Steam Deck vs ROG Ally: I changed my mind

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ROG Ally:
One month ago, I reviewed the Asus ROG Ally. It won’t surprise you to hear the Windows gaming handheld wasn’t fully baked. Like Valve, whose Steam Deck shipped woefully unfinished, Asus has sprinted to fix loads of issues before it winds up in mainstream buyers’ hands. But today is that day.

Today, June 13th, the ROG Ally ships worldwide starting at $700, £700, or €800. It’s at Best Buy as I write these words. Did Asus do enough? I’ll say this: it’s a better product than it was in May!

First, the company’s Armoury Crate launcher has gone from a broken, buggy mess to downright palatable, even helpful. Second, the ABXY buttons are fixed. I still can’t believe Asus sent out review units with keys that could easily get stuck, but my replacement’s have lasted a dozen frenetic Duck Game sessions without a single key sticking.

Third — and this one’s a double-edged sword — battery life has slightly improved. I put my original ROG Ally review unit side by side with an updated retail unit, and saw 14 minutes longer battery life in Dirt Rally and 12 minutes more battery life in Elden Ring with the exact same settings. I saw savings of one, two, even four watts depending on the game.

Related
Asus claims that it has totally fixed the ROG Ally’s battery life
But I also saw my framerates dip by up to 20 percent, seemingly because newer BIOS revisions don’t maintain the same clockspeeds. Did Asus rob Peter to pay Paul’s battery fee? TBD, because the company is still tweaking settings.

I’m raising the ROG Ally’s score by one full point because some of my big annoyances have been addressed, but performance still feels like an open question. Below, find my original review — with new bolded annotations wherever things have changed.

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