When Valve launched the original Steam Deck, it changed the gaming handheld landscape forever. Now, Asus is back with another premium handheld rival, the ROG Ally X.
In 2023, the Steam Deck received a major upgrade in the form of the Steam Deck OLED model. This has become the definitive version of the Steam Deck, featuring a newly improved battery life and a major display upgrade. With Valve hitting it out of the park a second time, it was only a matter of time before Asus followed suit, and created a new version of its own handheld with the Asus ROG Ally X.
Article continues after ad
The Steam Deck OLED and the Asus ROG Ally X are both high-powered in their own right, however, their Linux and Windows operating systems make them ideal for a different subset of those who want to game on the go. With that in mind, we’ve gathered all you need to know about whether the Steam Deck OLED or the Asus ROG Ally X is better suited for all your portable gaming needs.
Article continues after ad
Specs
Price
With the ROG Ally X and the Steam Deck OLED both being upgraded versions of their original models, it could come as no surprise that their price reflects that. The Steam Deck OLED is available in both a 512 GB and 1TB model, which cost $549 and $649 respectively.
Article continues after ad
The ROG Ally X has a launch price of $799. At that MSRP, that’s an entire $100 more than the current ROG Ally model, and $150 more than the 1TB Steam Deck.
If you’re on a tight budget, either the 512GB or the 1TB version of the Steam Deck OLED would better suit your handheld gaming needs.
The only major caveat here is that the Steam Deck as a whole best suits those who already have pre-existing game libraries on the Steam platform. While you can play games through Xbox Games Pass on the Valve handheld, the nature of it being a Linux-based device does require a little extra know-how to get things running on the handheld.
Article continues after ad
Related:
Asus ROG Ally returns to lowest-ever price in Best Buy deal
Article continues after ad
If the ROG Ally X being a Windows-based device better suits your needs of playing games through services like Xbox Game Pass, then it may be worth looking past the extravagant price point of the upcoming ROG Ally X.
Either way, adding any PC gaming handheld to your gaming setup is an expensive endeavor. However, in this case, the Steam Deck OLED is a much cheaper option, and with it, you still won’t lose out on the high-powered performance you’d expect.
Design
When the original Steam Deck was released on February 25 2022, it set a precedent for all PC gaming handhelds to come. In its wake, the original Asus ROG Ally, Lenovo Legion GO, and MSI Claw all adopted a similar form factor – with their displays being centralized, and their buttons and joysticks remaining on the other side.
Article continues after ad
In design, the Steam Deck and the Asus ROG Ally X don’t differ that much. In fact, the upcoming ROG Ally X looks even more like the Steam Deck OLED than its predecessor, thanks to its new black color scheme. The new black look is new for the ROG Ally X, as both the Z1 Extreme and Z1 previous ROG Ally handhelds were white, which made them stand out from the LCD Steam Deck.
Article continues after ad
Display
Both the ROG Ally X and the Steam Deck OLED have similarly sized touch-screen displays, located between their button setup. However, while they may look similar at a glance, the Steam Deck OLED, as the name suggests, has a 7.4-inch HDR OLED display with a 90 HZ refresh rate.
Article continues after ad
Meanwhile, the ROG Ally X has a slightly smaller screen, with a 7-inch FD LCD display. To make up for the lack of an OLED display, the ROG Ally X instead has Gorilla Glass-branded DXC coasting, to help prevent unwanted glare and reflections. Like the ROG Ally before it, the display also boasts a 120 Hz refresh rate.
Even then, the display of the Steam Deck OLED shines over the ROG Ally X, especially with its HDR support.
Buttons
For its upgraded model, Valve opted to still go without RGB light effects for the Steam Deck OLED. However, Asus has given the ROG Ally X the same RGB halos around the thumbsticks as the previous ROG Ally model.
Both handhelds feature two sticks, ABXY buttons, and two sets of trigger buttons. The major difference is the Steam Deck OLED’s lack of a d-pad. This time around, Asus opted to not only keep the d-pad the upgraded ROG Ally X model but even give it an eight-directional upgrade to make it more ideal for fighting games.
Article continues after ad
Article continues after ad
While the Steam Deck OLED is missing the d-bad entirely, it makes up for it with two exclusive controls of its own. The Steam Deck OLED has two trackpads on either side of its display, which is great for playing through first-person shooters or navigating through desktop mode on the handheld.
What button layout you prefer will likely come down to whether or not you desperately need trackpads on your PC gaming handheld. If that’s a yes, the Steam Deck OLED is more than ideal. If you can go without and need at least some RGB in our gaming tech, the ROG Ally X should be your choice.
Article continues after ad
Battery life
One of the biggest improvements the ROG Ally X has over not just the previous ROG Ally handheld, but a myriad other handhelds on the market, is its 80Wh battery. The new handheld has double that of the 40Wh of the ROG Ally Z1 Extreme. Additionally, it’s also bigger than the 50 Wh of the Steam Deck OLED.
Article continues after ad
While we haven’t been able to test the ROG Ally X’s battery life for ourselves, it’s likely its doubled battery power will put it in good stead come its launch on July 22 In our ROG Ally (2003) review, we explained that we got at least two hours of AAA gameplay on the 40 Wh battery of the Z1 Extreme model.
Article continues after ad
With the Steam Deck OLED, we were able to have at least four hours of gameplay on its 50 Wh battery. With that in mind, we can speculate that doubling the battery power on the ROG Ally X will make it the best for longer portable gaming sessions.
Software: Windows vs SteamOS
The key difference between the Asus ROG Ally X and the Steam Deck OLED comes down to their operating systems. The Steam Deck is Linux-based handheld and runs on Steam’s own custom Steam operating system, SteamOS.
Whereas, the ROG Ally X is a Windows handheld and runs a custom version of the Windows 11 operating system.
Article continues after ad
Article continues after ad
With SteamOS, the Steam Deck is made for playing your Steam games. The operating system acts similarly to Steam’s Big Picture Mode on desktop computers and makes navigating through Steam a straightforward process. The major caveat with SteamOS, however, is that not every game on the Steam platform is compatible with it.
The Steam Deck cleverly uses Proton, a compatibility layer between Linux and the software. This layer emulates a Windows environment in order for games to run, however, some still get through the cracks and aren’t compatible with the Valve handheld.
With the ROG Ally X, having a version of Windows 11 right out of the box makes running games from Xbox Game Pass, the Epic Games Store, and GOG a lot easier. Asus has also integrated a quick-access game launcher which streamlines the process of navigating through the handheld’s OS.
Article continues after ad
Whether you prefer the Linux ways of the Steam Deck OLED, or the ROG Ally X being Windows-based again, comes down to preference. If you have a huge Steam library of compatible games already, then the Steam Deck being designed around the platform makes it the obvious choice.
Article continues after ad
Additionally, while playing the likes of Xbox Game Pass on the Steam Deck isn’t as straightforward as on the ROG Ally X, there is a magnitude of Steam Deck guides, including our own, designed to make running additional games and services on the handheld a lot easier. With a growing community of support, the Steam Deck is our top pick for the best software.
Article continues after ad
Performance
With the Asus ROG Ally X set to release on July 22, Asus hasn’t yet released any official performance data about the brand-new handheld. However, a quick look at its specs and the previous ROG Ally handheld can give us an insight as to what to expect, and how that could match up to the Steam Deck OLED.
The ROG Ally X comes packed with the same Z1 Extreme processor as the previous ROG Ally handheld. This Z1 Extreme processor has 8 cores and 16 threads and is powered by RDNA 3 Radeon graphics, which beats out Valve’s RDNA 2-based APU.
Article continues after ad
The handheld is also packed with 24 GB of LPDDR5X memory, which is a huge step up from the original Ally and the Steam Deck OLED. Therefore, the Asus ROG Ally X is more powerful than the Steam Deck OLED.
Article continues after ad
The Steam Deck didn’t receive a big RAM boost for its OLED model and instead has 16GB of quad-channel LPDDR5 RAM. Despite that, it’s still capable of playing plenty of AAA games, and even graphically intense games like Baldur’s Gate 3 on the go.
But, it’s tough to compete with the processing brunt offered by the Ryzen Z1 Extreme, as it excels in both CPU and GPU-bound tasks when compared to the Steam Deck OLED, thought you’ll have similar overall experiences with both handhelds.
What should you buy?
Picking between the Steam Deck OLED and the ROG Ally X comes down to preference.
Article continues after ad
There are some key differences between the high-powered gaming handhelds which make them more suitable for different needs, such as the Steam Deck OLED being a cheaper option, fitting those with a budget in mind.
Article continues after ad
Additionally, if you already have a vast Steam library of games, it makes sense to pick up Valve’s own handheld, as it gives you yet another way to get through that huge backlog you’ve been accumulating.
You can play Xbox Game Pass on the Steam Deck, however, it does require some tinkering with the Linux-based handheld in desktop mode. If a more straightforward experience playing Game Pass on the go is a must, the ROG Ally X is the better choice.
Article continues after ad
ncG1vNJzZmivp6x7pbHXnqmtp16YvK57056aoWeRqMK0edGonmaZnKHGbsSMr6pmq6Sarq55w56apGWfobKleZFwb3BoaG18