Yeah... most of us just figured it was pretty far down the list in that respect. We were going to get to it eventually.
__________________ "The great promise of the Internet was that more information would automatically yield better decisions. The great disappointment is that more information actually yields more possibilities to confirm what you already believed anyway." - Brian Eno
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Anybody trying out the ROG Ally. Been using it for a few days now and I’ve got to say, I’m pretty impressed. The screen is night and day over the SteamDeck.
The major complaints people seem to have about the Ally so far are the user experience (unlike the deck the OS isn't made for the device and is therefore much less intuitive and smooth to use), the quality of certain components making it feel somewhat cheaply built / not as solid as hoped (unlike Valve, which doesn't make money on the device itself but rather on their cut of Steam sales, ROG has to make the hardware profitable while still competing with the deck on price, and has cut costs to do so where it can), and a lot of initial bugs and issues that cause crashes or incompatibility with a lot of titles (this was a problem early on with the deck too, but I gather not to the same extent).
I don't play anything remotely demanding on steam deck so the Ally is unnecessary at this point, but I do hope they can get the user experience dialed in and make the whole thing a smooth product to use because the best case scenario is that there are a bunch of quality handhelds being made as time goes on.
__________________ "The great promise of the Internet was that more information would automatically yield better decisions. The great disappointment is that more information actually yields more possibilities to confirm what you already believed anyway." - Brian Eno
The major complaints people seem to have about the Ally so far are the user experience (unlike the deck the OS isn't made for the device and is therefore much less intuitive and smooth to use), the quality of certain components making it feel somewhat cheaply built / not as solid as hoped (unlike Valve, which doesn't make money on the device itself but rather on their cut of Steam sales, ROG has to make the hardware profitable while still competing with the deck on price, and has cut costs to do so where it can), and a lot of initial bugs and issues that cause crashes or incompatibility with a lot of titles (this was a problem early on with the deck too, but I gather not to the same extent).
I don't play anything remotely demanding on steam deck so the Ally is unnecessary at this point, but I do hope they can get the user experience dialed in and make the whole thing a smooth product to use because the best case scenario is that there are a bunch of quality handhelds being made as time goes on.
I’ll be honest, I’ve read a lot of negativity online in regards to the Ally, but for the most part that hasn’t been my experience at all. The initial setup is a bit annoying because of the various updates you need to do, but I was up and running with a few games downloaded in about an hour.
Over my week or so with the device I’ve only had one game crash on me. Everything I’ve tried on it has run flawlessly including some emulation. It’s kind of amazing how smooth and detailed these games can look on a handheld due to the VRR and HD screen.
I don’t find navigating windows difficult at all and I prefer the form factor of the Ally over the deck as well. It’s more portable.
I will say my initial unit had a sticky bumper button which was annoying, but I exchanged it and am good to go now. The battery life certainly leaves a lot to be desired as well.
Well in terms of dimensions, the only significant difference is it's less thick, which will depend on the user as to whether it's a worthwhile change or if it makes the device less comfortable to hold. 60 grams of weight probably isn't making much of a difference.
I think battery life, and easy battery replacement to preserve that battery life over a series of charge cycles, is the main thing that matters to me in terms of iterative improvements over the deck in future models (by Valve or whoever else is making a device). Second would be the screen, which is of course linked directly to battery life - I'm sure the Ally's battery life would be better if the screen was lower res, for example.
__________________ "The great promise of the Internet was that more information would automatically yield better decisions. The great disappointment is that more information actually yields more possibilities to confirm what you already believed anyway." - Brian Eno
Well in terms of dimensions, the only significant difference is it's less thick, which will depend on the user as to whether it's a worthwhile change or if it makes the device less comfortable to hold. 60 grams of weight probably isn't making much of a difference.
I think battery life, and easy battery replacement to preserve that battery life over a series of charge cycles, is the main thing that matters to me in terms of iterative improvements over the deck in future models (by Valve or whoever else is making a device). Second would be the screen, which is of course linked directly to battery life - I'm sure the Ally's battery life would be better if the screen was lower res, for example.
For me, it’s not even really about the dimensions. It’s the general shape of the SteamDeck. Once you put it in its case it just takes up a ton of room in my bag. I didn’t love flying with it.
Before the Ally was released my Deck was regulated to an emulation machine (which it was awesome at), but indies looked better on the switch oled and more modern games just never felt right on the deck. I tried playing RE4 remake on it and while it ran well enough I just couldn’t justify playing it on that screen and in that form factor.
The Ally has essentially replaced my Switch Oled and my steam deck while adding the capability to play Gamepass on the go. For my use case anyways
Yeah I typically travel with it using the $10 Killswitch clone you can get on aliexpress (although as shown in that link it's more on Amazon). It's worked great for me and is way, way smaller than using the case. The case is very good quality and much better drop protection though.
I'm not sure what indies you were playing on the Switch OLED... It seems like the library would be much more limited and the games that are available (i.e. the Dead Cells, Hades, Hollow Knight level of indies which are obviously the more popular type) more expensive. The OLED is a nice screen and should be available on the next version of the Deck, for sure, though.
__________________ "The great promise of the Internet was that more information would automatically yield better decisions. The great disappointment is that more information actually yields more possibilities to confirm what you already believed anyway." - Brian Eno
Indeed. And you can get all these games for under 100 CAD to play on it...
1. Gris - $4.87
2. Portal 2 - $1.29
3. What Remains of Edith Finch - $6.74
4. Disco Elysium - $11.37
5. The Sexy Brutale - $5.84
6. Hollow Knight - $9.74
7. Ori and the Blind Forest - $6.24
8. Ori and the Will of the Wisps - $9.99
9. Bastion - $3.89
10. Crosscode - $6.59
11. Celeste - $5.49
12. Sonic Mania - $6.74
13. Undertale - $3.29
14. Braid - $4.24
15. Limbo - $1.29
16. Journey - $9.99
... and grab Hades for an extra $16.25, if for some reason you didn't already own it.
__________________ "The great promise of the Internet was that more information would automatically yield better decisions. The great disappointment is that more information actually yields more possibilities to confirm what you already believed anyway." - Brian Eno
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I should add to the above that you can get Limbo and Inside in a bundle for under $4.
__________________ "The great promise of the Internet was that more information would automatically yield better decisions. The great disappointment is that more information actually yields more possibilities to confirm what you already believed anyway." - Brian Eno
I find that working a desk job, I now want to play more games on my TV instead of my PC.
I recently tried Moonlight/Sunlight to stream games to my steam deck, and am VERY impressed with how well that works. I only tried it about an hour so far, but I was able to stream BG3 to the deck with no major input lag, and it looked great!
Will need to try for longer sessions, but was very impressed with how well it worked.
