Asus ROG Ally versus Steam Deck: which high-end gaming handheld steals the ultimate portable gaming crown? The Asus ROG Ally is a new gaming handheld that could give the Steam Deck a run for its money. It has better specs, surpassing Valve’s deck with a 1080p LCD touchscreen display at 120Hz, advanced AMD Ryzen Z1 series chip, which Asus claims to be the fastest AMD APU yet, and a USB-C port, PCIe port, and headphone jack as well. We explored all the details and hands-on experience to see how the two devices compare.
Price is the first consideration when buying a handheld device. According to rumors, the Asus ROG Ally will be sold at $699, while the highest Steam Deck model (top-end 512GB model) costs just $649. However, higher-end competitors like GDP Win 4 and AyaNeo 2 cost over $1,000. The pricing point of ROG Ally bridges the gap in the market, catering to high-end gamers who aren’t willing to spend way over $1,000 on similar devices.
The design of the ROG Ally has a look similar to the Nintendo Switch and Steam Deck, including two analog sticks, a d-pad, and four face buttons. It has two buttons on the back, precisely double what the Switch has, but fewer than the Steam Deck. Additionally, the ROG Ally is smaller and lighter than the Steam Deck, giving Asus an edge in comfortable use during extended gaming sessions.
The device’s display is another area where the ROG Ally presents itself as an excellent choice. It has a 7-inch display with a 120Hz 16:9 display with a resolution of 1920 x 1080 that can hit 500 nits of brightness. Comparatively, the Steam Deck has a maximum resolution of 1280 x 800 and a 60Hz refresh rate, which peaked at 170 nits of brightness in lab tests. The ROG Ally’s high resolution and refresh rate stand out and are clear advantages over the Steam Deck.
Performance-wise, the Asus ROG Ally packs a new AMD Ryzen Z1 series processor, which features up to 8 cores and 16 threads, and has efficiency of up to Zen 4 architecture. According to reports, these chips have double the performance of the Steam Deck. Furthermore, the graphics of the new chips are RDNA3 architecture-based. The ROG Ally has a potential secret weapon in the ability to connect to the ROG XG Mobile (an external GPU), and the device has a slew of ports, which is great considering it only has one USB-C port.
By comparision, Steam Deck runs on SteamOS 3.0, which is based on the Arch Linux distribution with a KDE Plasma 5 desktop. The OS supports Proton, which is a compatibility layer that lets Microsoft Windows-developed games run on the Linux-based SteamOS.
The ROG Ally is lighter, smaller, more powerful, boasts a better display, and has the ability to run Windows 11, Xbox Game Pass, and other additional features that the user might want to install
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According to https://www.tomsguide.com/face-off/asus-rog-ally-vs-steam-deck-which-handheld-could-win
The material in this article is written on the basis of another article.