It’s awesome that the handheld market is having a comeback, I might pick up one of these instead of a gaming laptop when I decide to upgrade.
It’s a good alternative to a laptop.
Personally I use my steam deck as a portable console. For laptops, I opted for a Mac. If someone wants windows, it’s really hard to beat this.
I use my Steam Deck as a portable console too. My laptop is a super ultra light thing (XPS 13) that can’t run games very well to begin with, but that’s fine since I have it for work anyway. In the end, the two of those together still cost less than a competent (and new) gaming laptop. And I don’t even have to put up with Nvidia’s terrible Linux drivers!
Right? I love handhelds, I’m so glad they’re coming back.
I wish Valve would release a community version of SteamOS 3.X so we could load it on 3rd party hardware
I preordered one and got it on Monday after having the Steam Deck for almost a year now and being pretty much exclusively a Linux user (at home) for more than that. The hardware is impressive but I was less than happy with it shipping with Windows 11. I mainly got it to reverse engineer the RGB and add it to OpenRGB, after that my plan is to run some flavor of Linux exclusively on it.
Out of the box, the Windows 11 setup experience is absolute garbage as usual. Want to avoid logging in with a spyware account? You need to break out an external keyboard and USB dock, look up the key code to open a terminal online, then enter some cryptic command to reboot the system with the shitty Internet requirement disabled. Basically just to be able to bypass the Microsoft account bullshit like you could in Windows 10. Upon logging in, ROG software pops up and immediately starts making you agree to TOS nonsense. The OOBE is atrociously bad here.
That said, installed Steam to test and even in Windows the Big Picture experience is pretty solid. Can’t do the fancy stuff like TDP control through Steam like you can with the Deck, but it’s definitely a better interface than the ROG nonsense. Played some Risk of Rain 2 to test, ran quite smoothly, smoother than on the Deck for sure.
Then I tried installing ChimeraOS to a micro SD card using a USB flash drive for the installer. I was able to get into BIOS rather easily (hold Volume Down while the start animation plays) and disabled Secure Boot. Then I installed ChimeraOS to the SD card with an Ethernet connection for network. Unfortunately, after it installed I discovered the Ally can’t boot from micro SD cards, so dual booting is going to be difficult. I was able to boot the card in an external USB reader, so the card was fine. No WiFi in ChimeraOS but maybe I needed to install updates/firmware, haven’t had time to experiment.
Mostly have been working on reverse engineering the RGB. There are some built in modes and the ability to sync with other Aura devices. This can be controlled through the Armoury Crate software. I was able to get basic per-LED control working in OpenRGB but need to figure out how to control the built in modes before I’m done and ready to push it.
Other main gripes - no touchpads. Controlling a mouse pointer with a joystick is pretty terrible in comparison. Only one rear button per side rather than two. Not a 16:10 screen. The rainbow looking strip on the back is not RGB as I thought from pictures, it’s just a holographic strip. The only RGB is around the sticks.
Just wanted to say thanks for both the review AND your work reverse engineering the RGB. As a constant user of OpenRGB, I love the fact that there are just passionate people out there who decide to reverse engineer this stuff for fun.
Hope it encourages more companies to try the market.
I have a Ayaneo 2 otherwise I would be ALL OVER the Ally. It just seems like such a great buy if you’re looking for an alternative to the steamdeck. The biggest + for me with these windows handhelds is Xbox Game Pass. I love Steam to death, but native Game Pass support is a really nice perk for the windows handhelds.
Apu twice as power hungry as steam deck’s, but battery capacity is the same. You can maybe play for an hour at 1080p 120fps and 500nits.
That’s not entirely true. The APU is more efficient, and is on a newer node.
It may not be as efficient, but it’s definitely not the same power usage.
Not sure what you’re trying to say but
Van gogh’s tdp range is 4-15W
Z1e’s tdp is 9-30W
Since these are amd’s marketing tdp numbers, the actual limit would be 35% higher at 20W for van gogh and 40W for Z1e. Both handhelds have 40000Wh batteries and steam deck already dips below 1.5 hours with some games, meaning the screen, cooling and conversion losses add up to 6W.
If people continue to play their games at 800x1280x60 on the rog ally it will last longer but if they try utilizing the better screen and faster apu it will have much worse battery life. It also needs stronger cooling or it will inevitably ruin hotter reducing battery efficiency, and it has a brighter&faster screen too.
I’m picking mine up in a few hours. The screen on the demo unit looked so good.
You’re gonna have to post when you get it, and a review!
Yes, please! As a steam deck owner, I’m curious how this compares
