I just saw the ASUS handheld in the wild. It was running some FPS game pretty well.
Can anyone help me compare the two - Steam Deck OLED vs comparable ASUS version? Which do you prefer? Pros/cons?
I’m almost decided to buy the Deck OLED, but seeing that in the wild made me pause. It looks nice.
Ally has better specs, support for games which are easier to mod (because windows). It has no touch pads, worse battery life, and windows isn’t great for handheld. Might be good for an alternative windows “laptop” you can also game well with.
Deck has a really good community, is repairable, has touch pads, Steam OS desktop is built for mobile and insanely customizable thanks to Linux (I made mine behave Mac-like). Better battery. Not all games are guaranteed supported (many publishers ignore Linux, so the community or Steam itself usually puts the work in), some require tinkering, and publishers can bust games unexpectedly with anti-cheat efforts. That said, none of the games I’ve ever cared about have been affected. Desktop mode can be used for productivity, but you won’t be able to get away with as much as you would with a more mainstream Linux distribution because Steam OS is read-only and an update might remove some advanced functionality you might have installed. I’m not a Linux user, so I can’t really elaborate on that. Also Arch Linux (which Steam OS is built from) is like the Dark Souls of Linux distros, and not very good for newcomers.
Between the two: if you like windows, modding games, and don’t mind being tethered to a wall in exchange for a little more oomph, go Ally. If you like community support, good controls and battery efficiency is more important than raw performance, go Deck.
In my experience, modding isn’t any more difficult on Linux if you’re using a more manual method (like in Stardew Valley) or using Mod Organizer (for Bethesda games). The main issue is running Vortex, which doesn’t have a native Linux port
Yeah modding isn’t that much more difficult, but sometimes you have to drop a file in a specific folder that can be tricky to find since the directed paths aren’t always 1:1 with windows due to the wine bottling thing. It helps you can right click on a game in Steam desktop for a shortcut to a game’s specific folder, though. That and the community is usually willing to help you figure stuff out.