Sorry, Steam Deck. I've found $100 off the cost of your replacement on Black Friday, so your days are numbered.
I've had a lot of fun with my Steam Deck. It's been a smooth ride, even though the battery life isn’t great and some games are too demanding for the hardware. But now the so-new-you-can-smell-the-paint Asus ROG Ally X has received a Black Friday discount, I can feel our time together coming to an end.
It's not you fault, Deck. You were a product of the time and, to be honest with you, you are still a fantastic handheld gaming device in 2024 and probably long after. Now that I've seen the ROG Ally for $700 at Best Buy I can feel things changing.
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This model is the leader of a new generation in handheld gaming computers.
Nick, who is a very tough critic, was the one to review this model. When Nick gave it a 91% rating, you know that it had been thoroughly tested with all of his tools.
It uses the same AMD Ryzen Z1 Extreme processor as the previous ROG ally, which is no slouch. This time around, it has 24 GB RAM, which means it's more likely to use 8 GB (or more) of it for VRAM purposes -, and that means smoother performance when playing demanding games.
You ask, "How smooth is it?" What about an average of 75 fps in Horizon Zero Dawn when FSR is set to Balanced? (Click the arrow to see the upscaled result). It's true that it's on medium quality settings and yes, upscaling works like magic, but this is a great result for any handheld.
This performance is largely due to the cooling system. It keeps that APU cool without making it sound like a hairdryer. Nick found that with FSR enabled, the Ally X is around six to ten percent faster than the original Ally. The OG was not slow.
It also has a whopping 1 TB of storage. This means that you can fit several SSD-consuming games onboard. The chassis has undergone a "glow-up", as the kids would say, with a sensible gray/black finish. Higher-quality plastics give the machine a high-end feeling.
You'd probably argue it should feel expensive for $700. You can get budget gaming laptops at the same price. The Ally X is a step forward in the evolution of gaming portables. It's a refined form that allows it to be regarded as a full-fledged PC gaming machine, not just something you would use to play less demanding games.
This is the kind of machine that would make Steam Deck nervous. That's why we recommend it as the best handheld gaming computer right now. It's still more expensive than the Steam Deck OLED but it has more power and a screen that is brighter and more true.
I don't think the Steam Deck is a bad product. I love my Steam Deck, and I think it will be a great option for a long time. The market is heating up --, and if I were to buy a handheld, I would try to find the money for this one.
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