CORRECTION: I was unaware of a TDP Slider quirk in Bazzite. Apparently when the TDP limiter is disabled, it just uses your last setting. My tests are still helpful but they lack context and I'll have to clarify in my next video. There are a few over-arching points: - You will likely have to be more mindful of your TDP on Ally X than you will have to be on Deck. I'll do more testing in the next few days to confirm. - The HHD overlay will be a better place to manage your power settings (I'll go over this in a future video)
This guy is my go to for Steam Deck, I feel the rest of youtubers are just dudes with very limited exposure to the real technical part and just banked on the popularity of the device
I use Bazzite as my OS on my gaming desktop in my game room/ museum. Now my desktop gaming PC is like a really powerful docked Steam Deck! My Steam Deck is in the living room, so I can game when my wife watches a show on TV. I really like Bazzite, the devs done a great job! I also love the fact the made dedicated versions for handheld gaming PC's.
question, if you use bazzite on a pc or the asus rog ally, can you run the games that the steam deck can't due to the anticheat that linux blocks? how does that work
@@DistinctionDino No. There are no benefits for me in using Windows. I've been using Linux distro's since the late '90s of past century. I use Fedora linux on my Macbook Air (2012 and M1) too. I have always wanted to get rid of Windows on my DIY gaming rigs, but gaming prevented that often. Two years ago, my Steam Deck confirmed me that I could finally ditch Windows for gaming! So I did.
Can't wait for the steam deck 3 to drop with Half-life 3 as a pack-in game. It's gonna be lit bruh. Like breh are you fucky wucking me, hooooly imagine the steam deck 5, it'll br able to emulate the ps5 an shi. i can't even fathom the raw power of that thing. Why would I get a fucking ally for 350 bucks when I can settle for my steam deck for another 9 years... clowns.
I dont care that the ally has better performance I love my linux and doing weird workarounds to play a game that would just instantly start up on the ally or legion go but noooo omg that windows "bloatware" is so scary its gonna report me to the valve police 🤪🤪
Thank you, Rich! Oh man.. Bazzite is so cool, it's really the closest we get to SteamOS and they include extra stuff for us, that Valve wouldn't ship! Blufin for my PC and Bazzite for my Ally!
Steam Deck showed me how good gaming can be in GNU/Linux so thanks to it I switched even my gaming computer to GNU/Linux (openSUSE Tumbleweed with KDE Plasma desktop, like other work computer and laptop). And it is going to get even better in future. especially considering how many anti-features Microsoft is adding to already bloated Windows, like spyware (e.g. Recall) and ads and this nonsensical "AI"/Copilot.
Ngl, calling recall spyware kinda sounds like that’s not ur own opinion and u just heard a RUclipsr say that or sum. Microsoft specifically stated that everything is kept on device and MS sees nothing that was done on ur computer in relation to recall
@@fresco_dinero5155 Believing Microsoft at this time is just very naive. They have changed these privacy settings behind our backs so many time, you installed the update and surprise surprise the privacy setting was turned the other way. I just can't believe them anymore this will really stay local. And since it is all closed we can't even verify it that it is at this time. I don't want any data collected about me at all, even if it would only be local. It can so quickly happen it is not local anymore. Just don't want to waste computer resources on this at all. And it is not just Recall, many other cases before and now.
@@fresco_dinero5155 its nuts.. 13 months with my ally havent seen any bloatware just playing ANY game I want at better performance than the deck.. glad u guys got your lame operating system fucking linux tumbleweed popcorn kernel. The z1 extreme is a super powerful chip than runs games beautifully on windows I find some games even look better on my ally than consoles!! I am an american too Asus isnt paying me to say this but if asus sees this and wants to send me future devices for free I'll gladly screw with the deckies and promote asus gaming devices 😁... also asus still regularly updates the device just got a bios update last week. Remember last year when all the deckies said after 3 months asus would forget the ally exists 😆😆
@@fresco_dinero5155It's always good idea to blindly trust mega corporations' word. Even if the data is never sent back to their servers every piece of text inputted by you and seen by you will be saved on your device for any malicious actor to grab. This includes banking details, passwords, medical details.... etc.
Thank you for a real-life comparison on their max resolution other comparison are stupid who in the world will play a 720p on a 1080p display nice comparison there
I'm probably gonna buy the Ally X when Ally 2 comes around... just like I got a Z1 Extreme Ally for $350 some time ago when they had announced the X... For the X I'm willing to pay $400 tops 😅
The ally 2 is going to be a while until it comes out. With how asus is handling the asus rog ally, they will probably just keep on doing updates to the design until maybe 3/4 years from now
@@Colorandom Didn't they release their first device less than 10 months ago? They will definitely release a new device in 2025, is it going to be named Rog Ally 2 though? That is the real question.
worth mentioning you're not getting the shaders the deck gets. You get ones from people with the same GPU as you, so you're essentially only getting(and contributing to) from other ROG Ally owners running Bazzite, which won't be very many.
Yes, but the shaders still get compiled ahead of time, though you have to wait the first time you launch a game after an upgrade (or skip waiting and get the stutter).
Even if they weren't compiled ahead of time. Linux is better than Windows in that regard because the shaders are compiled before starting the game "ahead of time" as well.
Loved running Bazzite OS on the original Ally, especially for the improved sleep and wake functionality l. I just wish it was easier to share games between Windows and Linux.
Asus, Lenovo and other handheld makers should send devices to the Bazzite devs for testing. I think it would make their devices a lot more appealing if they have good alternative OS support out of the box.
@@LostinSpacetime MS probably only cares that these PC handhelds get sent with Windows. No real reason for Asus/Lenovo/etc. to not work with the Bazzite devs to optimize support for their OS and let customers install Bazzite themselves if they choose to do so.
Hey Rich! Thanks for this comprehensive video, it was really well done (as usual). I do have a couple of specific questions about the Ally Vs OLED Deck. In your personal opinion do you think the Ally's picture quality looks better than the OLED Deck for the games that support HDR on the Deck? I'm curious about how much of a difference the HDR support would bring to the table. Another thing I'm curious about is if the Ally X ergonomics are a big difference or minor difference from the OG Ally as far as comfort for long sessions. Also, does Bazzite support FSR3+AFMF on a driver level for the Ally, or is it possible down the road I wonder? I do love my Z1E Ally and hibernation mode did help quite a bit with giving it a similar sleep/wake function like my Steam Deck LCD, but I do miss the SteamOS experience at times, especially things like Decky Loader. I'm definitely tempted by the Ally X and would also like try out a Dualboot of Bazzite & Windows 11 similarly to how I put dualboot on my Steam Deck. Only thing holding me back on that is procrastination in not wanting to clear off half of my 2TB Windows storage to partition it out and try it. 😭😂 I'm hoping I could just install it exclusively on my Ally's OEM 512GB SSD instead and either use with a Dock or just swap the SSD internally since it is quick and easy to swap it.
I am hoping that in the steam deck 2, they place hall effect joysticks along with their hall effect triggers. They just need to figure out a way where the magnets don't clash with joystick and trigger functions at the same time, so they can be usable independently. As for the Rog, adding at least one touchpad for the mouse function would be great instead of having to use the touch screen or joy stick.
Definitely got me to pre order an ally x I was on the fence because I love my Steam Deck OLED and the pickup and play factor is the best thing about it but you are a legend because I wanted to see how the ally x would run steam os without jumping through hoops
Didn't realize that the SD OLED screen was noticeably bigger than the ROG Ally. If I didn't have a SD already I would consider the ROG Ally X and install Bazzite. Does Bazzite support quick suspend/resume?
i love my deck OLED and have previously had an ally and now have an ally X on the way... The one true advantage the steam deck always had and still does have is low TDP performance, thanks to having fewer cores etc the deck can operate at insanely low power and still play so many indie games so well which would lead to you being able to really tweak it for max battery while still performing well - while the Ally was always stuck with 7w minimum and it was a clear struggle at that performance wise. I was always hoping that Asus would do something about the low power performance, can you imagine it being able to play balatro at 4w with an 80wh battery, it would be 15 hours plus im sure but yeh - i guess they just cant get there with 8 cores and more GPU. With the Ally X having that battery though it basically solves that shortcoming by brute forcing battery life with battery size. So for that reason i think the Ally X will do enough to be my main handheld. Track pads are great but not essential although there are games that clearly benefit from them. Would love to see Asus explore low power performance more, i think its far more important on a handheld than trying to extract minimal extra performance for much more wattage.
Thanks for testing Bazzite on the Ally X. This will also help other distributions like Chimera OS, CachyOS Handheld Edition or Nobara OS Handheld Edition. They all work somehow together to get you the perfect (Linux) experience. Who still uses Windows on a Handheld is stuck in the last century.
With how good bazzite looks I wonder if Valve will ever poach some of the developers to come over to SteamOS haha. The device looks really cool ngl and hey! Horizon Zero Dawn was awesome, you gonna play more of it?
This was my first time really getting into HZD. The start is really light on gameplay so I'm hoping that picks up. But it's gorgeous so I'll keep giving it a shot.
RE: the Valve warranty note: I had a great experience getting my OLED with a buzzy headphone jack repaired! Ally X looks really cool too, especially with the extra ram and battery!
Have you noticed lower max brightness in Bazzite vs. Windows? My OG Ally is setup with dual booting and it seems like the max brightness in Bazzite is around 75% brightness in Windows? I haven't had any luck finding any chatter about it online. Thanks!
Maybe I should get Bazzite a shot. My ChimeraOS on my AN2 actually got *worse* somehow a few weeks ago, when suddenly the physical buttons for screenshot and open keyboard just stopped working out of the blue. I probably won't be going with AyaNeo again. Chances are someone "fixed" the buttons on one of their other millions of devices and this broke the buttons on mine.
Oh no - that sucks. I keep meaning to do a real comparison between Bazzite, ChimeraOS, and HoloISO but it's honestly a lot of work and these things continue to move around. Still, I've been very happy with Bazzite tbh.
I have both the Ally and the steam deck OLED. To me i cant play the same game on both machines, 1080p just crushes 720p imo and the same game will have a lot of alias on 720p. However, the steam deck is perfect for playing indies or emulation. Battery life and OS experience is just so so so much better on the steam deck than on the ally.
I have the same feeling towards my ally and deck OLED... people just think OLED wins by default but i play many games where i notice the resolution difference a lot. games like rocket league for example are outright unplayable on deck for me thanks to the resolution because i cant properly make out what is happening on the other side of the arena its a bit too fuzzy, while on the ally its absolutely crystal clear in comparison. Games like cult of the lamb are just ugly on deck OLED, the grass aliasing kills the image while again on Ally its crisp, so many games i could give as examples (judgement or any yakuza, snowrunner etc etc) On the other hand games like ori are something else entirely on the deck, completely unmatched by the ally thanks to the OLED's black levels and HDR support. But i do find it rarer to have a game blow me away on deck while on the Ally im very often finding the resolution and VRR to be more useful more of the time.
We need a Nebula display on the ROG Ally 2. OLED and VRR together would be a treat. Just need to find a way to lower the power consumption on those displays. As for Bazzite, it looks like using linux will take away the ability to use AFMF 2 which is an amazing technology.
Yes sorry. The battery life comparisons I made were all Ally X using Bazzite vs Steam Deck OLED. Before that, I did a sanity check to ensure that battery life and performance were roughly similar for Windows vs Bazzite on Ally X. Hope that clarifies.
No mention of how the Steam Deck lacks the ability to use an eGPU? I have a RTX 4070 Super hooked up to an USB4 Adapter (ADT-3TG) mind you it’s not ideal for someone who already has a decent rig but for someone like me who uses their Ally X docked at home as a fully functional Gaming Machine that can run most games at Very High - Ultra settings at 1440p and can continue playing the game undocked while on the go. It’s a nice feature to have.
Rich this was a very good video by you. I am glad that you like both. It was refreshing to hear high praise of the ally as well. I think they are both great devices and i did end up pre ordering the ally x. I did get the rog ally back in May but had the 60 day return policy through my best buy membership so returned it so I could get the X. I also agree that for most people the steam oled is a great option but the rog ally x will be great for me because I love games like fortnite, apex, Baldur's Gate 3, Horizon Zero Dawn/Forbidden west and others and the native anti cheat support and better performance help. Great video and look forward to your official review.
you should do a video on bazzite on the steam deck! i’m curious to see if it could be a good replacement for making the OS more useable as a desktop environment
Question - the dual boot guide you link to seems to say that on a handheld like Ally X, you can get away with a very small Bazzite partition (under 2GB) that basically just houses the OS. Does that mean the Windows partition is where you actually have all the Steam and GOG and other platforms installed, along with all their games? In other words Bazzite just lives in its own tiny partition and can access Windows file system on another partition to run compatible games?
Good question and to be honest I'll have to ask why the guide says that bc I don't agree. The windows partition and he Bazzite partition use different filesystems (unfortunately) so no that wouldn't work. I'll find out if there's something I'm not aware of and get back to you
@@FanTheDeck So if you're going to dual boot Bazzite and Windows, presumably you'd reserve the Windows-only games (e.g. anti-cheat required) on the Windows partition and everything else on the Bazzite partition. Essentially you'd do the reverse of what the guide says; you'd portion most of your SSD space for the Bazzite partition since most of your gaming will be done on Bazzite. You'd use a smaller partition for Windows to run unsupported games or for productivity apps and other miscellaneous tasks. Is that how you've set up your Ally X?
@@Intangibles2000 So it looks like I didn't actually post a proper link in the description. Here is the correct link and I don't see any mention of 2GB thankfully. I think you're on the right track yeah. To be honest, it all depends on your playstyle because some anti-cheat games are HUGE so if you're someone that's going to play two of those, then all of a sudden you need 300+ GBs. One more thing is you can use the SD card to supplement either (ASUS, I know 😅). So in that way, it could absolutely make sense to have a small Bazzite partition because maybe you want all your games on the SD card anyway. For me personally, I split the drive about halfway. But that's only for now. I'm pretty keen on going Bazzite full time since I don't play any Windows-only games. Bill from NerdNest has also installed a larger NVME and that seems like a relatively easy process for the X. Hope that helps - feel free to hit me on the Discord channel (link in desc) if you have more questions
Thanks for the video on ally x and bazzite os. Sounds like a good pairing! If I only had the extra cash! I’m still loving my Steamdeck lcd for now. What was the game that showed the person at a couple of locked gates/doors?
Oh that was Lorelei and the Laser Eyes: store.steampowered.com/app/2008920/Lorelei_and_the_Laser_Eyes/ Nothing wrong with Steam Deck LCD! Amazing device
As much as I really want to try Bazzite, A lot of my games on my SD card and on the SSD are windows based and transferring them to Bazzite along with the save data seems to not work from what the site said.
For your battery life comparisons, did the Ally X have its TDP maxed out (25 watts unplugged on the OG Ally) or was it at say 15, 18 or 20 watts? On the OG Ally battery life is comparable at 15 watts vs the OG Steam Deck, but obviously gets worse as the TDP goes up. At 25 watts your looking at a full system pull of 37 - 42 watts, which I'd expect would have worse battery life than the OLED even with the 80wh battery?
Good question. In the tests here, I didn't limit TDP at all. For most of the tests, I didn't limit FPS either. I wanted to see how they both behaved in sort of their "natural" environments. I'm sorry I don't want to comment on the power draw too much because I'll be too tempted to give you real numbers. I'll just say the the total power draw for HZD (OLED unlimited vs Ally X unlimited) is closer than you might expect and the Ally X ends up taking the lead in overall life thanks to the 80wh. It's true that for a game like Balatro, you can limit the TDP and get better battery life than I implied in this video, but the same is true of the OLED. I think with either device, it pays to sometimes try to limit the TDP to see if it improves battery life without sacrificing performance.
@@FanTheDeck - Thanks for the reply! That's pretty exciting then. I have Bazzite on my Ally and always manually fiddled with the TDP in the handheld daemon decky plugin. I thought you had to do that, otherwise it was stuck at 15 watts but sounds like that's not needed! I'm excited to see some real numbers after the embargo lifts. I do love the idea of close to 3 hours of battery life at 18 watts. I haven't had luck with low TDP massively increasing battery life on the Ally like on the OLED, it just doesn't seem to like wattages under 7, even for light games. Gotta love that 8+ hour battery life playing Slay the Spire and Balatro!
I have the original ally, z1 extreme and am very happy with it, not upgrading to the X. I have a bazzite question. Does sleep and resume work on bazzite? Because I hate the slow shut downs and reboots and waking from sleep etc on windows. I wish it worked a lot more like an iPad or a Nintendo switch. Does anyone have experience with bazzite and can tell me if that’s a better experience on bazzite than on windows?
I'm really interested in the Ally X... But seeing it and the oled deck next to each other I wish they could have increased the screen size a bit like Valve did. The combination of aspect ratio, bezels and slight size bump makes the deck look a lot better imho. But the resolution and vrr support should make up for a lot of it. I also like the option of dual booting, getting windows for the few games that don't like Linux as well as gamepass, and bazzite for when I want suspend basically. And of course the increased performance. I got a few weeks summer leave coming up but I don't actually like traveling so I often splurge on some new hardware instead as my vacation spending, might just pick up one of these... Even though objectively it is a bit unneeded already having the oled deck 😂
I say this respectfully: I never understand this comment. These two things are so different to me. I'm curious - have you tried both? Here are some small examples - Many games launch for the first time in windowed mode when in Windows. This never happens if you use SteamOS or Bazzite - I have better access to a "Steam" button which allows me to look at my Steam Achievements, Notes, Recordings, and most importantly for me, SteamInput - Gyro functionality is better in Bazzite and SteamOS - Sometimes running games in Windows from Steam BPM has this effect of sending double inputs (inputs to the game window and inputs to the Steam BPM window) - Suspend/resume works better in SteamOS/Bazzite
@@FanTheDeck Well... alright! This is exactly what I was asking. (And I was actually asking, not making a statement) Thanks for laying it out. I wrote that comment at the point in the video where you mentioned there weren't really any battery improvements on bazzite vs windows. Going into this, that's what I assumed the main benifits would be. Possible performance and efficiency improvements. But it seems that's not the case, however there are a lot of QOL perks like you listed. Thanks.
@@timaaaahhhhyea there just nitpicking at this point trying to convince themselves and everyone else that buying a Steamdeck was a good choice. Never experienced any of the problems OP mentioned ^^^^
Hey u should check also CachyOS Handheld edition... Tried both on Legion Go after using a steamdeck and the CachyOS is by far more great than bazzite and ofc is based on ARCH Linux which is the same as Steamdeck/SteamOS.
I feel that these other PC handheld companies are completely missing the point of these PC handhelds. It's supposed to be a console like experience for your PC games/tasks, yet these companies keep charging PC prices for these machines. That alone will always make the SteamDeck the best PC handheld out there until someone makes a better device and match and/or beat SDeck prices
You're not wrong but I think the asking price for the Ally X is actually a good one. It's like - imagine if Valve added a new $800 Steam Deck option but it was 1080p, VRR, and could play higher spec titles.
Sadly this is not the case in EU. Steam Deck OLED is priced at $1050 and $1150 respectively. Compared to Ally and LegGo at around $750-800 and X at $1090. Only switch lives around $250-400.
The difference is that Valve can afford to sell at a loss and Asus cannot. Valve makes money through software and Asus from hardware. But that will never be able to compete in price.
They just added this which seems to fix the last sleep/resume bug I had. It should be available to everyone in the next 24 hours. github.com/ublue-os/bazzite/pull/1396/files
Steam Deck still have the room for upgrade the battery, and Ally X might stuck here (or pushing 99Wh battery at best). It’s just we wont see Deck upgrade until 2025/2026.
The benefit of being a Windows handheld is having wider compatibility with any launcher outside Steam. I'm not sure how much it's worth installing Bazzite on it that effectively strips that out. I'm also not sure about talking about battery or performance comparisons at this stage, if you can't even use numbers. Not hard for us smooth-brains to predict double the battery means double the OG Ally's lifespan, but seems premature to talk about it right now.
wanna add my own anecdote 10:42. z1e/7/8840u takes about 15w to maintain 60fps in Dave the diver@1080p, so adding total system power consumption thats about a bit more than 3hrs for the ally x@15w. Steam deck oled takes only about 5w to maintain same fps@800p and thats more than 4hrs of play time, really shocking that I discovered this today between my newly ordered gpd winmini and deck oled. I'm returning the mini tomorrow and gonna get the allyx instead, 40wh just isnt enough for these windows handheld chips...
If I got the Ally X I’d probably just keep it stock, Microsoft may be cooking up something good for the windows handhelds and it’d have Gamepass and no Linux headaches. I do love my Steam deck still though
@@StopJerkingOff well, all windows devices run background tasks and some are very useless. Steam os doesn't it can be tuned so it won't consume much energy
That is not what makes the big difference... If it was then Ally X with Bazzite should annihilate the Deck. The difference is in the chip used. The one in the Ally is simply designed to use more power and give more performance. The one in the Deck is more efficient and becomes better in low power scenarios.
I used Steam Big Picture mode when I had the original Ally, and it worked pretty well. This OS swap has some unique benefits, but for anyone hesitant to do a full swap, just use Steam Big Picture mode. You can have it launch with Windows too.
@@FanTheDeck Welcome to the team! You've had a taste of what participating in open source feels like. It's a competitive advantage that you can't get from a commercial closed OS. We have the freedom to get together and crowdsource a problem. I've been lucky to observe the team enabling this device and it's just awesome to see people with a diverse set of skill sets making it happen! It took a while for the pipeline to get there and there's work to do but it only gets better from here!
In regards to your trouble with holding the Nintendo Switch for long periods of time, I found a solution many years ago, when my first Nintendo Switch began showing signs of joycon drift: Hori Split Pad Pro. I have these bad boys since 2020 or so, they're still going strong, and feel as comfortable as holding a Steam Deck. Since I'm a solo player and I play all of my games in handheld mode, the only negative that I find is the lack of gyro in some games (like in Zelda BotW), but players with smaller hands will also have a bit of trouble holding it, as HSPP also increases its overal size to that of the Steam Deck. Couple HSPP with a good carrying case (tomtoc makes some great carrying cases with the HSPP in mind), and you're good to go.
The thing I really don't like about the Steam Deck (both LCD and OLED) is the handling.... It's just not comfortable to play for a while, so I just end up putting it up to a monitor with keyboard and mouse. But I really wish I could play handheld more comfortably while enjoying the really nice OLED screen. If anyone knows any sleeves that help with hand comfort then let me know.
Def not a stupid question. Do you mean for Windows or on Bazzite/Linux? Either way the answer should be yes but it'd be easier to confirm if you have a specific fight stick in mind.
I'm torn between the steam deck and the rog ally x. One has an oled screen (for colourful games like persona kingdom heart etc it's great) but doesn't have all the power for triple A, and the rog is the opposite - better power for a less pretty screen. I'll be using it mainly for AAA games
If you want it mainly for AAA games then the Ally X is the one to go for. I would only get an Ally X if it came from a place that did no fuss returns though. Asus sounds like they have terrible customer service and questionable reliability. Valve has proven again and again that they have excellent customer service. Something else to consider is the future performance increase we are getting just from software. FSR is an example even if you need to have good performance to use it. But who knows what the future holds.
@12:00 Damn that Steam Deck skin looks so sexy!! I have seen him feature it in other videos, n my dumbass thought it was see through plastic the first time I saw it before the OLED even came out. I have a limited edition OLED Steam Deck, n the see through is very subtle actually, still awesome, but the plastic could be a bit more transparent imo
So it's actually fairly typical of dual embargos. Valve had a dual embargo for both the Steam Deck and Steam Deck OLED. That said, I'm not a big fan of dual embargos.
@@FanTheDeckUnderstandable, It’s just in my own prefer ways of using a handheld to be able to do things without having to touch the screen most of the time. With the provided trackpads, the steam deck offers a more polished experience for a linux pc handheld hybrid. Something that the ROG Ally and other handhelds should be included by default to navigate on window.
@@zerotymnUsing analog sticks is not hard I use them all the time. I never use touch screen as well because I want my screen to be always clean and I always use my analog for navigating in my ally.
I mention this in the video but tl;dw - it works most of the time. The devs are aware and are addressing it now. Basically, every once in a while, the controls won't reconnect properly. Hopefully this will be fixed by the time you get your Ally X (if you get one). It also should work well on most other handhelds (including the Steam Deck, oddly)
track pads are nice to have but for very limited use cases, like i love to use the track pads to play a game like football manager or virtual pool 4 or games like rimworld but i dont find them essential to the point a handheld must have them. I think of it like this really... do i miss having no track pads on my xbox controller, and i just dont, but having them does mean you sometimes find a good use for them.
I can't lie, I'm impressed. Finally a handheld that seems worthy of it's price if we don't ignore the existence of Steam Deck. I wonder why Asus doesn't want any kind of fps shown 🤔
Probably because its largely the same performance as the original ally which will put the casual buyer off who may have a slight interest in the new one. Being about the same performance while being more expensive will just put many buyers off, especially knowing the deck OLED released without the price increase over the original msrp. most customers should have enough common sense to know the same chipset will deliver roughly the same performance but some more casual buyers will naturally expect more for more money and 2 fps here or there wont cut it. Asus are really just not that good with marketing, Valve pulled it off with the deck OLED because they were extremely effective at selling to the customer the other advantages the OLED had besides it having the same power. Asus just dont have the same finesse.
@@jinx20001 It is pretty obvious that the performance will be similar but obviously newer games that require more vram will benefit more with a 8gb video 16 gb system ram setup, 16gb shared is just not enough on these handhelds for more demanding games. Also these are early shipped models with early software so it will be much better having benchmarks from release models. Why would you not just wait for more realistic benchmarks. I will let you know how it runs when I get mine on the 23rd.
@@jinx20001 I think the Ally X is better for people who don’t already own an Ally (at least for those who care about the portability). Ultimately, owning the original Ally will result in spending nearly the same amount anyway, once the owner buys a serviceable power bank and 1TB SSD. At that point it’s just smarter to buy the better version.
@@Jykesonville yeh that’s true, upgrading will always be a question of what the user wants, if they already have a deck LCD do they really need an oled, or if they have an ally do they really need the X? The answer ofcourse is no so it’s up to the individuals if they want an improved version of that device. I for one was glad to not need to carry a power bank around with me when upgrading from lcd deck to oled.
ChimeraOS will absolutely benefit from these improvements. I haven't had a chance to work with the ChimeraOS devs but I do hope I get the chance to do so in the future.
@@bm-cy7ek Funny - you're being subjective if you think one is "objectively" better. Some quick examples for you: HDR is objectively better than no HDR But VRR is objectively better than no VRR 7.4" is objectively better than 7" Better battery life @ 18W TDP You could argue that all of the above are objective statements. But which of those points is most important to you, is what's subjective.
@@FanTheDeck These are computers as I see it. Steam Deck is limited to handheld gaming unless you sideload Windows and I think according to you in some other videos, the Windows drivers arent good enough. Now the moment Steam shop closes down this device will be a lot less attractive. I am using a GPD Win Mini currently for the VRR and its my main PC as well since tis Windows. Can I play Steam games? Yes. Can I play games on Steam that Steam Deck doesnt support? Yes. Can I setup emulators like DosBOX easily since most of us are Windows background? Yes. VRR is useful for a lot of emulation usecase such as DOS games that run at 70hz, x68000 emulation that runs 55hz - VRR is a must for me to access older emulated titles, again Steam Deck falls short. Can I use Excel to track my investments? Yes. PowerBI for dashboard for my investments? YES! For the slight increase in price its does a LOT more. At this point I understand the current culture of buying devices that have limitations only to buy the upgrades and Steam Deck is a proper example and I get that, but you can see there are a lot more Pros than Cons for Ally X. So I am being objective. "7.4" is objectively better than 7"" - NO since the resolution is less, you can get less information / details out of it. "HDR is objectively better than no HDR" agreed. Regarding battery life Ally X is just better.
Maybe the score for Ally X - Steam Deck is 10 - 3 or something. So I am ok to pay slight more. Having said that, you are one of the more balanced content person and I thank you for that :)
This just made me want the ally x but I’ll wait until it drops in price. I paid full price for the OG Ally so I don’t owe asus to pay full price again hopefully the Ally x hits $400 after a few months
@@FanTheDeck yea ur right and i dont play heavy games im more of a rpg gamer. i was going to buy a rog ally z1 extreme but after some research i found out that the battery is not that great =/
@@fresco_dinero5155 seems like a decent deal. The OG Ally is currently £600 here in the UK. I think went on sale for Prime Day for around £500. I’ve got nothing against the Ally it’s just £800 for a handheld is sooo much money and won’t be adopted in the same way as the Steam Deck….obviously.
I’m feeling the FOMO bad. I’m in Europe so Ally X costs 900€. I can get an Ally z1x used for 450€. Even with that price difference I’m feeling the fomo. Help meeeee
Great I appreciate what Asus is trying to do here. But the fact of the matter is, 799 is extremely overpriced for a handheld. You can get laptops from Best Buy on sale in that price range that would blow the doors off of the allies performance just not worth it at that price.
I think the price makes it absolutely out of range for a lot of people but it's hard for me to call it "overpriced". Like if Valve started selling a model they called the "Steam Deck Pro" for $800 that could do 1080p VRR and get better performance and had an 80wh battery and 24GB of RAM, I would buy it. I mean clearly, that's still a luxury item - it means that I have the disposable income to do so. But I think it'd be a good value. Likewise, that's how I feel about the ROG Ally X. I think it's a good value and I hope the prices of the original Ally get adjusted and that becomes the one you look to if you want more of "entry level Windows handheld"
The killer feature of the deck is the community and steam pushing devs for optimization. without a standardized platform with the same community size or larger that the steam deck its impossible to get devs to focus on optimizing for such a niche hardware set
I understand what you're saying but I think it's less pronounced than you think. I think the two are so close that you get most of the downstream benefits of the Steam Deck as far as software goes. Bazzite, Decky, EmuDeck all work great here so far.
Because Linux is made to work on very different device types and the Ally X is basically a PC with special controls, when the devs get those running, it will be basically a Deck. All the tools that work on the Deck will work on any device running SteamOS (or Bazzite). I love my Deck, but the truth is that while the hardware of the Deck is very good, the thing that makes it exceptional is the OS.
I've been wanting to do a deep dive into the different options (ChimeraOS, Bazzite, HoloISO). But I haven't done so yet so I can't really say. As far as I can tell, they all benefit each other. For example, whenever Bazzite makes a fix, it's open source so theoretically Chimera can incorporate it too. Or even better, the fix might be made in a library that both Bazzite and Chimera use. Hope that helps.
Bazzite is based on Fedora Kinoite while Holoiso and Chimeraos are based on Arch. Bazzite (and the recent HoloISO revival) is immutable, meaning the system files can't be changed and every update makes new complete version of the OS that it boots. HoloISO is the actual steamOS reverse engineered to be installable on other hardware while Chimera and Bazzite are independent projects more or less trying to emulate it.
You gave enjoyable in depth review, but you smile less and less goofy than other reviewer 😅 I notice people have tendency to sub if the youtuber is happy going, This is just personal opinion, but i like your content and i want you to gain many more subs like you deserve! But if you are not comfortable then just be steady still 😊
CORRECTION: I was unaware of a TDP Slider quirk in Bazzite. Apparently when the TDP limiter is disabled, it just uses your last setting. My tests are still helpful but they lack context and I'll have to clarify in my next video.
There are a few over-arching points:
- You will likely have to be more mindful of your TDP on Ally X than you will have to be on Deck. I'll do more testing in the next few days to confirm.
- The HHD overlay will be a better place to manage your power settings (I'll go over this in a future video)
So I could I assume 5-10% boost 🤔2:20 heavy battery 😉.
OMG thank you i was asking to them like 3 weeks ago about compatibility on their discord
That's the first time seeing the Bazzite boot animation. The sound is so satisfying.
It's adorable
This guy is my go to for Steam Deck, I feel the rest of youtubers are just dudes with very limited exposure to the real technical part and just banked on the popularity of the device
I appreciate that my man. Definitely want to make sure I do the right research and try to give the best info possible.
Agreed 💯💯
I use Bazzite as my OS on my gaming desktop in my game room/ museum. Now my desktop gaming PC is like a really powerful docked Steam Deck! My Steam Deck is in the living room, so I can game when my wife watches a show on TV.
I really like Bazzite, the devs done a great job! I also love the fact the made dedicated versions for handheld gaming PC's.
They truly have done a great job!
On your pc couldn’t you just utilize steam big picture mode and still get the benefits of windows with updates and games even certain emulation.
question, if you use bazzite on a pc or the asus rog ally, can you run the games that the steam deck can't due to the anticheat that linux blocks? how does that work
@@DistinctionDino No. There are no benefits for me in using Windows.
I've been using Linux distro's since the late '90s of past century. I use Fedora linux on my Macbook Air (2012 and M1) too.
I have always wanted to get rid of Windows on my DIY gaming rigs, but gaming prevented that often. Two years ago, my Steam Deck confirmed me that I could finally ditch Windows for gaming!
So I did.
@@JittikMieger interesting I play too many games with anti cheat couldn’t do that.
Honestly, this makes me more excited for steam deck 2. Imagine the benefits of the OLED with much higher performance. Gonna be a beast!
Just get an ally
Nah, man, Steam Deck 3 is gonna be the shit, can't wait for it to drop
Can't wait for the steam deck 3 to drop with Half-life 3 as a pack-in game. It's gonna be lit bruh. Like breh are you fucky wucking me, hooooly imagine the steam deck 5, it'll br able to emulate the ps5 an shi. i can't even fathom the raw power of that thing. Why would I get a fucking ally for 350 bucks when I can settle for my steam deck for another 9 years... clowns.
I dont care that the ally has better performance I love my linux and doing weird workarounds to play a game that would just instantly start up on the ally or legion go but noooo omg that windows "bloatware" is so scary its gonna report me to the valve police 🤪🤪
@@stephendoerrer4464 or you can just instal bazzite, just like what this video has done
Thank you, Rich!
Oh man.. Bazzite is so cool, it's really the closest we get to SteamOS and they include extra stuff for us, that Valve wouldn't ship!
Blufin for my PC and Bazzite for my Ally!
Steam Deck showed me how good gaming can be in GNU/Linux so thanks to it I switched even my gaming computer to GNU/Linux (openSUSE Tumbleweed with KDE Plasma desktop, like other work computer and laptop). And it is going to get even better in future. especially considering how many anti-features Microsoft is adding to already bloated Windows, like spyware (e.g. Recall) and ads and this nonsensical "AI"/Copilot.
Ngl, calling recall spyware kinda sounds like that’s not ur own opinion and u just heard a RUclipsr say that or sum. Microsoft specifically stated that everything is kept on device and MS sees nothing that was done on ur computer in relation to recall
@@fresco_dinero5155 Believing Microsoft at this time is just very naive. They have changed these privacy settings behind our backs so many time, you installed the update and surprise surprise the privacy setting was turned the other way. I just can't believe them anymore this will really stay local. And since it is all closed we can't even verify it that it is at this time. I don't want any data collected about me at all, even if it would only be local. It can so quickly happen it is not local anymore. Just don't want to waste computer resources on this at all. And it is not just Recall, many other cases before and now.
@@fresco_dinero5155 its nuts.. 13 months with my ally havent seen any bloatware just playing ANY game I want at better performance than the deck.. glad u guys got your lame operating system fucking linux tumbleweed popcorn kernel. The z1 extreme is a super powerful chip than runs games beautifully on windows I find some games even look better on my ally than consoles!! I am an american too Asus isnt paying me to say this but if asus sees this and wants to send me future devices for free I'll gladly screw with the deckies and promote asus gaming devices 😁... also asus still regularly updates the device just got a bios update last week. Remember last year when all the deckies said after 3 months asus would forget the ally exists 😆😆
@@fresco_dinero5155 the fact that copilot is in your OS or edge browser whether you like it or not is a bit scary to me
@@fresco_dinero5155It's always good idea to blindly trust mega corporations' word. Even if the data is never sent back to their servers every piece of text inputted by you and seen by you will be saved on your device for any malicious actor to grab. This includes banking details, passwords, medical details.... etc.
I've been running Bazzite on my LLG for a week now and it's been great! Better performance and battery life so far!
Thank you for a real-life comparison on their max resolution other comparison are stupid who in the world will play a 720p on a 1080p display nice comparison there
I'm probably gonna buy the Ally X when Ally 2 comes around... just like I got a Z1 Extreme Ally for $350 some time ago when they had announced the X... For the X I'm willing to pay $400 tops 😅
Me too. I paid full price for the ally, so Im due to pay $350 for the ally x😂
The ally 2 is going to be a while until it comes out. With how asus is handling the asus rog ally, they will probably just keep on doing updates to the design until maybe 3/4 years from now
@@Colorandom Didn't they release their first device less than 10 months ago? They will definitely release a new device in 2025, is it going to be named Rog Ally 2 though? That is the real question.
worth mentioning you're not getting the shaders the deck gets. You get ones from people with the same GPU as you, so you're essentially only getting(and contributing to) from other ROG Ally owners running Bazzite, which won't be very many.
Yes, but the shaders still get compiled ahead of time, though you have to wait the first time you launch a game after an upgrade (or skip waiting and get the stutter).
Even if they weren't compiled ahead of time. Linux is better than Windows in that regard because the shaders are compiled before starting the game "ahead of time" as well.
@@BernardoOne To be honest I find most new games pre compile shaders now. I also find most games run smoother on Ally than the Deck.
One point for me that i still prefer the deck is that it has symmetrical analog stick placement, since I came from PS1 and PS2 era
Understandable!
Playing in the Oled screen is such an awesome experience
Loved running Bazzite OS on the original Ally, especially for the improved sleep and wake functionality l. I just wish it was easier to share games between Windows and Linux.
I wish this was true too. I'm not willing to experiment with btrfs stuff in Windows.
Asus, Lenovo and other handheld makers should send devices to the Bazzite devs for testing. I think it would make their devices a lot more appealing if they have good alternative OS support out of the box.
I wasn't sure how ASUS would react to this but they've been extremely positive. Hopefully this is the beginning of a beautiful relationship.
This would be fantastic, but I'm pretty sure they have some kind of deal with Microsoft.
@@LostinSpacetime MS probably only cares that these PC handhelds get sent with Windows. No real reason for Asus/Lenovo/etc. to not work with the Bazzite devs to optimize support for their OS and let customers install Bazzite themselves if they choose to do so.
@@AndorskiExactly some people prefer windows. Should let people decide because people have different preference.
@@AndorskiExactly some prefer MS or Armory Crate.
Hey Rich! Thanks for this comprehensive video, it was really well done (as usual). I do have a couple of specific questions about the Ally Vs OLED Deck. In your personal opinion do you think the Ally's picture quality looks better than the OLED Deck for the games that support HDR on the Deck? I'm curious about how much of a difference the HDR support would bring to the table. Another thing I'm curious about is if the Ally X ergonomics are a big difference or minor difference from the OG Ally as far as comfort for long sessions. Also, does Bazzite support FSR3+AFMF on a driver level for the Ally, or is it possible down the road I wonder? I do love my Z1E Ally and hibernation mode did help quite a bit with giving it a similar sleep/wake function like my Steam Deck LCD, but I do miss the SteamOS experience at times, especially things like Decky Loader. I'm definitely tempted by the Ally X and would also like try out a Dualboot of Bazzite & Windows 11 similarly to how I put dualboot on my Steam Deck. Only thing holding me back on that is procrastination in not wanting to clear off half of my 2TB Windows storage to partition it out and try it. 😭😂 I'm hoping I could just install it exclusively on my Ally's OEM 512GB SSD instead and either use with a Dock or just swap the SSD internally since it is quick and easy to swap it.
I am hoping that in the steam deck 2, they place hall effect joysticks along with their hall effect triggers. They just need to figure out a way where the magnets don't clash with joystick and trigger functions at the same time, so they can be usable independently. As for the Rog, adding at least one touchpad for the mouse function would be great instead of having to use the touch screen or joy stick.
Definitely got me to pre order an ally x I was on the fence because I love my Steam Deck OLED and the pickup and play factor is the best thing about it but you are a legend because I wanted to see how the ally x would run steam os without jumping through hoops
Didn't realize that the SD OLED screen was noticeably bigger than the ROG Ally.
If I didn't have a SD already I would consider the ROG Ally X and install Bazzite. Does Bazzite support quick suspend/resume?
Bazzite does support suspend/resume
Ones 7 inch the other is 7.4
i love my deck OLED and have previously had an ally and now have an ally X on the way... The one true advantage the steam deck always had and still does have is low TDP performance, thanks to having fewer cores etc the deck can operate at insanely low power and still play so many indie games so well which would lead to you being able to really tweak it for max battery while still performing well - while the Ally was always stuck with 7w minimum and it was a clear struggle at that performance wise. I was always hoping that Asus would do something about the low power performance, can you imagine it being able to play balatro at 4w with an 80wh battery, it would be 15 hours plus im sure but yeh - i guess they just cant get there with 8 cores and more GPU. With the Ally X having that battery though it basically solves that shortcoming by brute forcing battery life with battery size. So for that reason i think the Ally X will do enough to be my main handheld. Track pads are great but not essential although there are games that clearly benefit from them.
Would love to see Asus explore low power performance more, i think its far more important on a handheld than trying to extract minimal extra performance for much more wattage.
Thanks for testing Bazzite on the Ally X. This will also help other distributions like Chimera OS, CachyOS Handheld Edition or Nobara OS Handheld Edition. They all work somehow together to get you the perfect (Linux) experience. Who still uses Windows on a Handheld is stuck in the last century.
With how good bazzite looks I wonder if Valve will ever poach some of the developers to come over to SteamOS haha.
The device looks really cool ngl and hey! Horizon Zero Dawn was awesome, you gonna play more of it?
This was my first time really getting into HZD. The start is really light on gameplay so I'm hoping that picks up. But it's gorgeous so I'll keep giving it a shot.
RE: the Valve warranty note: I had a great experience getting my OLED with a buzzy headphone jack repaired! Ally X looks really cool too, especially with the extra ram and battery!
Have you noticed lower max brightness in Bazzite vs. Windows? My OG Ally is setup with dual booting and it seems like the max brightness in Bazzite is around 75% brightness in Windows? I haven't had any luck finding any chatter about it online. Thanks!
Maybe I should get Bazzite a shot. My ChimeraOS on my AN2 actually got *worse* somehow a few weeks ago, when suddenly the physical buttons for screenshot and open keyboard just stopped working out of the blue. I probably won't be going with AyaNeo again. Chances are someone "fixed" the buttons on one of their other millions of devices and this broke the buttons on mine.
chimera is problematic with tdp controls.
Oh no - that sucks. I keep meaning to do a real comparison between Bazzite, ChimeraOS, and HoloISO but it's honestly a lot of work and these things continue to move around. Still, I've been very happy with Bazzite tbh.
Steam deck for steam games.
Ally x for epic, prime, gog, ubisoft, ea, etc..
I have both the Ally and the steam deck OLED. To me i cant play the same game on both machines, 1080p just crushes 720p imo and the same game will have a lot of alias on 720p.
However, the steam deck is perfect for playing indies or emulation. Battery life and OS experience is just so so so much better on the steam deck than on the ally.
This is why I feel like the Ally X + Bazzite is the best of both worlds rn. Let's see how I feel in a few weeks tho
I have the same feeling towards my ally and deck OLED... people just think OLED wins by default but i play many games where i notice the resolution difference a lot. games like rocket league for example are outright unplayable on deck for me thanks to the resolution because i cant properly make out what is happening on the other side of the arena its a bit too fuzzy, while on the ally its absolutely crystal clear in comparison. Games like cult of the lamb are just ugly on deck OLED, the grass aliasing kills the image while again on Ally its crisp, so many games i could give as examples (judgement or any yakuza, snowrunner etc etc)
On the other hand games like ori are something else entirely on the deck, completely unmatched by the ally thanks to the OLED's black levels and HDR support. But i do find it rarer to have a game blow me away on deck while on the Ally im very often finding the resolution and VRR to be more useful more of the time.
We need a Nebula display on the ROG Ally 2. OLED and VRR together would be a treat. Just need to find a way to lower the power consumption on those displays. As for Bazzite, it looks like using linux will take away the ability to use AFMF 2 which is an amazing technology.
Maybe I missed it. Where the comparisons made with the Ally running Bazzite?
Yes sorry. The battery life comparisons I made were all Ally X using Bazzite vs Steam Deck OLED. Before that, I did a sanity check to ensure that battery life and performance were roughly similar for Windows vs Bazzite on Ally X. Hope that clarifies.
@@FanTheDeck thanks for the video
No mention of how the Steam Deck lacks the ability to use an eGPU? I have a RTX 4070 Super hooked up to an USB4 Adapter (ADT-3TG) mind you it’s not ideal for someone who already has a decent rig but for someone like me who uses their Ally X docked at home as a fully functional Gaming Machine that can run most games at Very High - Ultra settings at 1440p and can continue playing the game undocked while on the go. It’s a nice feature to have.
Rich this was a very good video by you. I am glad that you like both. It was refreshing to hear high praise of the ally as well. I think they are both great devices and i did end up pre ordering the ally x. I did get the rog ally back in May but had the 60 day return policy through my best buy membership so returned it so I could get the X. I also agree that for most people the steam oled is a great option but the rog ally x will be great for me because I love games like fortnite, apex, Baldur's Gate 3, Horizon Zero Dawn/Forbidden west and others and the native anti cheat support and better performance help. Great video and look forward to your official review.
Thanks for the kind words darth! Yeah everything you said makes sense. Hope you enjoy it!
you should do a video on bazzite on the steam deck! i’m curious to see if it could be a good replacement for making the OS more useable as a desktop environment
Question - the dual boot guide you link to seems to say that on a handheld like Ally X, you can get away with a very small Bazzite partition (under 2GB) that basically just houses the OS. Does that mean the Windows partition is where you actually have all the Steam and GOG and other platforms installed, along with all their games? In other words Bazzite just lives in its own tiny partition and can access Windows file system on another partition to run compatible games?
Good question and to be honest I'll have to ask why the guide says that bc I don't agree. The windows partition and he Bazzite partition use different filesystems (unfortunately) so no that wouldn't work. I'll find out if there's something I'm not aware of and get back to you
@@FanTheDeck So if you're going to dual boot Bazzite and Windows, presumably you'd reserve the Windows-only games (e.g. anti-cheat required) on the Windows partition and everything else on the Bazzite partition. Essentially you'd do the reverse of what the guide says; you'd portion most of your SSD space for the Bazzite partition since most of your gaming will be done on Bazzite. You'd use a smaller partition for Windows to run unsupported games or for productivity apps and other miscellaneous tasks. Is that how you've set up your Ally X?
@@Intangibles2000 So it looks like I didn't actually post a proper link in the description. Here is the correct link and I don't see any mention of 2GB thankfully.
I think you're on the right track yeah. To be honest, it all depends on your playstyle because some anti-cheat games are HUGE so if you're someone that's going to play two of those, then all of a sudden you need 300+ GBs.
One more thing is you can use the SD card to supplement either (ASUS, I know 😅). So in that way, it could absolutely make sense to have a small Bazzite partition because maybe you want all your games on the SD card anyway.
For me personally, I split the drive about halfway. But that's only for now. I'm pretty keen on going Bazzite full time since I don't play any Windows-only games.
Bill from NerdNest has also installed a larger NVME and that seems like a relatively easy process for the X.
Hope that helps - feel free to hit me on the Discord channel (link in desc) if you have more questions
My man!
Thanks for the video on ally x and bazzite os. Sounds like a good pairing!
If I only had the extra cash! I’m still loving my Steamdeck lcd for now.
What was the game that showed the person at a couple of locked gates/doors?
Oh that was Lorelei and the Laser Eyes: store.steampowered.com/app/2008920/Lorelei_and_the_Laser_Eyes/
Nothing wrong with Steam Deck LCD! Amazing device
As much as I really want to try Bazzite, A lot of my games on my SD card and on the SSD are windows based and transferring them to Bazzite along with the save data seems to not work from what the site said.
What’s the game being played at 18:00 mark? Thanks.
That game is called Lorelei and the Laser Eyes: store.steampowered.com/app/2008920/Lorelei_and_the_Laser_Eyes/
For your battery life comparisons, did the Ally X have its TDP maxed out (25 watts unplugged on the OG Ally) or was it at say 15, 18 or 20 watts? On the OG Ally battery life is comparable at 15 watts vs the OG Steam Deck, but obviously gets worse as the TDP goes up. At 25 watts your looking at a full system pull of 37 - 42 watts, which I'd expect would have worse battery life than the OLED even with the 80wh battery?
Good question. In the tests here, I didn't limit TDP at all. For most of the tests, I didn't limit FPS either. I wanted to see how they both behaved in sort of their "natural" environments.
I'm sorry I don't want to comment on the power draw too much because I'll be too tempted to give you real numbers. I'll just say the the total power draw for HZD (OLED unlimited vs Ally X unlimited) is closer than you might expect and the Ally X ends up taking the lead in overall life thanks to the 80wh.
It's true that for a game like Balatro, you can limit the TDP and get better battery life than I implied in this video, but the same is true of the OLED. I think with either device, it pays to sometimes try to limit the TDP to see if it improves battery life without sacrificing performance.
@@FanTheDeck - Thanks for the reply! That's pretty exciting then. I have Bazzite on my Ally and always manually fiddled with the TDP in the handheld daemon decky plugin. I thought you had to do that, otherwise it was stuck at 15 watts but sounds like that's not needed! I'm excited to see some real numbers after the embargo lifts.
I do love the idea of close to 3 hours of battery life at 18 watts.
I haven't had luck with low TDP massively increasing battery life on the Ally like on the OLED, it just doesn't seem to like wattages under 7, even for light games. Gotta love that 8+ hour battery life playing Slay the Spire and Balatro!
Legion Go is the one to buy. If you own one you know.
I have the original ally, z1 extreme and am very happy with it, not upgrading to the X. I have a bazzite question. Does sleep and resume work on bazzite? Because I hate the slow shut downs and reboots and waking from sleep etc on windows. I wish it worked a lot more like an iPad or a Nintendo switch. Does anyone have experience with bazzite and can tell me if that’s a better experience on bazzite than on windows?
Yes it works on Bazzite. There's a small delay (1-2 seconds) for everything to reconnect properly but it otherwise works well.
I think they have fixed the wake up feature on the ally. Supposedly its instant like the steam deck.
@@FanTheDeckthat’s great! That’s the one feature that will make me try Bazzite out! Thanks for the advice and good luck in all your work!
I'm really interested in the Ally X... But seeing it and the oled deck next to each other I wish they could have increased the screen size a bit like Valve did. The combination of aspect ratio, bezels and slight size bump makes the deck look a lot better imho.
But the resolution and vrr support should make up for a lot of it. I also like the option of dual booting, getting windows for the few games that don't like Linux as well as gamepass, and bazzite for when I want suspend basically. And of course the increased performance.
I got a few weeks summer leave coming up but I don't actually like traveling so I often splurge on some new hardware instead as my vacation spending, might just pick up one of these... Even though objectively it is a bit unneeded already having the oled deck 😂
But are there REALLY any advantages over doing this on the Ally vs just telling it to boot Steam big picture mode on startup?
I say this respectfully: I never understand this comment. These two things are so different to me. I'm curious - have you tried both? Here are some small examples
- Many games launch for the first time in windowed mode when in Windows. This never happens if you use SteamOS or Bazzite
- I have better access to a "Steam" button which allows me to look at my Steam Achievements, Notes, Recordings, and most importantly for me, SteamInput
- Gyro functionality is better in Bazzite and SteamOS
- Sometimes running games in Windows from Steam BPM has this effect of sending double inputs (inputs to the game window and inputs to the Steam BPM window)
- Suspend/resume works better in SteamOS/Bazzite
1000% definitely. If you think just booting BPM is the same as the SteamOS experience, I think it's safe to assume you've never actually tried SteamOS
@@aru3 I'm pretty fucking familiar.
@@FanTheDeck Well... alright! This is exactly what I was asking. (And I was actually asking, not making a statement) Thanks for laying it out. I wrote that comment at the point in the video where you mentioned there weren't really any battery improvements on bazzite vs windows. Going into this, that's what I assumed the main benifits would be. Possible performance and efficiency improvements. But it seems that's not the case, however there are a lot of QOL perks like you listed. Thanks.
@@timaaaahhhhyea there just nitpicking at this point trying to convince themselves and everyone else that buying a Steamdeck was a good choice. Never experienced any of the problems OP mentioned ^^^^
Watched your vid and getting an Ally X. Going to run Bazzite as well. Might be time to say bye to my SD Oled 😢
Hey u should check also CachyOS Handheld edition... Tried both on Legion Go after using a steamdeck and the CachyOS is by far more great than bazzite and ofc is based on ARCH Linux which is the same as Steamdeck/SteamOS.
I'll check it out
How is Bazzite on the Ally x now that you have had it on your Ally x for a long time now?
I feel that these other PC handheld companies are completely missing the point of these PC handhelds. It's supposed to be a console like experience for your PC games/tasks, yet these companies keep charging PC prices for these machines. That alone will always make the SteamDeck the best PC handheld out there until someone makes a better device and match and/or beat SDeck prices
You're not wrong but I think the asking price for the Ally X is actually a good one. It's like - imagine if Valve added a new $800 Steam Deck option but it was 1080p, VRR, and could play higher spec titles.
@@FanTheDeck sold. point well made lol
Kinda keen to see a legion go refresh if/when that comes around.
Sadly this is not the case in EU. Steam Deck OLED is priced at $1050 and $1150 respectively. Compared to Ally and LegGo at around $750-800 and X at $1090. Only switch lives around $250-400.
The difference is that Valve can afford to sell at a loss and Asus cannot. Valve makes money through software and Asus from hardware. But that will never be able to compete in price.
How is the sleep/wake gamenresume situation after all the updates?
They just added this which seems to fix the last sleep/resume bug I had. It should be available to everyone in the next 24 hours. github.com/ublue-os/bazzite/pull/1396/files
Steam Deck still have the room for upgrade the battery, and Ally X might stuck here (or pushing 99Wh battery at best). It’s just we wont see Deck upgrade until 2025/2026.
The benefit of being a Windows handheld is having wider compatibility with any launcher outside Steam. I'm not sure how much it's worth installing Bazzite on it that effectively strips that out.
I'm also not sure about talking about battery or performance comparisons at this stage, if you can't even use numbers. Not hard for us smooth-brains to predict double the battery means double the OG Ally's lifespan, but seems premature to talk about it right now.
wanna add my own anecdote 10:42. z1e/7/8840u takes about 15w to maintain 60fps in Dave the diver@1080p, so adding total system power consumption thats about a bit more than 3hrs for the ally x@15w. Steam deck oled takes only about 5w to maintain same fps@800p and thats more than 4hrs of play time, really shocking that I discovered this today between my newly ordered gpd winmini and deck oled. I'm returning the mini tomorrow and gonna get the allyx instead, 40wh just isnt enough for these windows handheld chips...
If I got the Ally X I’d probably just keep it stock, Microsoft may be cooking up something good for the windows handhelds and it’d have Gamepass and no Linux headaches. I do love my Steam deck still though
I hope Microsoft are! And nothing wrong with keeping it stock. I'm sure you'll enjoy.
Yes, Linux gaming!🎉❤😊
10:45
This is why valve went with Linux over windows, the amount of crap windows does in the background is just horrible.
Wooooo 🥳
Kinda says a lot about how underpowered Steamdeck is, how does the Ally have better performance while running all those other things at the same time
@@StopJerkingOff well, all windows devices run background tasks and some are very useless. Steam os doesn't it can be tuned so it won't consume much energy
That is not what makes the big difference... If it was then Ally X with Bazzite should annihilate the Deck. The difference is in the chip used. The one in the Ally is simply designed to use more power and give more performance. The one in the Deck is more efficient and becomes better in low power scenarios.
@@finraziel no, linux has background task better
I used Steam Big Picture mode when I had the original Ally, and it worked pretty well. This OS swap has some unique benefits, but for anyone hesitant to do a full swap, just use Steam Big Picture mode. You can have it launch with Windows too.
Thanks!
You're awesome Jorge. I really appreciate it.
@@FanTheDeck Welcome to the team! You've had a taste of what participating in open source feels like.
It's a competitive advantage that you can't get from a commercial closed OS. We have the freedom to get together and crowdsource a problem. I've been lucky to observe the team enabling this device and it's just awesome to see people with a diverse set of skill sets making it happen!
It took a while for the pipeline to get there and there's work to do but it only gets better from here!
Now all we need is a Lenovo Legion Go Pro with a 86 or 99watt battery. It would be sick and i would be one of the first people to get one.
i might have to put this on my old GPD Win 2
In regards to your trouble with holding the Nintendo Switch for long periods of time, I found a solution many years ago, when my first Nintendo Switch began showing signs of joycon drift: Hori Split Pad Pro. I have these bad boys since 2020 or so, they're still going strong, and feel as comfortable as holding a Steam Deck. Since I'm a solo player and I play all of my games in handheld mode, the only negative that I find is the lack of gyro in some games (like in Zelda BotW), but players with smaller hands will also have a bit of trouble holding it, as HSPP also increases its overal size to that of the Steam Deck. Couple HSPP with a good carrying case (tomtoc makes some great carrying cases with the HSPP in mind), and you're good to go.
HSPP is very good and so is Nitro Deck. I'm with you! 🤜
@@FanTheDeck Nitro Deck makes NS look like an entirely different gaming console and I like it too. Especially the GC colour variant.
@@FanTheDeck There is a nice switch cover that adds the same deck ergonomics for a few bucks.
Does bazzite break the ALLY X rainbow led functionality just like it did on the Ally?
The thing I really don't like about the Steam Deck (both LCD and OLED) is the handling.... It's just not comfortable to play for a while, so I just end up putting it up to a monitor with keyboard and mouse. But I really wish I could play handheld more comfortably while enjoying the really nice OLED screen. If anyone knows any sleeves that help with hand comfort then let me know.
The shader cache download per game is a feature of Steam on Linux, not only of SteamOS
I cannot wait for this device, its seems awesome, very much a go to device.
Asus should be working with the bazzite devs directly.
They saw this video and asked if they could help. I connected then with the devs 🤞🏼🤞🏼
You do understand that the cooling system upgrade is huge right
Strix point and 80wh battery 🔋 that's what I'm waiting for.
Fans went nuts in my Ally X and I had more stutters and fps drops than in Windows on Hogwarts Legacy. Went back to Windows 11😢
Might be a stupid question but is it possible to run a fightstick through the ally x? 🤔
Def not a stupid question. Do you mean for Windows or on Bazzite/Linux? Either way the answer should be yes but it'd be easier to confirm if you have a specific fight stick in mind.
I'm torn between the steam deck and the rog ally x. One has an oled screen (for colourful games like persona kingdom heart etc it's great) but doesn't have all the power for triple A, and the rog is the opposite - better power for a less pretty screen.
I'll be using it mainly for AAA games
If you want it mainly for AAA games then the Ally X is the one to go for. I would only get an Ally X if it came from a place that did no fuss returns though. Asus sounds like they have terrible customer service and questionable reliability. Valve has proven again and again that they have excellent customer service. Something else to consider is the future performance increase we are getting just from software. FSR is an example even if you need to have good performance to use it. But who knows what the future holds.
Does Bazzite give you better battery life than running Windows?? For games at lower tdp like steamdeck??
I didn't notice any difference in battery life or performance either way. They were very similar for both operating systems.
Imagine doubling the battery capacity and still be beaten by a Steam Deck
Asus messed up real bad with ROG X. They should have released it with new iGPU, 890M a little later. Now it's gonna be much harder.
Very good and honest review. I’m not sure if I will purchase it though as I already have an Rog ally
Hope the Ally series gets better so it makes the people at Lenovos legions go good as well
Is possible to ask for egpu support on the ally X While being in Linux😅.
@12:00
Damn that Steam Deck skin looks so sexy!!
I have seen him feature it in other videos, n my dumbass thought it was see through plastic the first time I saw it before the OLED even came out.
I have a limited edition OLED Steam Deck, n the see through is very subtle actually, still awesome, but the plastic could be a bit more transparent imo
well it is interesting tech but i think there will be something better made if can pull it off ..nice vid by the way keep rocking on
Did the Ally get set to 10w mode for balatro?
8:00 Them saying for you not to show FPS counter shows so much insecurity. The main consumer of this product knows it's not a generational leap
So it's actually fairly typical of dual embargos. Valve had a dual embargo for both the Steam Deck and Steam Deck OLED. That said, I'm not a big fan of dual embargos.
The steam deck trackpads make navigation on the desktop interface so much easier than using the joysticks.
This is true. Even just typing on virtual keyboard is a lot nicer on the trackpads. Still I'm not missing them too much personally
You do know that touchscreens exist, right?
@@borky1987I hate it lol. I prefer to keep my screen clean.
@@FanTheDeckUnderstandable, It’s just in my own prefer ways of using a handheld to be able to do things without having to touch the screen most of the time. With the provided trackpads, the steam deck offers a more polished experience for a linux pc handheld hybrid. Something that the ROG Ally and other handhelds should be included by default to navigate on window.
@@zerotymnUsing analog sticks is not hard I use them all the time. I never use touch screen as well because I want my screen to be always clean and I always use my analog for navigating in my ally.
how is sleep wakeup functionality by running Bazzite ?
I mention this in the video but tl;dw - it works most of the time. The devs are aware and are addressing it now. Basically, every once in a while, the controls won't reconnect properly. Hopefully this will be fixed by the time you get your Ally X (if you get one). It also should work well on most other handhelds (including the Steam Deck, oddly)
The only 2 things that would keep from the Ally over the Steam Deck - 1, no trackpads 2, price
Very very fair.
track pads are nice to have but for very limited use cases, like i love to use the track pads to play a game like football manager or virtual pool 4 or games like rimworld but i dont find them essential to the point a handheld must have them. I think of it like this really... do i miss having no track pads on my xbox controller, and i just dont, but having them does mean you sometimes find a good use for them.
Tdp on SD goes down to 4W, think my ROG-Ally-Original can go down to 6-8w on bazzite.
I can't lie, I'm impressed. Finally a handheld that seems worthy of it's price if we don't ignore the existence of Steam Deck.
I wonder why Asus doesn't want any kind of fps shown 🤔
Probably because its largely the same performance as the original ally which will put the casual buyer off who may have a slight interest in the new one. Being about the same performance while being more expensive will just put many buyers off, especially knowing the deck OLED released without the price increase over the original msrp. most customers should have enough common sense to know the same chipset will deliver roughly the same performance but some more casual buyers will naturally expect more for more money and 2 fps here or there wont cut it. Asus are really just not that good with marketing, Valve pulled it off with the deck OLED because they were extremely effective at selling to the customer the other advantages the OLED had besides it having the same power. Asus just dont have the same finesse.
@@jinx20001 It is pretty obvious that the performance will be similar but obviously newer games that require more vram will benefit more with a 8gb video 16 gb system ram setup, 16gb shared is just not enough on these handhelds for more demanding games. Also these are early shipped models with early software so it will be much better having benchmarks from release models. Why would you not just wait for more realistic benchmarks. I will let you know how it runs when I get mine on the 23rd.
I heard that they are waiting until the launch for the last driver's version
@@jinx20001 I think the Ally X is better for people who don’t already own an Ally (at least for those who care about the portability). Ultimately, owning the original Ally will result in spending nearly the same amount anyway, once the owner buys a serviceable power bank and 1TB SSD. At that point it’s just smarter to buy the better version.
@@Jykesonville yeh that’s true, upgrading will always be a question of what the user wants, if they already have a deck LCD do they really need an oled, or if they have an ally do they really need the X? The answer ofcourse is no so it’s up to the individuals if they want an improved version of that device.
I for one was glad to not need to carry a power bank around with me when upgrading from lcd deck to oled.
Would you use Bazzite or ChimeraOS?
Does the killswitch for the OG ally work with the X?
No unfortunately
what about chimeraOS also?
ChimeraOS will absolutely benefit from these improvements. I haven't had a chance to work with the ChimeraOS devs but I do hope I get the chance to do so in the future.
Wait a minute, the Rog Ally is already way better than the steam deck.
I think it depends on who you ask, no?
@@FanTheDeck objectively. SD being better is subjective
@@bm-cy7ek Funny - you're being subjective if you think one is "objectively" better. Some quick examples for you:
HDR is objectively better than no HDR
But VRR is objectively better than no VRR
7.4" is objectively better than 7"
Better battery life @ 18W TDP
You could argue that all of the above are objective statements. But which of those points is most important to you, is what's subjective.
@@FanTheDeck These are computers as I see it. Steam Deck is limited to handheld gaming unless you sideload Windows and I think according to you in some other videos, the Windows drivers arent good enough. Now the moment Steam shop closes down this device will be a lot less attractive. I am using a GPD Win Mini currently for the VRR and its my main PC as well since tis Windows. Can I play Steam games? Yes. Can I play games on Steam that Steam Deck doesnt support? Yes. Can I setup emulators like DosBOX easily since most of us are Windows background? Yes. VRR is useful for a lot of emulation usecase such as DOS games that run at 70hz, x68000 emulation that runs 55hz - VRR is a must for me to access older emulated titles, again Steam Deck falls short. Can I use Excel to track my investments? Yes. PowerBI for dashboard for my investments? YES! For the slight increase in price its does a LOT more. At this point I understand the current culture of buying devices that have limitations only to buy the upgrades and Steam Deck is a proper example and I get that, but you can see there are a lot more Pros than Cons for Ally X. So I am being objective.
"7.4" is objectively better than 7"" - NO since the resolution is less, you can get less information / details out of it.
"HDR is objectively better than no HDR" agreed.
Regarding battery life Ally X is just better.
Maybe the score for Ally X - Steam Deck is 10 - 3 or something. So I am ok to pay slight more.
Having said that, you are one of the more balanced content person and I thank you for that :)
This just made me want the ally x but I’ll wait until it drops in price. I paid full price for the OG Ally so I don’t owe asus to pay full price again hopefully the Ally x hits $400 after a few months
It won’t be a few months, but I can see it dropping by $200 on Black Friday
@@GrimAbstract I’m talking open box too. Open box deals for the og ally were amazing assuming u get a working model
@@fresco_dinero5155 how much? I might go buy one, return it and get the open box lmao
None of the Ally has OLED display
Right and none of the OLED has 1080p VRR display. Of course, it's up to you which one is more attractive to you.
@@FanTheDeckboom!!
VRR is nothing to scoff at. Though sadly it is from 48 FPS and up. Would be amazing if it went further down to around 25-30.
i do like that the ally x has more RAM at its disposal.
Nahh it's the steam deck for me! I've had my steam deck oled for over 2 weeks now and I freaking love it!
Id still prefer the steam deck oled anyday & very excited to eventually see the steam deck 2 in the future!
i want to buy the rog ally x but its a pricey console and being a student doesnt help with that
It is absolutely pricey and very much a luxury item. If I were a student, I'd likely try to nab one of the refurbished Steam Deck LCDs tbh.
@@FanTheDeck yea ur right and i dont play heavy games im more of a rpg gamer. i was going to buy a rog ally z1 extreme but after some research i found out that the battery is not that great =/
If you don't play heavy games, then the Steam Deck is what you need 👍
If I were a student, I'd put in more work and save up, no point getting a substandard item imo.
@@bm-cy7ek i have a decent desktop pc that does work so steamdeck should be enough
at 11:12 what is the name of that black and white game?
That's Lorelei and the Laser Eyes store.steampowered.com/app/2008920/Lorelei_and_the_Laser_Eyes/
As someone who went from Steam Deck to Ally and back to Steam Deck I’ve got to say £800 is just hard to justify. Diminishing returns and all that.
What about $400 after 7 months?
@@fresco_dinero5155 seems like a decent deal. The OG Ally is currently £600 here in the UK. I think went on sale for Prime Day for around £500. I’ve got nothing against the Ally it’s just £800 for a handheld is sooo much money and won’t be adopted in the same way as the Steam Deck….obviously.
I’m feeling the FOMO bad. I’m in Europe so Ally X costs 900€. I can get an Ally z1x used for 450€.
Even with that price difference I’m feeling the fomo. Help meeeee
Great I appreciate what Asus is trying to do here. But the fact of the matter is, 799 is extremely overpriced for a handheld. You can get laptops from Best Buy on sale in that price range that would blow the doors off of the allies performance just not worth it at that price.
I think the price makes it absolutely out of range for a lot of people but it's hard for me to call it "overpriced". Like if Valve started selling a model they called the "Steam Deck Pro" for $800 that could do 1080p VRR and get better performance and had an 80wh battery and 24GB of RAM, I would buy it. I mean clearly, that's still a luxury item - it means that I have the disposable income to do so. But I think it'd be a good value. Likewise, that's how I feel about the ROG Ally X. I think it's a good value and I hope the prices of the original Ally get adjusted and that becomes the one you look to if you want more of "entry level Windows handheld"
The killer feature of the deck is the community and steam pushing devs for optimization. without a standardized platform with the same community size or larger that the steam deck its impossible to get devs to focus on optimizing for such a niche hardware set
I understand what you're saying but I think it's less pronounced than you think.
I think the two are so close that you get most of the downstream benefits of the Steam Deck as far as software goes. Bazzite, Decky, EmuDeck all work great here so far.
Because Linux is made to work on very different device types and the Ally X is basically a PC with special controls, when the devs get those running, it will be basically a Deck. All the tools that work on the Deck will work on any device running SteamOS (or Bazzite). I love my Deck, but the truth is that while the hardware of the Deck is very good, the thing that makes it exceptional is the OS.
Any issues with MT7922?
So is Bazzite better than ChimeraOS? Whats the actual difference?
I've been wanting to do a deep dive into the different options (ChimeraOS, Bazzite, HoloISO). But I haven't done so yet so I can't really say. As far as I can tell, they all benefit each other. For example, whenever Bazzite makes a fix, it's open source so theoretically Chimera can incorporate it too. Or even better, the fix might be made in a library that both Bazzite and Chimera use. Hope that helps.
Bazzite is based on Fedora Kinoite while Holoiso and Chimeraos are based on Arch. Bazzite (and the recent HoloISO revival) is immutable, meaning the system files can't be changed and every update makes new complete version of the OS that it boots. HoloISO is the actual steamOS reverse engineered to be installable on other hardware while Chimera and Bazzite are independent projects more or less trying to emulate it.
You gave enjoyable in depth review, but you smile less and less goofy than other reviewer 😅
I notice people have tendency to sub if the youtuber is happy going,
This is just personal opinion, but i like your content and i want you to gain many more subs like you deserve! But if you are not comfortable then just be steady still 😊
lol that's funny. quick question tho - did YOU sub??? 😅