Ally than the steam deck however if I wanted to play for three hours then obviously the steam deck is going to be my choice there now the other benefit of having these Z1 extreme chip that I have here in the Rog Ally is that it can do a lot more so for example I can increase the resolution to 1080p from 720p and have a much sharper and clearer picture of course I'm not going to have that really high frame rate instead it's going to be around 30 frames per second but and all the same it's very playable and it looks gorgeous and of course bear in mind that we're just using the middle performance profile we have an entire turbo mode that we can also use and so if we try to play the exact same game at 1080p with low settings we can get about 40 frames per second when we use turbo mode now of course bear in mind this is going to eat up your battery even more so it's only going to last about an hour if you play it this way but if you only have an hour to kill this is a great way to experience it and so in the end you've got a lot of flexibility with the Rog Ally really depends on your preferences do you want to play something with lower settings and get a little bit better battery life or do you really want to push it to the extreme when it comes to the steam deck you don't really have an option you basically can just optimize it to play on that device and then just use those settings and so I think it's really hard to make a battery life and performance judgment between these two devices because they are two different use cases I think when it comes to low end gaming there's no question the steam deck is going to be better but if you're trying to play some of the higher end games you know they're going to run better on the Rog Ally and it's really going to come down to what you favor the most longer battery life better performance better graphics all those kinds of things in the end I think the Rog Ally does give you more flexibility in that experience next we're going to talk about the overall docked experience between these two with the Rog Ally This is a Windows based machine and so because of that if you hook this up to a monitor and keyboard like I mentioned before it's gonna be a lot easier to just do everyday PC tasks you want to send an email to your grandma you want to do with some light video or photo editing I would say that the Rog Ally is just going to feel more natural if you are accustomed to Windows first and so when it comes to just docking this and using it as a PC I think that you would probably have a better time with the Ally unless you are a fan of Linux in the first place however what I want to focus on here in this category is what it's like to game in a docked experience between these two devices and it is kind of night and day to start when you dock the steam deck it's a pretty nice experience you basically have that exact same console experience but now on a larger screen but when it comes to Performance it's going to be the exact same thing and so when you plug in the steam deck into the larger screen that's basically it you're going to get a larger screen and so when you're playing a game that looks perfectly fine and in 720p on the steam deck screen and you're playing it on a 55-inch TV it's not going to be the same it's going to look really muddied and kind of watered down in fact I found that the best use for docked mode with the steam deck is going to be when playing retro games things where it doesn't really matter having a high resolution things like that so it can become like a retro gaming console but all the same when it comes to playing a PC game I kind of would rather just play it on the smaller screen because it doesn't look so bad meanwhile with the Rog Ally it can be a different experience I have mine set up that when I plug it in it'll automatically go into turbo mode which means it's going to pull a full 30 watt TDP as you're playing it it's going to improve your game significantly now turbo mode is kind of a nightmare in handheld mode just because it'll drain the battery super fast usually an hour or less however when you actually have it plugged in it will charge the device and then also give you those 30 watts and it's a great experience for example with the steam deck you can play Horizon zero Dawn at the same settings you can in handhold mode so 720p with a 40 frames per second cap however when you plug in the Rog Ally it's going to flip over to turbo mode which means you'll be able to play at 1080P and still at about 40 frames per second and the difference between the two in terms of quality on the screen is night and day and so this experience to me has been very similar to how it is when you're playing on the switch in handheld mode it's going to use lower specs but you don't really mind because it's a smaller screen but then when you plug it into docked mode you will often get a higher frame rate or better graphics and so that's a much better experience and with the Rog Ally it's basically the same thing and so for me I actually look forward to docking up the Rog Ally and playing like that meanwhile with this steam deck it's something that sounds really neat until you actually put it into practice and you realize that it's just going to give you kind of a muddy screen now there's one other secret weapon for the Rog Ally and it's this right here this is the XG mobile this uses that special connection on the top of the Rog Ally which will then connect to this which is an external GPU and power supply all in one not only that it works as a dock so we have our USB ports as well as our HDMI and DisplayPort and then ethernet as well and so this is a nice solution if you want to have an external GPU to have even better variants when it comes to playing docked and there are currently three different models of this this is the oldest one here it is an RTX 3080 inside someone loaned this to me thank you very much for the loan and unfortunately it doesn't work with the Rog Ally yet their software still needs to catch up either way that's one of the three options that we have there's also the 6850m as well as the 4090 which isn't out yet but it's coming soon bear in mind these are all mobile gpus they're not going to be as powerful as their desktop counterparts and these are all very expensive they're between a thousand and two thousand dollars each it's just crazy even saying that out loud but the idea here is the combination of the Rog Ally plus that will be a full desktop replacement and so if you're already thinking about getting the Rog Ally and you don't want to have a second computer you could use something like that instead and then just use it for both and of course the graphics performance on this should be phenomenal and so as soon as I have it working I will make a video about it but it might be some time either way when it comes to the docked experience between the Steam deck and the Rog Ally I definitely prefer the rot Ally number one you have the ability to use turbo mode when plugged in and you'll have much better performance than on the steam deck but you also have the flexibility of using the XG mobile if you've got the money for it and want to go down that route too okay all this talk about battery life and performance got me thinking about the cooling system so let's talk about that one next to start there are a couple differences between the two the Rog alley has two fans whereas the steam deck has one and when it comes to Cooling and fan noise between the two I think the Rog Ally is better and so what I'm going to do here is a real world test so I'm going to push both of these devices to their limit and then we'll have a listen to what the fan sounds like so we're going to use Final Fantasy 7 remake right here and I'm going to use turbo mode with the Rog Ally and you can see that the overall temperature is spiking around 70 degrees Celsius right here so let's go ahead and take a listen to the fan with the volume off next I'm going to turn up the volume to the point where I can hear it over the fan itself and right here it takes about 30 percent volume to get to that point next I'm going to turn up the volume to the point where I don't really hear the fan anymore and for this it takes about 75 percent volume foreign now let's do the same test on the steam deck we're looking at about 80 degrees Celsius right here when pushed to the Max and now let's take a listen to The Fan noise now in order to hear the game audio I found that I needed to go about 40 volume right here and in order to get to the point where I didn't hear the fan as much anymore I had to go to about 75 volume as well now admittedly I don't really mind fan noise I kind of like it when machines sound like machines but all the same I know that people out there don't really like that sound and so if you are looking for a lower volume then yes the Rog Ally is going to give you that and bear in mind this is the loudest that I could make the fans and so in just general use it's not going to really get this loud either unless you're really pushing it now one other aspect when it comes to cooling is how hot the device gets in your hands and surprisingly I found this to be basically a non-issue for both of these devices both of these handhelds do a very good job of keeping the heat focused in the center of the device if I had to make a minor nitpick about it I would say the very tips of my fingers can feel a little bit more heat on the Rog Ally and that's because the fingers are spread out a little bit more on the back of the device but again I was pleasantly surprised to find just how cool both of these devices are even when you push them to the max okay the next category is going to be the overall games catalog now this is kind of a weird one right here to start it looks like a very easy win for the Rog Ally because this thing runs on windows so any Windows game is going to work on this that that means you want to play Destiny 2 or Call of Duty they're all going to be readily available here on the Ally meanwhile the steam deck will be limited to the games that run on Linux or through its proton compatibility layers for example I have 285 games currently in my steam catalog but only 129 of them are actually labeled as being great on Deck now there's probably many others that will actually play on the steam deck but all the same that's about half altogether that are actually going to run on this device meanwhile theoretically all 285 of those will work on the Rog Ally with no problem whatsoever and of course on top of that you have access to Game Pass which you don't have on the steam deck unless you load up Windows first so if there are certain Windows games that you want to play on a handheld but you can't play on the steam deck then yes the Rog Ally is going to win in that regard but another thing to bear in mind is another category we already talked about which is controls for example if you wanted to play real-time strategy games then I think these steam deck is going to be a better choice because those track pads and if you'd rather have the granularity of those steam controls for example with first person shooter games then you may prefer to play on the steam deck anyway and so while yes it is technically true that you can play more games than the Rog Ally it's really going to come down to what type of games you actually play and where you'd rather play them for me personally all the games I play are like controller based I don't really use the trackpads or Gyro and so because of that the Rog Ally is going to give me a lot more flexibility so I think in this category here the Rog Ally is the winner unless you have specific needs where the steam deck will work out better okay next up let's talk about price and this one's going to be a little bit hard to judge between the two number one we'll talk about the Rog Ally This one is coming in at 6.99 for the high spec model which is the one I have here which has a Z1 extreme chip inside now for 5.99 you can get the lower spec model although that one won't be coming out until later this year and this one only has the Z1 chip and so you will have lower performance on that one than you will on this and so because we have a different chipset between the two if you do plan on spending 600 then it might make more sense to spend 700 you know save up an extra 100 and get a much better performing chip instead and so really I think the one worth comparing to the steam deck is going to be the Z1 extreme that's the 699 model and it seems to be your best bang for the buck anyway not only that this is the model that's going to be coming out next month so you'll have it in your hands earlier than the other one too now the steam deck comes in three different models there's a 400 base model then a 530 dollar model one and then this one here which I have which is 650 bucks and the main difference between these three is going to be the storage capacity as well as the etched glass and the high end model now if you want to save the most money I would recommend getting the lowest end steam deck model and then buying a Micro SD card with a larger capacity or maybe think about spending about a hundred dollars to swap out the SSD inside and so if you are in a budget that's going to be your cheapest way to go about 500 for a really nice setup compared to 700 for the Rog Ally however if you were planning on already getting the high spec model of 650 with a steam deck then the additional fifty dollars between the rot Ally is very minor and for that additional 500 you're going to get things like a better screen and better performance as well now also bear in mind that the price points on talking about are the American prices and so elsewhere in the world the prices May fluctuate between one or the other and speaking of Elsewhere in the world let's talk about availability next now this category is a little bit up in the air as well for example the Rog Ally is supposed to be available within Best Buy but if they sell a bunch of these they may have stock issues and so because that you may not be able to walk into a store and just pick one up instead we may have supply issues like for example with the PlayStation 5. Now the steam deck is mail order only but it's readily available in most regions however there are some regions like Australia where they still don't have it and so in this category I really appreciate the Allure of being able to walk into Best Buy and pick one of these up I think it's going to give it a lot more of a mainstream connection compared to the steam deck but all the same if there are supply issues due to popularity then it may never reach the stores in the first place so I think this one is going to be a wait and see but I do appreciate the fact that Asus is trying to get this shipped out worldwide which is pretty cool okay and for my last three categories here these are really going to be mostly speculation but I still wanted to touch on them because I think they're important number one is going to be your repair abilities so steam deck has a partnership with iFixit and so you can buy basically any part of the steam deck and repair it yourself and to me that's kind of a gold standard when it comes to repairability and I'd be surprised if Asus has something as mature as that from day one now of course Asus has been in the game for a long time and so they have an RMA process and all that kind of stuff but all the same I really like the DIY aspect of the steam deck so again I can't really give a judgment here but I did want to mention that Asus has an uphill battle when it comes to matching what we have available with the steam deck now next up is going to be the longevity or lifespan of each of these devices after all the steam deck has already been out for a year so theoretically this one's closer to getting an upgrade or a refresh than the Rog Ally which still isn't actually out however one thing to bear in mind is that valve has been doing an amazing job when it comes to paying attention to their device we're seeing software updates all the time like multiple a week which is kind of amazing and on top of that the chipset within the steam deck has basically become its own standard and so a bunch of game developers are optimizing their games to work with with the steam deck and to me I think that D incentivizes valve from making an upgrade to the steam deck anytime soon and for me personally I would rather have a long time between Hardware upgrades kind of like a Home console I would rather have it optimized and working really well and then once the device starts to feel a little bit stale then it's time for an upgrade and I don't see that happening anytime soon with the steam deck and even then if a new steam deck does come out I think this is still going to be a very good device when it comes to playing Indie Games after all with really great power performance at that lower level I think that we can play indie games on this for many years to come now with Asus I think they have a different tactic and that is that they're going to give you the very best of the best and I wouldn't be surprised if we see a refresh of the Rog Ally before we see something from the steam deck and that could come in a number of ways for example they might refresh the XG mobile every year or maybe they will actually do a new handheld every year as well put in a new chip or kind of go from there in the end it feels like Asus is chasing that high-end gaming experience which means that they're going to have to refresh the chip to keep up with demand meanwhile the steam deck seems to be more focused on optimizing what you already have and for me personally I'd rather have a device that I can play for years on end as opposed to trying to get a new one every year but of course the bright spot in that is that the Ally 2 will probably make the li1 a lot cheaper especially on the second hand market now this last category is a little bit touchy and so I'm going to preface this by saying this is only my own interpretations of the events as they unfold and what we're going to talk about here is the trustworthiness of each of these companies I think over the past year valve has done a very good job of being transparent with their customer base for example they've built up a reputation of under promising and over delivering for example when it comes to their shipment times they actually were ahead of the curve most of the time and then there were some other little things that really mattered for example they said that their device only had 400 nits brightness when it's actually brighter than the Rog Ally in real life now when it comes to Asus if you've been watching YouTube there's been a lot of issues with them as a company and a lot of those things are related to their motherboards and things that are way over my head because I'm not a very good PC Gamer but all this the same they do leave me with some pause now from my own experience looking at the Rog Ally marketing materials it does feel like it's over promising and under delivering because if you read through their website or watch their presentation you've probably come away thinking wow this thing can basically do it all and the reality here is that there are some shortcomings with the Rog Ally that just kind of get glossed over things like battery life are quite a bit worse than on the seam deck now in the end I don't think you should put a bunch of trust or faith in any company when you have people like Gamers Nexus and J's two sense basically writing off the entire company that's a really bad sign considering that they probably gave them many chances and had years of bad experiences before making that decision and so in the end when it comes to just investing into a product in the company altogether I would rather go with valve than with Asus based on the facts that we have right now okay I'm gonna wrap things up here I feel like I've been talking forever that's the bad thing about having like 20 categories is that you have to talk about all of them in detail but all the same I hope these were all the details you were looking for now of course the last question here is going to be what device do I prefer over the other and I think this is probably the most subjective of all the different categories and for me personally right now I'm still going to go with the steam Deck Over The Rot Ally but that is with the caveat that I have the right to change my mind at any time a lot of the things that bother me about the Rog Ally have to do with the software experience for example the bugginess of their Command Center drove me crazy over this past week of testing and one of the things I'm most excited about which is the XG Mobile isn't even working on the device just yet now hopefully it'll be ready by the time the device launches but as it stands right now one of my favorite features or at least expected favorite features is not even possible right now but really what pushes me over the edge between the Steam deck and the Rog Ally is going to be the battery life and that's mostly because I prefer to play lower end PC games on the steam deck which means that I've never really worried about battery life on this device at all and so I love the idea of being able to pick up the steam deck at any time and not worry about the battery dying as I play it however when it comes to the Rog Ally because we have that nicer screen and processor I feel more compelled play higher end games and of course as a result I'm gonna have much worse battery life which means I will have battery anxiety with the Rog Ally but not so much with the steam deck and so for me if I only had one handheld PC to play around the house or maybe take on a trip I would pick the steam deck almost every single time but of course that all depends on my own play style and so you may want to play the best and brightest and so because of that the Rog Ally with maybe a battery pack is going to be the best choice for you either way this was a surprisingly tough decision to choose between the two but yeah I think I'm still gonna stick with the steam deck but all the same I'm very excited to see what comes out of the Rog Ally in the future as well anyway that's going to be it for this video here I know it was a long one but I hope you got all the information that you needed if you have any questions let me know in the comments below as always thank you for watching be sure to like And subscribe if you found this helpful and we will see you next time happy gaming [Music] foreign [Music]

Channel: Retro Game Corps

Views: 272,805

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Id: BKhQr_Tq_DI

Length: 43min 16sec (2596 seconds)

Published: Sun May 14 2023