General Gaming Anyone snagging an Asus ROG Ally next month?

[stepee]

Just now, HardAct said:

Like I said is not a Steamdeck killer at least for me, but it really does have a bit more horsepower especially if near an outlet. Battery sucks there no sugarcoating it, but it really really does a lot right and it's growing on me. Having fun with it and that is all that matters really in the end. I'm positive that there will something out in the next 2 years that is 25-50% more powerful, full windows 11 experience but in a handheld with an oled screen 1080p w/ hall effect joysticks but with 50% more battery!! There are things like that out there now but there really heavy and bulky like the OneXPlayer 2. If they can pack what I just said into something like this in weight I'll jump on it! Even at $1000-1200, but the Player2 is just to big, I LOVE THE WEIGHT OF THIS THING it's really a great feeling handheld when playing....

 

Yeah I spent all day looking at the other handhelds and I didn’t like something on all of them. I was hoping this was a situation I could pay myself out of, but the right device just isn’t there still.

 

Im going to use this primarily at home for streaming from my laptop and desktop. I enjoyed playing on my laptop using the deck last night so I could kind of switch between convenience and the more perfect native laptop display. But the deck is sooo washed out ugh, really wish they had done more there.

 

I mostly just play plugged in so the extra power that way is cool and Id still rather carry this and a power brick if I’m going to the city for the day or something than my laptop.

 

But yeah it’s not what I want yet, but after reading more about the improvements that are here I think it will be a net win and make the wait less painful.

[Brian]

They did release an updated screen for Deck but not OLED. I think ASUS will move to OLED for the Ally in the next iteration. You are starting to see the move in their laptops. 
 

The screen on the Ally is a huge improvement. It is a big reason why I upgraded. It was hard to bounce back and forth between the deck and switch due to how bad the deck screen is.

[stepee]

13 minutes ago, Brian said:

They did release an updated screen for Deck but not OLED. I think ASUS will move to OLED for the Ally in the next iteration. You are starting to see the move in their laptops. 
 

The screen on the Ally is a huge improvement. It is a big reason why I upgraded. It was hard to bounce back and forth between the deck and switch due to how bad the deck screen is.

 

Yeah as I got more used to the generational upgrade that deck is the more the screen started to grate on me. I also think the deck is ugly as fuck and this looks better. Comfort wise I think I prefer how the deck feels based off initial impression but I’m sure I’ll get more used to this.

 

Are you planning to still use the deck at all? I haven’t decided if I want to actually replace it with this or swap depending. Definitely going to be loading up the gamepass for now.
 

[Brian]

23 minutes ago, stepee said:

 

Yeah as I got more used to the generational upgrade that deck is the more the screen started to grate on me. I also think the deck is ugly as fuck and this looks better. Comfort wise I think I prefer how the deck feels based off initial impression but I’m sure I’ll get more used to this.

 

Are you planning to still use the deck at all? I haven’t decided if I want to actually replace it with this or swap depending. Definitely going to be loading up the gamepass for now.
 

I started to dislike that Deck’s size. Every time I took it with me, it took up too much space in my backpack. I had a similar love hate relationship with the Wii U pad. It was super comfortable to hold and use but due to its size, it was always in the way unless I stored it. 
 

I plan on selling the deck or giving it to someone. I don’t see a scenario where I need two.  I hope the Deck 2 makes it easier to use Windows. It’s been nice to have access to any storefront. I played some Tony Hawk on EGS, Diablo on Chiaki, and Ravenlok on Game Pass with no issues last night. 

[atom631]

On 6/19/2023 at 6:13 PM, Brian said:

Cheap model and get a micro SD card. SD cards works as well as the internal storage. 
 

The Deck can’t compete with those laptops. If you don’t have a gaming PC, I suggest a laptop.  Otherwise get a handheld. 

 

wound up jumping on an Alienware m15 r7. has a 3070ti, i7, 16gb ram, 1tb SSD, and a QHD 240hz screen with g-sync. got the laptop out the door with tax and everything for around $995. Ive been out of the loop with PC gaming but that seemed like a killer deal. Ill probably add 32gb ram down the road bc it’s ridiculously cheap right now. 

[stepee]

2 hours ago, atom631 said:

 

wound up jumping on an Alienware m15 r7. has a 3070ti, i7, 16gb ram, 1tb SSD, and a QHD 240hz screen with g-sync. got the laptop out the door with tax and everything for around $995. Ive been out of the loop with PC gaming but that seemed like a killer deal. Ill probably add 32gb ram down the road bc it’s ridiculously cheap right now. 

 

I like that for that price! One of these would be about the same price after you added a micro sd card and taxes and this will obviously run circles around it. 

 

I talk about how much I use these handhelds but most of the time is actually using moonlight streaming the game from a more powerful computer I already have. Brian was definitely right that if you don’t have another pc laptop makes more sense first. Not that I don’t ever play games native on them but that would be a much smaller use amount of it wasn’t also my moonlight machine.

 

Enjoy it and play some indies too that let you see that 240hz screen! I thought my 165hz screen was silly but I realized these overkill refresh displays are a joy to give indie games/lower end games a little extra something. Playing We Love Katamari at 165fps was so nice.

[stepee]

I spent about 10 hours with this yestersay and honestly it took about that long to get it to a place where I could feel it’s full potential. There’s a lot I like about it (the display, the weight, speakers, the asus armory features) and things that have been frustrating (some general bugginess, harder to set up without trackpads and Valve’s better UI, the asus armory features). 
 

I imagine though it might be harder to set up but easier to maintain long term though once I adjust to the shortcuts here. In general I feel like deck would actually work better as a “my first gaming pc” for someone unless someone set this up for you first.

 

That said the display is a significant leap from the decks and the ability to play 120fps 1080p moonlight essentially doubling both resolution and frame rate of what I use most is the star of the show for me. I’ll probably end up giving my deck to my stepdad when I visit.

[Brian]

3 hours ago, atom631 said:

 

wound up jumping on an Alienware m15 r7. has a 3070ti, i7, 16gb ram, 1tb SSD, and a QHD 240hz screen with g-sync. got the laptop out the door with tax and everything for around $995. Ive been out of the loop with PC gaming but that seemed like a killer deal. Ill probably add 32gb ram down the road bc it’s ridiculously cheap right now. 

Definitely a great deal at that price.  Congrats. 

[Brian]

The Ally setup is by far the worst thing about the device.  You have to update windows (the OS and Windows store), armory crate, AMD, Asus, and download the rest of your store fronts, emulation, and streaming apps. This process saps the energy out of owning a new device. It’s unfortunate. The good news once it is setup, upkeep has been minimal. 
 

I am disappointed that the device didn’t come with a case. They give you a terrible dock but for a handheld,  a case would have been appreciated. I’m order one from Waterfield. I got their Switch case and love it. 

[stepee]

1 hour ago, Brian said:

The Ally setup is by far the worst thing about the device.  You have to update windows (the OS and Windows store), armory crate, AMD, Asus, and download the rest of your store fronts, emulation, and streaming apps. This process saps the energy out of owning a new device. It’s unfortunate. The good news once it is setup, upkeep has been minimal. 
 

I am disappointed that the device didn’t come with a case. They give you a terrible dock but for a handheld,  a case would have been appreciated. I’m order one from Waterfield. I got their Switch case and love it. 

 

Yeah I had just set up a very similar asus laptop with the same programs and everything and it still seemed way too much, some of this stuff should be prepped in advance like all the gamepass updates. I had to run gamepass updates like 4 times and then I had to do a fix on the time zone in Windows to get it working. Not realizing the time issue, since it gave no error message, definitely soaked up a lot of extra time.

 

I do think you are right though that going forward it should actually be easier just for the ease of use of all Windows programs being simple installs and the file format transferring over between windows devices. The latter is why I’m dreading/wanting moving all the roms/isos I have built up on deck over to Windows.

[stepee]

Two things I like I didn’t know about;

 

1) The power button is a fingerprint reader that makes unlocking the pc into the desktop really efficient.

 

2) I guess it has gyro as you can have it detect when the screen is rotated. I like rotating vertically when doing some working on Windows stuff and heavily using the touch screen.

[Brian]

8 minutes ago, stepee said:

 

Yeah I had just set up a very similar asus laptop with the same programs and everything and it still seemed way too much, some of this stuff should be prepped in advance like all the gamepass updates. I had to run gamepass updates like 4 times and then I had to do a fix on the time zone in Windows to get it working. Not realizing the time issue, since it gave no error message, definitely soaked up a lot of extra time.

 

I do think you are right though that going forward it should actually be easier just for the ease of use of all Windows programs being simple installs and the file format transferring over between windows devices. The latter is why I’m dreading/wanting moving all the roms/isos I have built up on deck over to Windows.

Is there an easy way to transfer your stuff from the laptop to the Ally?  What I enjoy about Apple’s ecosystem is that whenever I get a new device, everything downloads from the cloud and I am up and running in no time. If ASUS does an Ally 2 next year, I don’t want to do this from scratch again.

[stepee]

12 minutes ago, Brian said:

Is there an easy way to transfer your stuff from the laptop to the Ally?  What I enjoy about Apple’s ecosystem is that whenever I get a new device, everything downloads from the cloud and I am up and running in no time. If ASUS does an Ally 2 next year, I don’t want to do this from scratch again.

 

No there wasn’t an easy way because this was a new Windows device for me not a replacement so I wouldn’t want it set the same as my laptop.

 

If you have MS365 and have your computer backed up on onedrive then you can do a restore at Windows level which I think should largely do what you want when directly replacing the device. I’ll probably use this concept myself when I upgrade this to a new Windows handheld, assuming that Valve doesn’t bring me back to Steamos with a deck2. Another reason to stick with Windows really.

 

Question for you: Have you installed games to micro sd yet and is that taking forever for you? I might just be forgetting how bad it is with deck, but I think my card must be bad. It’ll download for like 30 seconds then stop for a couple minutes and do “disk stuff” then back to 30 seconds of downloading etc. Downloading a 8gb game seems about 2 minutes to the ssd but about 20 minutes to micro sd. Is it actually that bad? I’m hoping I just need a new card as this 400gb was going to be temporary anyway.

 

 

[Brian]

@stepee there are some issues with micro SD. Some are reporting no problems but I will wait for the firmware update. 
 

https://imgur.io/9Ocsika?r

[HardAct]

4 hours ago, stepee said:

I spent about 10 hours with this yestersay and honestly it took about that long to get it to a place where I could feel it’s full potential. There’s a lot I like about it (the display, the weight, speakers, the asus armory features) and things that have been frustrating (some general bugginess, harder to set up without trackpads and Valve’s better UI, the asus armory features). 
 

I imagine though it might be harder to set up but easier to maintain long term though once I adjust to the shortcuts here. In general I feel like deck would actually work better as a “my first gaming pc” for someone unless someone set this up for you first.

 

That said the display is a significant leap from the decks and the ability to play 120fps 1080p moonlight essentially doubling both resolution and frame rate of what I use most is the star of the show for me. I’ll probably end up giving my deck to my stepdad when I visit.

totally forgot to mention this as you did above, but this have awesome speakers. Just love them. There loud and clear at 40%, best I have ecer heard in a device like this. 

[stepee]

40 minutes ago, Brian said:

@stepee there are some issues with micro SD. Some are reporting no problems but I will wait for the firmware update. 
 

https://imgur.io/9Ocsika?r

 

Well that isn’t great! Thanks for the notice I’ll hold out until the update before making any micro sd purchasing decisions!

[stepee]

50 minutes ago, HardAct said:

totally forgot to mention this as you did above, but this have awesome speakers. Just love them. There loud and clear at 40%, best I have ecer heard in a device like this. 

 

yeah these really surprised me! 

 

I have some complaints and I’m sure I’ll have more and damnit I wish the display went even further but there’s some nice stuff here I didn’t expect and it’s a very good first attempt for asus. 

 

Also the dpad is kinda trash but so are most dpads. I only bother mentioning it because asus also just released this pad: 

 

https://www.bestbuy.com/site/asus-rog-raikiri-pro-wireless-controller-for-rog-ally-black/6541828.p?skuId=6541828&extStoreId=135&ref=212&loc=1&gbraid=0AAAAAD-ORIggyzJeGfsZaA73Nem86bLMk&gclid=CjwKCAjwhdWkBhBZEiwA1ibLmP1qUprg6tVm5XMa0CVFPUJEGxxxr_zVOGKj5v3A26JEJeRVJZ-dmBoCZ50QAvD_BwE&gclsrc=aw.ds

 

Which I picked up along with this (but for my laptop) and while the oled screen is dumb and wasted and it should be $100 since there are no replaceable parts, I actually very much like it after finally setting it all up with their horrible instructions and especially the dpad is fantastic and would be great in the next model. I can even do proper dragon punch motions when my character is on the right side of the screen, which is very rare for me with a dpad! 

[HardAct]

14 minutes ago, stepee said:

 

yeah these really surprised me! 

 

I have some complaints and I’m sure I’ll have more and damnit I wish the display went even further but there’s some nice stuff here I didn’t expect and it’s a very good first attempt for asus. 

 

Also the dpad is kinda trash but so are most dpads. I only bother mentioning it because asus also just released this pad: 

 

https://www.bestbuy.com/site/asus-rog-raikiri-pro-wireless-controller-for-rog-ally-black/6541828.p?skuId=6541828&extStoreId=135&ref=212&loc=1&gbraid=0AAAAAD-ORIggyzJeGfsZaA73Nem86bLMk&gclid=CjwKCAjwhdWkBhBZEiwA1ibLmP1qUprg6tVm5XMa0CVFPUJEGxxxr_zVOGKj5v3A26JEJeRVJZ-dmBoCZ50QAvD_BwE&gclsrc=aw.ds

 

Which I picked up along with this (but for my laptop) and while the oled screen is dumb and wasted and it should be $100 since there are no replaceable parts, I actually very much like it after finally setting it all up with their horrible instructions and especially the dpad is fantastic and would be great in the next model. I can even do proper dragon punch motions when my character is on the right side of the screen, which is very rare for me with a dpad! 

.................Also Charging?

     I have seen multiple people stating on Youtube that you can not charge this and play with any other that the one supplied or maybe more so 65 watts. I'm having no issues using the Steam deck charger in my gameroom while playing both Need for Speed Unbound and Diablo IV and it easily keeps up. Sp just a heads up on that. The SD charger is 45watts if I'm not mistaken and works fine too. So no need to run out and but a second one unless you want another 65watter that is..

 

Got frustrated playing Need for Speed Unbound after about 2 hours as I constantly was getting the unable to save error 9! Very annoying and also makes the game unplayable on the Ally for me and I uninstalled it. It did run well at 30fps Medium settings motion blur off fidelityFX super resolution set to performance and vsync off

[stepee]

14 minutes ago, HardAct said:

.................Also Charging?

     I have seen multiple people stating on Youtube that you can not charge this and play with any other that the one supplied or maybe more so 65 watts. I'm having no issues using the Steam deck charger in my gameroom while playing both Need for Speed Unbound and Diablo IV and it easily keeps up. Sp just a heads up on that. The SD charger is 45watts if I'm not mistaken and works fine too. So no need to run out and but a second one unless you want another 65watter that is..

 

What I’ve noticed is that if I use either the deck charger or even the asus charger but through a dock that it works but the turbo mode is 25watt and instead of 30watt.

 

This is fine for the most part but since I run power through a dock so that I can charge while having ethernet for perfect local streaming, that means that I need to unplug the dock and plug the power in directly into the handheld anytime I want to switch from streaming to native if I want 30watt. Im hoping there is some fix around this as small as it may seem because what I think ends up happening here is me settling on 25watt and not bothering to remove the dock.

 

Also I feel like a 20 watt option would strike the best balance between showing off some of the extra power beyond Steam deck and at least providing 90-120 minutes battery. I wonder if locking tdp outside of the asus app would work better, because technically 20watt should last 2 hours on its battery and also offer a pretty decent boost over deck. But it seems like also the wattage swings higher than 15w sometimes in performance mode, so it seems kinda wonky.

 

The current battery turbo mode of 25w is useless just change turbo to 20w and lock it honestly.

[Brian]

There is a program for auto tdp which I might consider trying. There are so many times when I see the profile is on 15W when I am just doing basic windows stuff. I switch to 10 but even that is too much. 
 

It definitely feels like Asus treated this more like a laptop where they focused on the hardware and little on the software. Unfortunately handhelds need way better software attention. I do think this will get ironed out over time. 
 

One thing I have been pleased with is the fan noise. It’s much better than the SD. Add the better speakers, I never notice it. 

[stepee]

It’s hard to judge what to even count for its performance especially since while it needs to be plugged in to take full advantage, I always had the steam deck plugged in anyway. 

 

Battery performance, it’s a little better than steam deck but it would be disappointing if you were upgrading to this for that reason only. With one key exception in that vrr makes performance overall much smoother and easier to set. No tweeting minor settings to try to get that extra 3fps to hit your 30 or 40 lock. Or deciding between a 40 or 30 or 50 lock. Makes it much more set it and forget it when starting a new game.

 

When plugged in it’s another beast entirely (honestly once it’s 25w even) and the 1080p screen suddenly makes a lot of sense as even in something modern like Spiderman I was getting cpu bottlenecked pretty up to about 1080p medium. Spongebob is running maxed at 1080p in the 70s and looks fantastic. Project Lana was running at 120fps. Horizon 5 runs well past 60. 
 

I just played Hogwarts and was like damnnn it only runs 15fps at 1080p! But I wasn’t too surprised. I was surprised when I looked at the settings and saw it was running on Ultra including RT. So that was actually pretty damn impressive considering. However as you adjust, it doesn’t get much better. It largely holds 30fps at 1080p fsr quality but still can get stuck in stutter hell when flying around. You really have to lock it to 30fps or else it’s a mess. This is on the cpu end as well, which is why the 1080p screen is nice because at least you have something to dump the power into when frames aren’t an option.

 

One awesome thing is that unlike deck, it’s super easy to connect an external drive to a dock and just play games off a 4tb ssd. Since I’m plugging a cord in anyway I always run it through a dock to have options so I was easily able to just unplug the drive from my laptop and plug it into the dock and start gaming off the same Steam games. Really takes the sting from whatever the current micro sd issue is. This is actually a huge win imo and something I hadn’t thought of since it never worked well on deck. Will definitely be a requirements for my pc handhelds now.

[Brian]

The VRR is the unheralded feature for this handheld. For the SD, I always had the fps counter on and tweaking stuff to keep a steady framerate. I would check forums for settings.  I spent more time adjusting than playing. For the Ally, I set the tdp and play.  Any dips is handled by VRR and I never notice it. It’s a much better experience. I hated the tweaking. It’s why I typically play on consoles. 

I don’t mind the battery life. I appreciate that the device isn’t heavy due to a large battery. It makes holding it for longer periods of time not an issue. 

 

While Windows can definitely cause issues with errors and crashes something you rarely experience on the Deck, it is really nice to have an environment you are used to and can trouble shoot with relative ease. 
 

I also find the back buttons to be usable. The buttons stick out and are easier to press. The way I hold the machine, my fingers rests right on it. 

[Brian]

@stepee a few days after the Ally release, Asus updated the BIOS from 317 to 319. One of the results of it is a decrease in performance. People thought it was done to improve battery life. Asus on discord said it was not intended and are looking into it. Many think the performance will improve with the next BIOS. If you want, you can go back to 317. Personally, I will wait for the next update since I think performance is fine for the games I am currently playing.
 

 

[stepee]

1 hour ago, Brian said:

@stepee a few days after the Ally release, Asus updated the BIOS from 317 to 319. One of the results of it is a decrease in performance. People thought it was done to improve battery life. Asus on discord said it was not intended and are looking into it. Many think the performance will improve with the next BIOS. If you want, you can go back to 317. Personally, I will wait for the next update since I think performance is fine for the games I am currently playing.
 

 

 

I think overall the performance is great still since I don’t have the original to compare to yeah so I’ll wait as well and just stay on this bios for now but I like the idea of a free boost coming later!

 

[stepee]

As far as losing the touchpads, I think this made me remember that actually it’s just one touchpad I need. I still miss having the touchpad but I never used the left one, I want a right touchpad as a mouse and for some emulation purposes. The size of this has me using touchscreen a lot more which I never used on deck, and for most things that works fine.

 

So I do still like having a separate always set to mouse touchpad, but what I don’t want the size two big touchpads brings. I think what I want is one small nub, I think one of the other brands did this. I think a small numb that clicked in would do all I need it for and save a shit ton of space. I’d hate to mess with the speakers as the sound is phenomenal here but looking at the unit, I’d move the speaker to the right along edge and put a nub where the speaker is.

 

I’d be curious to see usage stats outside of niche forums of how many people really use that left side pad. Though I understand that for left handed people it might be nice.

 

However being left handed is a curse and ungodly and they shouldn’t be encouraging that behavior.

[stepee]

Horizon 5 in the 70-80s at medium at 1080p is pretty damn good. I didn’t realize it was legit more powerful (even after correcting amd math) than series S that’s kinda cool. I was even holding 60fps (barely!) even on battery in performance mode. It was using 20watt because the profiles are all busted but still that should be about 90min-2 hours of Series S performance on a legit handheld. Good stuff.

[stepee]

I do wish it had a 1tb ssd but I guess that’ll be fine when the micro sd is patched. I just uninstalled Horizon 5 until then because it’s so damn big. 230gb, about half the usable space. I’d rather have a bunch of smaller games handy on the internal ssd.

[HardAct]

    I have a Samsung Evo pro 512g micro SD and have had no problems as of yet. I installed over 200g's worth of games and non-issues knock on wood!  it's not as fast as the internal 512g ssd but t's not bad at all. installing I've seen nonissues nor running / loading, etc!

 

    I did have Need for Speed: Unbound installed on it and it would not save while gaming no matter what I did. was that an SD card issue? that I don't know as the other games all are running and saving fine so......?

[stepee]

18 minutes ago, HardAct said:

    I have a Samsung Evo pro 512g micro SD and have had no problems as of yet. I installed over 200g's worth of games and non-issues knock on wood!  it'd not as fast as the internal 512g sad bug it's not bad at all. installing I've seen nonissues nor running / loading, etc!

 

That’s good to know! Hopefully it’s fine, since it’s been noted a patch will address, I’ll just wait for then before making a purchase. I’ll skip out on the UHS2 cards though lol. It’s cool it supports them but:

 

https://www.bestbuy.com/site/sandisk-extreme-pro-1tb-sdxc-uhs-ii-v60-memory-card/6541831.p?skuId=6541831

 

Gonna need a new Switch to support these to bring the prices down.

 

[HardAct]

20 minutes ago, stepee said:

 

That’s good to know! Hopefully it’s fine, since it’s been noted a patch will address, I’ll just wait for then before making a purchase. I’ll skip out on the UHS2 cards though lol. It’s cool it supports them but:

 

https://www.bestbuy.com/site/sandisk-extreme-pro-1tb-sdxc-uhs-ii-v60-memory-card/6541831.p?skuId=6541831

 

Gonna need a new Switch to support these to bring the prices down.

 

No way I'm paying that price, my Samsung Evo Plus 512g was 49.99 but I had a $35 in reward certificates!! making it only $14.99. Love getting stuff at Best Buy because of the 5% back in rewards and no tax here in Oregon really saves quite a bit. Ill get $40 back from the ROG Ally after the return period passes, [45 days for total tech members] plus being a totally tech member I have 2yr warranties on every product I buy there so this saves me tons of money in warrentiies not bought. 

[Brian]

I went back and used the Deck last night to try and wrap up the dlc of The Case of the Golden Idol.  It really is a great device.  All Valve has to do is shrink the footprint (and the track pads), add OLED, and allow easier Windows installation for me to buy the next one. My main concern is the next one is in 3-4 years.  

[stepee]

I really like the two back buttons on here. They are nice to press unlike pretty much all other back buttons. The other gamepad I’m okay with the placement for these on, razer wolverine, also only has two back there.

 

If having two instead of four is what allows that, then I’m all for that design for gamepads. I’d rather just have two like these than the four weird ass ones the asus gamepad has. Ideally though do two more buttons near lb/rb like my razer gamepad does and then have these in the back and it would be perfect.

[Brian]

I have decided to keep it. Seems like a lot of people are returning it. My only concern is the SD slot. Some are saying the cards are being fried due to heat. If that’s the case, ASUS can’t fix it. It isn’t a deal breaker for me. I may upgrade the internal to 2TB if the SD is unusable. 
 

I think this device has solidify some things for me. The screen has to be VRR and high refresh rate. I won’t go back. I prefer Windows over SteamOS. I want full access to tdp. I need some trackpad or mouse control for windows. 

[stepee]

26 minutes ago, Brian said:

I have decided to keep it. Seems like a lot of people are returning it. My only concern is the SD slot. Some are saying the cards are being fried due to heat. If that’s the case, ASUS can’t fix it. It isn’t a deal breaker for me. I may upgrade the internal to 2TB if the SD is unusable. 
 

I think this device has solidify some things for me. The screen has to be VRR and high refresh rate. I won’t go back. I prefer Windows over SteamOS. I want full access to tdp. I need some trackpad or mouse control for windows. 

 

Yeah, the big issue for me is concern over the micro sd card. But as you said I’ll just upgrade the internal if that doesn’t get solved. Also when gaming in bed I can just connect the 4tb external ssd I use for my laptop and then I have like all the games. But either way I’m not going back to the deck screen.

[stepee]

The vibrant preset in asus armory didn’t really seem to do it for me so I adjusted saturation manually (+20) along with the color boost in AMD’s software instead and I’m very happy with the results. I wore my nreal glasses connected to it so I could try to get it to match color and tone of the oled screen as best as I could without overblowing the picture and I’m quite happy with the result.