Steam Deck OLED is BETTER Than Asus ROG Ally

hi everyone I'm Professor Tech and this week we're taking a deeper dive into what makes the steam deck a better purchase option over the Asus Rog Ally the holidays are coming up so grab a blanket get some cocoa get comfortable and let's find out what gives valve The [Music] Edge so in last week's video we did a head-to-head match up of the valve steam deck OLED versus the Asus RG Ally and while we uncovered some great differences in my final verdict I effectively said that I didn't put one console ahead of the other instead I ended that video on sort of a copout answer declaring that ultimately the best console is the one right in front of you or the one that best fits your needs and it went on and on and on about the different use cases the different game launchers to consider heck even display technology that greatly differs between these two units and may significantly more impact certain games over others depending on what the unique player themselves May prioritize in the end it was sort of like the systems were tied in a lot of ways but we're Gamers and we don't want any of this tied score nonsense no there can be only one at the top and I'm not sharing anything with anybody not Asus not Lenovo not even Sega Game Gear we're going full top of the mountain can't be beat world champion mode this week do you understand well yes we're getting competitive this week so in the spirit of competition this week we'll be looking at five unique aspects of the valve steam deck OLED that puts it above the Asus RG Ally and why it is ultimately better than the Asus RG Ally shame really what if there was a channel that you could get subscribed to that would tell you all the reasons why the Ally is actually better than the valve steam deck in a couple weeks maybe I'll do that in a few weeks just to you know confirm everybody's biases at the same time uh actually that's my channel my channel is going to be doing a video on why which one is better for which just hit subscribe so without further Ado let's jump into five reasons that the steam deck OLED is is better than the Asus Rog Ally color Fidelity so this one stems from some of the things that we talked about last week and if you haven't already you can check out that video up here while the Asus RG Ali definitely has the higher refresh rate and the higher resolution screen the overall color accuracy falls short of being able to beat out the steam deck oled's Mastery of such a subject due to the sheer nature of OLED technology and its ability to cut on and off entire pixels resulting in not a dark gray but a truly blacked out pixel the color contrast and stops of dynamic range between color variations is unmatched in almost any other handheld device sub maybe some Flagship smartphone manufacturers phones like the iPhone 15 or an Android Samsung Galaxy s23 Ultra but the difference is of course that a smartphone like that costs anywhere from 2 to three times as much and they don't play PC games and while a 90 HZ refresh rate is not as high as a 120 HZ refresh rate one could argue that the decision to invest in a more color accurate rich and comfortable display in a portable device more than overcomes the extra 30 frames per second especially when most games won't even be able to reach that level even on the Ally for the games that do reach over 60 frames per second they are generally so ill demanding that the jump from 60 to 90 Herz feels almost as big as the jump from 60 to 120 several other tech review channels such as Gamers Nexus and lus Tech tips have dived into this trend in the past to investigate the tangible differences once you supersede 60 frames per second from what I took away from those videos among many others is that unless you are a professional level Esports player you probably won't Faire that much better with that extra 30 HZ and if you are a professional Esports player you're probably not playing desktop level games on well handhelds but you know what would be really important if you're a gamer who prefers to play things in handheld mode ease of use that's right one of the most important aspects of taking something that is usually this big and turning it into into something that is this big by the sheer nature of the technology downsizing it to this degree while attempting to deliver similar performance is going to have setbacks and neither the steam dech OLED or the Asus RG Ally have been able to escape this entirely however valve Steam OS user interface design built on the back of a custombuilt Linux kernel is more tailored to the handheld experience because well it was built to do just that from its Inception valve Steam OS has been meant for controller based play as its user interface borrows heavily from valves older Big Picture Mode ironically Big Picture Mode now follows the user interface design of Steam OS so while we know Big Picture Mode came first it kind of feels like a chicken in the egg type of situation meanwhile asus's efforts are somewhat in vain while the idea of a portable window handheld PC sounds absolutely amazing especially for people like myself that travel constantly and frequently however this translates only partially well to a handheld form factor I'm not going to spend a lot of time retreading old ground on my critiques of this experience so the short version is that the current iteration of this is a bit off however to asus's credit they have in some recent updates that improved both the stability and usability of the process improved this quite a bit but it's still no Steam OS and this causes me to get frustrated at this point it has been relegated to really only playing games that my steam deck just can't play like Call of Duty fortnite and Minecraft but in all honesty I'd rather play those games on my laptop or my desktop instead however if you like to see more of my recommendations for what games do play the best on both the allies and the steam deck make sure to hit the like button down below it helps the channel and helps keep us showing up in your feed and you know what else shows up in your feed the button interface okay so the transition didn't really work there well at all but the button interface on the steam deck OLED is in my opinion preferable to that of the Asus RG Ally while last week's video was a stride towards objectivity this video is more of my personal leanings and with that in mind I do nominally prefer valve's effort here over a the touchpads work like a dream and with the updated haptic feedback it's smoother and more responsive than ever I also grew up as a PlayStation kid so contrary to most PC Gamers I actually find myself enjoying having joysticks that are parallel to one another in contrast to the Xbox controller layout that has them slightly offset this is totally a bias thing so it's not something that everybody will agree with and while I do admit that the d-pad situation on the Ally is preferred to me when I'm playing fighting games the steam decks isn't so bad that I don't go out of my way to bring my allly over my steam deck when I go on long work trips it works just fine and would get a solid B minus if it was getting a grade for me the Ally would get a solid B+ a little better but not significantly as mentioned in last week's video as well are the back buttons on both device I maintain that the steam deck having the extra two buttons on the back is much better than just two and while they Contour more with the grip of the steam deck as compared to that of the Allies back pedal rnl buttons they don't get accidentally pressed nearly as often on the deck throwing a carrying case or a hard shell such as the the debrand kill switch case and The Accidental button presses on the deck are even farther and fewer between by the way get subscribed if you'd like to see more videos focusing on accessories for handheld PCS like the deck the Ally even the Lenovo Legion go and remember that once I hit 5,000 subscribers I'm going to be adding the Lenovo Legion go to my review setup so if you want to see more videos comparing these systems to that one make sure to get subbed and speaking of things that you won't want to miss the community support ah yes the coveted X Factor in any new piece of technology will the masses love it will they hate it will they support the manufacturer in their Innovations or will they trash them into Oblivion or in rare cases like what we've seen with the PSVita will they breathe new life into a product that was otherwise abandoned by its maker well thankfully in the case of the steam deck OLED it's the first ever since its launch and valve's very public stance on making the portable baby a device to be tinkered with the masses have been in love with the seam deck and this has led to an ever burgeoning and massive community support system that helps users resolve virtually any issue that they encounter and yes before anyone comes from my jugular the Asus RG Al also has a lovely support system in its Community as well but given valve's first to Market approach with their release and the fact that they've had over a year head start on the market this has organically led to the steam deck just having a more robust and wide Community plus an advantage that valve inherently has over Asus is that valve is built on the back of a Marketplace that has prioritized user feedback and reviews for all of the software that they sell one of the first things that you see when you click on a game's page is how the overall and the recent players have been feeling about any game that you're purchasing and many of the communities that have aided in Steam deck's popularity actually existed in other forms before the steam deck but it's not all valve praise here as they've definitely had some other excursions that got them to the point such as something like the steam controller where they've had more ample opportunity to test things that have ultimately ended up in the fascinating DNA of the steam deck and another thing that they've learned from those previous experiences is [Applause] optimized games yeah that's right games that actually work my singular biggest complaint about the RG Ally which I'm sure I've said before and I'm sure I'll say again but I'm saying it right now is that some games just don't work and you have to Tinker with them so much more than you would have on a desktop and yes I know the steam deck also has games that don't work and I'm aware that most people playing on a desktop or laptop simply aren't putting their system to sleep as often so when games crashed after going into sleep or hibernation mode that should kind of be expected and yes I'm aware that even on top end PCS you have to modify settings out of the box to get things running well and the way you want to sometimes but an a portable factor I just I'm a lazy dog and I don't want to do all of that and the reason that I'm coming up with a better reason for saying this over that is because it's just true I am a lazy dog but that doesn't mean that this point doesn't have some Merit Beyond just oh Tech lazy Tech bad while I'm a computer nerd who loves building and repairing and customizing computer components many people I'd even argue most people are not while it's easy to get into our own Echo chamber shouting more customization more more more that's not quite how the market Works take Apple and Android for example for years and years Android users shouted how much more customizable their devices were over various forms of the iPhone and while some of that still holds true particularly if you're someone who likes to use custom launchers and a few other small software aspects the masses ultimately decided that Apple was the easier and more approachable option apps on the Apple App Store just worked and I hate that I'm using that phrase for a variety of reasons and if you've been paying attention you've been seeing this on the Android side of things recently as well can you in all honesty say that most standard Android phones have not started to become more or less the same yes some have funky shapes and cool gimmicks but most of those things end up just becoming that a gimmick there are exceptions yes like better cameras and various special use cases but in general in order for Android to really start crunching into Apple's market share they had to start simplifying things and for most manufactur ERS they did what does this have to do with the reasons why I think the steam deck is better than the Ally right now well it's sort of like those first few years that Apple and Android users were going back and forth at each other Apple held steady with the features that they chose to give out while Android had more features that were far less stable and there were also some build quality issues to boot the same thing is happening here with the steamtech and the RG Ally one uses Steam OS a rather simplified system that optimizes some but not all games for it while the RG allly uses windows at the cost of having all the bells and whistles that are being held together with metaphorical duct tape and that's laying the groundwork for what's to come so you may hear me say this in the upcoming year but I really think that the rg2 is going to be a big Contender for next year's best portable PC given that all the data Asus is putting out right now seems to lead that they will make drastic improvements but for now I still think this is just a better OS period and when it comes to games I just want them to work especially when I'm on the go I don't want to be dealing with constant software issues windows on a portable handheld seems like a great idea needs drastic improvements like I said last week ultimately it is up to the user to decide which system is the best for their use case their special interest and whether or not they want to use the system for more than just gaming even but when I'm asked by friends and people online alike which system I recommend above all others as of December 2023 I recommend the valve steam deck OLED it's an absolute unit of a system so I hope you enjoyed that video if you did make sure to hit like and get subscribed otherwise the moon will fall from the sky tomorrow I appreciate every single one of you even my haters and I hope you all have an absolutely fantastic and lovely week [Music] [Music] bye

Channel: Professor Tek

Views: 23,457

Keywords: Gaming, Gamng, video games, vdeo games, profesor, profesortek, professortech, rog ally, rog aly, asus aly, stem, stem deck, stem dek, stem dec, steam dek, steam dec, rg ally

Id: Qr-YSNqTk88

Length: 12min 58sec (778 seconds)

Published: Mon Dec 18 2023