It'll be interesting to see how it fairs against the Steam Deck. Given the option, I'd still take the Deck hands down because Linux + Valve customer support. I would dread the moment I have to try and contact Asus support.
Now is the time for Valve to release the Arch based SteamOS 3.0 officially so that it can be easily installed on non-SteamDeck hardware.
Proton was the missing piece that makes Steam Machines viable. Valve should be making SteamOS 3.0 available to hardware companies like ASUS. The Ally should have been a SteamOS device, IMO.
It's not up to Valve. GPD Win4 is an amazing little device with slide out keyboard 32 GB Ram and LTE that runs SteamOS. It's much faster than my current laptop and would make a fine replacement.
ASUS is getting a little bit better with their Linux support, but Zenfones for example were great little devices with atrocious software support.
SteamOS 3.0 (what runs on the steam deck) is very different from the SteamOS that they've been releasing for a while now. and, unfortunately, 3.0 only runs on the steam deck right now.
And the new GPD Win Max (2023) looks fantastic as well. It's spec'd up to a Ryzen 7840U and maxed out you can run 64GB of DDR5 and has PCIE 4.0. It's even got the new Oculink port.
This is a fantastic machine, thanks for sharing. 64GB with Oculink looks phenomenal. I had a one mix at some point, but repairability was basically "get insurance money if it breaks", but for the performance and the form factor I might just switch back.
This isn't the same SteamOS as the one that the Deck is running, it's an old one from their Steam Machines. Valve should take that page down or put up some sort of warning as it's been confusing people.
You could try ChimeraOS ( https://chimeraos.org/ ) to kinda install SteamOS onto a system. I've tried it with a relatively old laptop with an AMD graphics card and it seems to work ok.
Would you like some toast? Some nice hot crisp brown buttered toast. No? How about a muffin then? Nothing? You know the last time you had toast. 18 days ago, 11.36, Tuesday 3rd, two rounds. I mean, what's the point in buying a toaster with artificial intelligence if you don't like toast. I mean, this is my job. This is cruel, just cruel.
Any version of windows on a small screen is a bad idea. I had couple of windows mobile devices back in the day. (Early 2000s). Then a htc phone with windows mobile (2004) Really clunky. Microsoft should’ve realized then that windows should’ve stayed on the desktop.
Early WinCE/WinMo devices were just taking the desktop UI concepts and transferring them to mobile with minimal tweaks to optimize it for pen (not even touch) input. But it doesn't mean that it has to be that way - if you've seen Windows Phone, and the later Win10 Mobile, those were actually designed from grounds up for small screens, and didn't have the problems you describe.
The problem that still remained, and ultimately killed the platform, is the lack of third party apps also optimized for small screen and touch. These days, it doesn't matter how good the base UX is if the OS doesn't have a good YouTube app, for example.
>if you've seen Windows Phone, and the later Win10 Mobile, those were actually designed from grounds up for small screens, and didn't have the problems you describe.
Indeed. The flipside of Windows 8 Metro being fucking horrible on desktop is that it's awesome on actual tablets and other mobile devices.
>The problem that still remained, and ultimately killed the platform, is the lack of third party apps also optimized for small screen and touch. These days, it doesn't matter how good the base UX is if the OS doesn't have a good YouTube app, for example.
Windows's value lies with the Win32+x86 ecosystem, and every single iteration of Windows that failed to practically implement them (I'm looking at you Windows RT and Windows XP 64-bit Edition) has failed miserably to the surprise of noone except for Microsoft themselves.
Win32 has singlehandedly slain and foiled every single one of Microsoft's plans for expansion.
Everyone buys and runs Windows because we want to use our favorite Win32 programs from today to thirty years ago.
It doesn't help that they messed up everyone that actually bought into the WinRT dream, forcing us to go through multiple rewrites across the WinRT evolution and at the same time dowgrade in tooling.
WinRT 8 => WinRT 8.1 (UAP gets introducted) => WinRT 10 (UWP gets introduced) => WinUI/XAML Islands/XAML Direct => Project Reunion => Back to Win32 with WinAppSDK/WinUI 3.0
In the process, .NET Native and C++/CX get deprecated, Native AOT and C++/CX are not at the same feature parity level, there is no designer, hardly any updates, Github issues keep growing exponentially.
Except for WinDev with Windows 11 UI updates, and everyone that has gotten too deep into WinRT, everyone else went back to classical .NET and Win32 frameworks, or Web alongside "Azure OS".
Even the XDK has dropped WinRT support and refocused on Win32 with the new GDK.
This is exactly why programming for windows now stinks so hard. There is no clear 'build this kind of application'. They pop out a new 'this is the best framework ever' every 2-3 years now (since about 2003). Then pretty much abandon whatever it was the previous 'best ever'. Whoever is in charge of their dev tools is driving the windows devs mad. We have 2 IDEs from them and about 10 different SDKs targeting random niches. Then MS being MS they sort of drag it along because someone is paying for it. But not making it clear to anyone else what is going on and you should not use that. The other 6 eco systems out there are not much better with whoever their champion is and doing very similar things.
For windows itself they also abandoned their style guides. So now you get random levels of win3.1 to win11 GUI popping out with different amounts of how does this work. Nothing is consistent and sort of half 'we are a tablet' and half 'we are a desktop' motif.
Them 'abandoning' win32 was a serious misstep. They should have built that up and had any of their new fancy frameworks building on that.
I don't think Metro was even that bad on desktops, more of a "bad because different" reaction in my view. Not saying it was perfect but it was a direction I think could have worked well.
What was wrong with WinXP 64-bit? I don't recall any compat issues running that back in the 00s, at least beyond what was normal for 9x/NT era software running on 2K/XP.
Let's clarify one thing, there were two 64-bit releases of Windows XP:
Windows XP 64-bit Edition. This runs specifically on Itanium only and was wholly impractical due to steep performance overheads emulating x86.
Windows XP Professional x64 Edition. This runs on x86-64 and is the direct predecessor to the 64-bit releases of subsequent Windows versions including the latest which is Windows 11. This was impractical due to a lack of drivers, it was essentially too advanced for its time.
In my parent comment I am specifically referring to the former.
Brief summary - more recent APU so if you're plugged in to power, the Ally can play games at higher settings. If you're not plugged in, reviewers found that the minimum power draw is high so your battery life is worse (both have the same battery capacity). The best case scenario for the Ally is 4 hours while it's closer to 7 for the Deck.
On the software side, the Deck benefits from a large community of folks creating control mappings for older games. Windows handicaps the Ally - it's just clunky to use in this form factor.
On the other hand...playing 7h straights sounds crazy to me. OK you can do more than playing with these devices, like using them as regular travelling computers with bt keyboard+trackpad combo but still, there is a lot of chance that after 2-3 hours you should be able to find a power outlet and take a pause in your gaming.
That's 7h in ideal circumstances, running light games with a low screen brightness. If you open a full AAA game and let the deck really start slurping power it will get like 1.5 hours at best in my experience. I can get 4 hours when playing emulated PS2 games, but around 1.5 playing something modern like The Outer Wilds on my steam deck.
The ally is much less efficient with the same battery capacity. I've seen reports of like 40 minutes of battery life when running high power draw games.
> If you open a full AAA game and let the deck really start slurping power it will get like 1.5 hours at best
But would you want to spend that time playing with an undocked 700gram device in your hand, in a bad posture looking down at a screen? Even my much lighter Switch I would not play more than 45 minutes straight in portable mode.
Very true, but that comparison gives you two play sessions between charges on the steam deck instead of one for the ally. Considering one of the biggest criticisms of the steam deck is battery life, and as a steam deck owner, I find the ally very uncompelling. It goes out of its way in almost every aspect to draw more power: runs windows, higher-power chip, higher-resolution screen. Then does nothing to solve battery life. What's the point of a handheld if you're tethered to a wall, a smaller bag to carry the charging brick?
The ally just seems to be chasing 'look how high the specs can go' instead of practically improving on the steam deck.
You usually have access to power in long flights between continents and national train lines.
But you don't want to play that long on a portable device anyway, position is just terrible for your posture/neck and I don't think it is really healthy. What you want is alterning occupations: video games, reading, sleeping, drawing, card games, listening to music, making music, chatting, eating, moving in the main aisle, etc.
I think the big difference is software and software support - Deck has a dedicated LinuxOS and game developers explicitly tweak and target games for it. It has great configurability support for controllers, good store ratings for compatibility and a big community that automatically provides controller configurations for the games.
ASUS runs normal Windows which doesn't seem to behave all that well on such a small screened device so that's going to be a massive compromise.
I think everyone simply ignore or forget how performance-demanded the windows is. Using win 10 on hdd brings the hdd perf on system monitor to 100% half of the time, while it's normally operating on Linux. No wonder deck is simply more power-saving and optimized.
It's decent competition for sure. Significantly higher spec versus Deck on paper but they are pushing the envelope for powerful x86 machines in this form factor. Seems like you can melt the battery extremely quickly if you try, since the Ally is a 1080p device. Seen benches around the 50 minute mark. Really no different than running Deck for 90 minutes playing Elden Ring at 800p.
Ally works with Asus' proprietary eGPU enclosure, theoretically can expand horsepower even more. Again though only so much you can do with the form factor. I get using a dock but dedicated accessories seem like they'd provide diminishing returns versus conventional PC hardware. Especially at the price point. Base model Deck blows this thing out of the water value-wise.
The proprietary eGPU enclosure is a very big downside in my point of view - granted, AMD has bad support for thunderbolt, but it instead makes the gpd win choice of industry standard OCuLink port look like an awesome idea.
XBox GamePass Ultimate is the best value in gaming right now. None of these work on the steam deck (obviously). I hate windows, but with a voracious game consuming kid I cant find a better way to spend my money.
Gamepass is now getting a fame of having "gamepass quality" games tho. I'd rather buy good quality games in a Steam sale and have a backlog available in my Steam Deck.
Physical's much better for single-player games if your family has more than one Switch, due to how Nintendo's family sharing for digital games works, which is that the account that buys the game can play it on any Switch, but others can only play it on that account's designated primary switch. And, I can't recall for sure, but I think you may only be able to play one game connected to that account anywhere at a given time.
For multi-device multiplayer, you need multiple copies anyway, so might as well go digital.
Admittedly, this may be a niche concern, but OTOH I don't think Nintendo wants it to be a niche concern, since they're pushing the Switch as both a TV-connected console and a Gameboy replacement.
There's also the matter that you can recover a fair bit of the value of a cartridge by selling it, while you can't do that with digital games, and you can buy physical copies used. Between those, digital is effectively quite a bit more expensive, since they sell them at the same price as physical.
We have one "legal" switch, then other .. less than stock switches. We buy the games on the legal one. What happens after that is between me and my other switches.
Nintendo is better at couch co-op or split screen games. Anything Mario (e.g. Kart), the common casual games (Overcooked), etc. And these games are easier to setup in split-screen mode. The Deck is awesome but 4 Bluetooth controllers is super painful (which one needs re-pairing? who's on controller #1?).
The Deck's wider capabilities (emulators, Minecraft) are also harder to setup and use for kids. The Switch is way more limited but little kids perhaps deal better with a flat "no" than a "maybe, you'll need to work for it".
I think GP's point holds. I'm loving my Deck but my kids are more drawn to their Switch, the Deck intimidates them.
While that might be part of it, I think a huge amount is just brand awareness. Nintendo is known for handheld gaming and has been known for it for 4-5 decades. The steam deck is pretty neat but steam is a computer gamer brand and they just dont have the recognition of nintendo.
Steam's family sharing is definitely not as convenient. Especially because their system doesn't so much share games but entire libraries: only one person can use a library at a time. I could be playing a free game like Dota 2 and my entire library will be locked out of my family share. This makes it impossible to actually build a big library that you can share with multiple friends compared to a physical game collection.
I have a steam deck and haven't really tinkered with it (aside from installing a 1tb SSD to replace the 64gb memory it came with). I would not call it expensive, though.
Mostly I play steam games I already own, although I have picked up a a double handful of inexpensive platformers during various steam sales.
I suppose if you're trying to get it to run the latest and greatest games that may require some tinkering, although it seems like an increasing contingent of games seem to be launching steam deck aimed updated and setting configuration.
I would guess my relatively anccient desktop i7-7600k and gtx 1080 is still a more capable gaming PC but doesn't fit as nicely in my backpack or in bed.
I just had a look. The listings I could see for the steamdeck had it at $800AUD minimum. For the switch I can buy it from a few different stores in my area for $370 AUD. That's very expensive and inaccessible.
I'm not trying to hate on the steamdeck. I think it's super cool and would love to have one. But it's too expensive for me and I'm not sure they even ship it to my area. While the switch is super affordable and a just more out of the box works experience. I know every game I buy for the switch will work great on it, meanwhile I can expect most games I have on steam will not have great controller support or may not run well on the system so its a bit more of a "at your own risk" platform.
Your issue is that you live in australia, where valve doesn't sell steam decks (yet?). So every steam deck listing you see is someone who imported it and is selling it at a premium since you can't get it in aussie land. I suppose not being able to buy one is a good reason to buy an Asus Ally instead, though, assuming you can stomach the higher cost and windows machine status.
I paid $350 canadian for a 64gb steam deck and paid another $100 canadian for a 1tb 2230 format ssd (thats only $80 now). I think the canadian dollar is slightly more valuable than aussie bucks right now but not double as valuable. 1 canadian dollar is $1.12 kangaroo bucks.
So your evaluation of the cost of the steam deck is just wrong. Its way cheaper than you imagine.
Also, valve has put literal years into Steam Input, which lets developers set up controller support, and also lets you load community sourced controller setups for your games. The Steam decks touchpads also let mouse driven games work pretty amazingly in a way that an xbox controller or switch can't.
You're just kind of wrong about the input situation. steam has basically the most sophisticated input software you can get and most of the time it just works, and when it doesn't you just load a community setup and play.
Expensive is relative, and compared to other consoles the Steam Deck is competitively priced. Despite the high level of hackability it's not "just a tinkerer' device". It has a purpose that it accomplishes quite well. Outside of installing Dolphin and Yuzu I haven't done anything with it outside of Big Picture mode. Haven't really felt the need to more, but it's nice to know I could.
Why some people are so hell-bent on seeing the Deck fail is a mystery to me. Either they are simping for some company in competition with Valve/Deck, or they are bitter about people having fun. I could understand the criticisms of it, of which there were many upon initial release, but overall it's a pretty good experience these days.
Microsoft is the one that has to up their game. Windows XP and random Linux distro offered more or less the same interface and features for netbooks so there was no real drawback going with XP. With SteamOS Valve has crafted a controller first UI and ensured features like sleeping a game actually work, the ability to easily adjust TDP, controller settings, frame cap, etc. Right now Windows has none of that so you're left navigating a mouse cursor with an analog stick or tiny touchscreen and using whatever half baked software the OEM cooked up.
None of the Steam Deck competitors have trackpads either which make games not designed with controllers in mind so much more playable without hooking up a KB/M. I think it would be kind of a wash with Windows and no trackpads, yes you can play anti-cheat but strategy and other games are off the table or super clunky.
> None of the Steam Deck competitors have trackpads either which make games not designed with controllers in mind so much more playable without hooking up a KB/M
At least for myself and two friends I just asked, none of us have ever used the trackpads aside from on the desktop and rapid-fire typing. On the desktop you can make do with joystick mouse relatively well, and typing with sticks or perhaps gyro is a bit slower but works fine. None of us has ever used the touchscreen.
For the Deck 2 they should honestly strip out the touchpads and touchscreen.
By taking out the touchpads they claw back real estate that can be used for battery or slimming down. No touchscreen means a little bit more money can be diverted to screen quality, and the screen itself is more likely to have smaller bezels.
I know stating this will ruffle some enthusiast feathers and probably send me into the deep grey, but I honestly think the trade-off would be worth it.
They're a god send for me. They're so flexible and re-mappable I simply couldn't recommend a device in the same form factor without them.
Games like minecraft (java, not bedrock) make no concession for controllers but are flawless experiences due to the track pads giving precise, accurate mouse controls for the crafting interface. They can also be configured as flexible rotary menus or button grids directly in Steam.
They're great for emulators too, which have a lot of complex controls for things like save states. I've played a bunch of PS1 games through and found having all the controls for the emulator I would ever need in one sub-menu on the left trackpad.
They're IMO the real selling feature of the steam deck. The rest is just a computer to run the trackpads.
I've used the trackpads a ton and strongly disagree. It makes games like Civ VI, Magic Arena, etc. very playable on Steam Deck. They are EXTREMELY handy for older games not designed around a controller on PC like for example Morrowind. The UI there was always designed with a mouse in mind and having the trackpads act as a mouse is far superior to clunky analog stick movement. You can also use them as a "virtual numpad" type thing which is great for older FPS where weapon selection is dependent on number keys. They are insanely versatile and for any game that wasn't explicitly designed with an Xbox pad in mind amazing.
Somehow I keep reading about this exodus into GNU/Linux for gaming since Windows XP, instead we have a device that has to emulate Windows and Direct X to be taken seriously by the gaming community, and in the process helps game studios to ignore GNU/Linux and leave the work to Valve.
The Steam Deck encourages devs to test on Wine/Proton before release. Games like Spider-man Remastered have boasted about being Steam Deck verified on day one. Having a Linux "native" only handheld wouldn't have helped put nearly as much spotlight on the device. And in the end it really doesn't matter too much. It works and it does a lot of things better than the platform it's "emulating" so who really cares?
And thank god. If Microsoft hadn't done all the work of building an easily-copied raster graphics API, we wouldn't be so lucky as to preserve them all on Linux. Want to play Diablo 2? You can't, at least on Windows anyways. It's broken by default, and getting it working entails a variety of full-screen, low-res hacks. Want to play the Fallout games without their infamous windowing issues? Not an option, even on Windows 11.
With Wine, all of these functions can be mapped to their modern counterpart. Tray icons and fullscreen behavior can be updated to work as they should in x11, Quartz and Wayland. Breakage can be worked around in the same way Microsoft does with registries, but by the community. The end result is good enough that entire portions of Microsoft's customer base could just move over to Wine without knowing what happened.
Honestly, the best thing Microsoft could do right now is turn DirectX into a useless Metal-style API, and send the game devs running back to Vulkan. Would certainly make porting to multiple consoles easier.
Eh, I'm not so sure. Gamers like Valve more than they like Microsoft.
Linux is free as well, and runs 99% of games you want to play on a handheld pretty well. It's not going to be that 1% that love Gamepass or really want the Windows UI on a gaming device to overthrow the Deck.
Lastly, first mover advantage. The Deck was very well received, Valve have just to eventually upgrade the hardware in a Steam Deck 2, and it'll sell like hot cakes again.
Same. For sure. Any pure player whose existence depends on gaming (or whatever) is going to be preferable to a behemoth like Microsoft who can promote infinite agenda-ridden VPs who disappoint customers, but because the losses are survivable they keep doing it.
MS has been like this for a long time. Just ask all the PlaysForSure music owners.
Support for SteamOS v1/2, the one on Deck is rebased on Arch, lasted to 2018 which is when Proton entered the picture. If that wasn't good enough (fair enough) they were just PCs so you could install Windows on it if you felt you weren't being well served. Or a Linux distro, where the game experience is better than it ever has been largely thanks to projects sponsored by Valve.
So for the very few people who bought them, I'd imagine they're unlikely to be all that upset.
