u/arinehim

Hello,

I have been recently looking at buying a handheld PC and getting back into gaming (my last gaming system was a Playstation 3 in 2010s for reference). I had a couple of questions. Initially I had my eye on the Steam Deck OLED 1tb but as everyone here knows, the RAM shortage has made the steam decks extremely expensive & difficult to buy. After watching a lot of youtube videos I came across the mid-cycle update of the Asus ROG Ally X and it seems like a really competitive option as long as you don't mind buying second-hand. Some of these questions might seem basic but I'm new to this and appreciate everyone's responses

• All of my games are currently on Steam, I wanted to confirm that I could download games that are currently not supported on Steam Deck (Battlefield 6, F1, etc) due to the anti-cheat software from the steam store onto the Ally X?
  • In Line with this. Is it worth installing SteamOS or just download the games and install them onto the device? If I installed SteamOS would I still need to download the software and install it onto the device? I didn't know if the games ran better off of SteamOS or off of basic windows 11.
• One of the things I was nervous about with the Steam Deck was that its processor chip was older and that it struggles with the newest games that are coming out. It seems like the Ally X, while not the most up to date hardware, the Z1 Extreme is still very capable of handling the newest games that are coming out. Based on people's opinion (obviously no one has a crystal ball), will the Ally X's hardware continue to be able to handle newer games that have higher processing demands? It obviously doesn't perform as well as the Z2 Extreme chip, but it still performs pretty admirably on newer games.
• I've seen a lot of videos and the battery seems to be really good. What are Folk's real-world battery life experience? Recommendations for saving battery?
• One of the things I've seen across the board are people modifying their handhelds, how easy/difficult is it to modify the Ally X, specifically swapping out the joy sticks for hall-effect joysticks? Is it worth the modification? Also, how difficult is it to replace the battery?
  • Is it worth upgrading the SSD? does the brand matter/make a difference?
• I grew up playing older consoles, (N64, Playstation, Gamecube etc.) and I'm nostalgic for old games/systems. Not asking for a road map on how to install emulations, just wanted to know if its hard to install them/run them, how do the games run on the Ally X?
• How much "tuning" to settings does it take to get games to run well? is there a site similar to ProtondB that users provide feedback to help get games to run better?
• Any glitches, how annoying is it to work with Windows 11?

Finally, if I'm going to buy an Ally X, Are there things in particular on the device that I should look for when purchasing one? Is there a way to check the battery health? Overall it seems like the tradeoff is The Ally X gives you better hardware capabilities (for future games), and with windows the flexibility to play a wider range of games while the Steam Deck gives you more ecosystem stability & a better screen, and maybe slightly better ergonomics. but the trade-off is not being able to play newer games as nicely and limited in games that I can play. I appreciate everyone's input