Saw this little gaming handheld deal. I spend a lot of nights in hotel rooms for work. Is this thing worth it? never heard of it, but I saw it was a Black Friday Deal for $500 at Best buy.

The Ally is a SteamDeck with worse software. I'd go with a steamdeck or a lenovo legion go over the asus.

It looks like that is the one with the extreme chipset which is pretty good. The other one without it is a bit underpowered. Probably on sale cause they just released the ROG Ally X which was a nice improvement across the board.

You can watch YouTube reviews to see the good and bad. In general, the Ally is considered the best Windows gaming handheld. Some say the Steam deck is still king (it's what I have), mostly because it behaves like a game console. The Ally feels more like a gaming laptop.

I love my steam deck. I put emulators on it and play a ton of old school games to go along with some PC games.

The biggest drawback is it's Linux based so I can't take advantage of my Xbox Gamepass and a few big games like COD aren't compatible because the anti cheat software only works on windows machines.

But I'm not a true PC gamer so I really appreciate how easy it is to buy and play games. It's a true handheld gaming machine. I was "this" close to going with an Ally... But it being a sorta awkward gaming laptop was my main negative.

So I would say if you are already a PC gamer, the Ally should be a great companion for you and the windows UI shouldn't be a huge deal.

But they are pretty fun toys regardless of what you get. I still prefer to play Xbox on a nice OLED TV, but I still play my steam deck a lot.

Steam os is being ported officially to other handhelds like the ROG. i.e dual booting. The OS will soon no longer be a major factor and the ROG has better specs than steam deck.

https://www.pcworld.com/article/2427356/valve-is-working-on-bringing-steamos-to-other-handhelds.html

jr15aggie said:

---

So I would say if you are already a PC gamer, the Ally should be a great companion for you and the windows UI shouldn't be a huge deal.

But they are pretty fun toys regardless of what you get. I still prefer to play Xbox on a nice OLED TV, but I still play my steam deck a lot.

---

I used to be a PC gamer, back 30+years ago. Used to be one of the first kids I knew back in the early to mid 90's that setup the F16 game over the dial up internet and played against my friends. Long time ago now.

The hotels can be lonesome after a while. it can be hard to travel.

Yeah, darn it, I had an X-box for an OLED but my wife convinced me to sell it at a garage sale.

I'm not a gamer, haven't played games in years. Another option while travelling would be good. .

I bought a Retroid pocket the other year in the hopes I could set it up to just play old school games but it turned out I was way too technologically inept to go that route. I'm a fan of handheld gaming thanks to the Switch so I thought I'd give that a shot but I'm past my prime when it comes to that sort of thing.

So, based on your last response I think my suggestion for you would be a Steamdeck. It's just a very simple device that behaves like a gaming console and not a PC. They have the OLED version for $549 which is what I would recommend, but the older LCD version is only $400. The OLED has a better screen, better battery life, and a few minor optimizations that will play some games a bit better.

I play mine almost every day... it's a great way to pass time and I can still be "present" with the family instead of holed up back in the TV room with my Xbox. And it's amazing on planes, hotels, etc.

At its core it's very basic, but there are plenty of more advanced things you can do with it if you prefer. Me personally, I've intalled Emudeck on it and loaded a ton of retro games (NES thru PS2 era consoles). There are countless Steamdeck youtube videos to help you do anything you want to do with it.

Max Power said:

---

I bought a Retroid pocket the other year in the hopes I could set it up to just play old school games but it turned out I was way too technologically inept to go that route. I'm a fan of handheld gaming thanks to the Switch so I thought I'd give that a shot but I'm past my prime when it comes to that sort of thing.

---

It definitely took a bit more doing than I had hoped, but it made for a fun project. All of the pre-disk consoles are super easy to setup. NES, SNES, Genesis... super easy and the games all play great! Biggest issue is finding a good source to get all the ROMs. I'd definitely recommend using an older PC to search for ROMS because many of those websites are not 100% safe.

The late 90's / early 2000 consoles usually require a bit more work with bios file, etc, but it's really not that bad once you get into it. The Playstation emulator even does the original PS startup sequence which is just the best!

jr15aggie said:

---

Max Power said:

---

I bought a Retroid pocket the other year in the hopes I could set it up to just play old school games but it turned out I was way too technologically inept to go that route. I'm a fan of handheld gaming thanks to the Switch so I thought I'd give that a shot but I'm past my prime when it comes to that sort of thing.

---

It definitely took a bit more doing than I had hoped, but it made for a fun project. All of the pre-disk consoles are super easy to setup. NES, SNES, Genesis... super easy and the games all play great! Biggest issue is finding a good source to get all the ROMs. I'd definitely recommend using an older PC to search for ROMS because many of those websites are not 100% safe.

The late 90's / early 2000 consoles usually require a bit more work with bios file, etc, but it's really not that bad once you get into it. The Playstation emulator even does the original PS startup sequence which is just the best!

---

Yea I totally went down the rabbit hole when trying to make the Retroid function. Even found some YouTube videos to try to help but it was just not in my wheelhouse. If I had no budget I'd buy one of those custom built arcade cabinets with a monster game library already built in but those are way more than I want to pay. I've considered buying a Steamdeck as that might be more up my alley with tons of options across all the different platforms.

Steamdeck hardware is pretty dated. I wouldn't buy one tbh. Everything points to a Steamdeck 2 coming 2025 with much better specs.

FatZilla said:

---

Steamdeck hardware is pretty dated. I wouldn't buy one tbh. Everything points to a Steamdeck 2 coming 2025 with much better specs.

---

Yeah, but OP has already stated that it's been 30 years since he was a "real" gamer. I don't personally feel like waiting for the latest and greatest hardware is something he really needs to worry about.

I think the current Steamdeck and the new $500 price point for the ROG Ally are really good deals. The past 15 years is LOADED with great games and pretty much everything accept the most recent AAA games will run on either system.

I have the system and love it for traveling. I play PC Game Pass and Steam games on it.

If you aren't familiar with gaming on modern Windows (Steam, GOG and the Xbox Store) it will probably be frustrating for you at first, as it runs Windows which is unoptimized for handheld. Navigating the computer, will probably be frustrating if you don't already know which buttons to press to get to where you want to go.

I recommend bracing for that frustration, running exclusively in Steam Big Picture mode, or just buying a Steam Deck.

Nice. As I said above, my ONLY regret about the steam deck is I can't download and play Gamepass games natively.

The streaming option isn't bad though. If I want to play Xbox in bed I can stream directly from my console. Cyberpunk with HDR and 60 fps on my steam deck is pretty sick.

But other games like Forza I'd rather install and play natively... Wouldn't look as good, but the slight input lag when streaming makes it difficult to play racing games or any quick twitch shooters.

Just for fun I streamed the new COD Black Ops multiplayer from my Xbox to my Steam Deck so I could lay in bed... lol, it was playable, but the slight input lag is a definite handicap. The results weren't great but I had a bit of fun and got some kills. Not something I would do again... it's just too big of a step down from playing at 120 fps on a low latency LG OLED.

I'm enjoying my Legion Go quite a bit, which I think is the best overall handheld out right now. Full Windows 11 PC with top end specs for a gaming handheld, and can actually be used as a tablet PC. It can run pretty much any game with pretty high settings. Games look absolutely beautiful on it. I've also used it to remote play my ps5 (although I have to annoyingly connect a ps5 controller to it to do so), and the controller pieces can be detached and used as a joystick mouse for FPS or RTS games.

The only issues I have with it are that the battery life isn't the greatest, and the haptic feedback is quite bad to the point of being distracting.

Steam deck OLED is a good alternative if you favor a long battery life and don't mind being restricted from playing really performance intensive games.