The main problem with any sort of discussion like this is that "better" is going to mean different things to different people.

Is the one with longer battery life better?

Is the one with more powerful hardware better?

Is the one with trackpads better?

Is the one that can play non-Steam games with less hassle better, even if its UX is overall clunkier?

Is the one with a smoother UX better, even if you might not be able to play every single game you own on it?

Deck is going to be better in some ways for some people, and the Ally (et al.) will be better in some ways for other people. At the end of the day, the entire market segment is better for all of us because competing devices exist. Trying to turn this into a zero-sum turf war is only going to be detrimental to everyone. (Not saying that that's what you are doing, just speaking in general about what tends to happen when comparisons like this get brought up.)

I just can't believe that they expect people who bought the Ally to interface with the regular ass Win11 desktop without touchpads. Sure, horsepower and a better display is cool, but not at the expense of battery life and heat. I hope it's successful so we get revisions and incentive for others to get in the game, but it it's not quite there for me.

Performance on the Ally is incredible. I benchmarked the CPU against my 5900X desktop and the Ally won (single threaded)!

It's all down to the awful software experience. Every time I pick it up, there's something annoying about it. Armoury crate has crashed, the battery died while it was sleeping, it doesn't recognize controller input, it hasn't detected a game is running and is still in power saving mode, it's being finicky about the USB-C adapter and throttling (only the included adapter seems to work, anything else, including 100W and PPS etc. adapters say they aren't powerful enough), the RGB lights are freaking out, it needs a restart. It's just perpetual troubleshooting and annoyance.

When it works, it's amazing. The whole experience is gorgeous. It's super fast, the display is smooth, etc.

Combined with the microsd card overhearing issues, I just don't think it's a good purchase. I'll definitely be sending mine back.

I have both and even with all of the Ally’s jank I’ll take the Ally over the Deck any day. The extra hardware power and the VRR screen means the games I play are silky smooth.

I honestly can’t go back to the Deck.

I’ve reached the point where “better” mostly means “smoothest experience.” That might include not crashing and low overhead. That almost certainly includes a smooth and predictable UI. That means a well thought out system design that balances performance considerations with size and weight, battery life, controller layout, and little things like fan noise.

Honestly, I’m fine with my Switch. It was my first handheld, and I appreciate the variety of games as well as the convenience. I ordered the steam deck because I have a massive library of unplayed or unfinished games on steam, and it seemed like the right way to go for that. I have a windows PC that is still sitting wrapped by movers and never unpacked.

For my “It just works” low water mark, the Deck looked like my best bet for non-switch gaming, and maybe now I can get past the first town on RDR2.

have no trackpads

Exactly. The Ally is available in my country (and with discounts I can get it cheaper than the equivalent Steam Deck even), but no track pads is a huge huge minus. I play a lot of games that use a mouse, why'd I want something that has inferior mouse support?

Moreover, more performance in a portable device is often a trade-off. The board will draw more power, reducing battery life, and it will often generate more heat, requiring more ventilation / fan power which might also further affect battery life (and potentially, its lifespan). You end up paying more for a worse experience, imho.

The new Ayaneo needs a battery that's more than twice the capacity of the Steam Deck in order to be able to even compare to the Steam Deck in autonomy... if Valve launched a revision of the deck with an updated battery it would be a huge improvement, likely doubling its runtime, it's much more efficient than the competition in its power usage.

I'd much prefer games start being designed for low spec devices. What I want is more innovative gameplay and interesting mechanics... if the game wastes immense amounts of power for easthetic reasons, it doesn't make me want to get a portable powerhouse of a console, what it makes me want to do is skip playing that unoptimized game.

Yeah I dont get the sentiment at all. If it was trash and couldn't run anything it wouldn't sell. But it's not, and it runs damn near everything, even if some higher end games will destroy the battery in 25 minutes, it'll be a great 25 minutes. You can also stop at any point in any game and just come back later and it resumes seamlessly, almost instantaneously, and with next to no battery loss. I'm not being sarcastic, I've never had ANY game system that can do that. The closest is the PS5 with rest mode but it's still way behind ateamdeck in wake up time. It's a first gen release and it's capable of things no other console (maybe switch - I don't actually know, I don't have one) handheld or otherwise, has been able to do.

Like love or hate valve all you want, but there's really not a lot to shit on the steam deck about. It's had like three competitors come out and two most people already forgot exist (Logitech something, and some other one). The Asus one seems capable but is bottlenecked by using windows. Let's not forget Google's attempt at a revolutionary gaming product.

As someone who games at 4k on a video card from 2017, I can confirm that VRR is a must-have feature for gaming at lower frame rates.

VRR means that falling off your set frame rate doesn't matter. 56 FPS is just as smooth as 60 FPS. If something explodes and the game drops to 40 for a second, you don't really notice.

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