I’m a Steam Deck apologist. Here’s why I’ve been using the ROG Ally instead

digitaltrends.com:

Table of Contents A proper sleep Go for the bloat A better experience

Since its launch, I’m a bit of a Steam Deck apologist. It doesn’t need the advocacy, as the Steam Deck is easily the best handheld gaming PC you can buy, but even in the face of competition from the ROG Ally, Lenovo Legion Go, and MSI Claw, I still use my Steam Deck for gaming on the go. A couple of apps have been slowly changing that story, however.

I like playing on my Steam Deck OLED due to the convenience. SteamOS isn’t perfect, no, but it allows me to pick up and play my games quickly, which I value more than the higher performance available on Windows handhelds. A couple of key tweaks to the Windows experience can unlock that pick-up-and-play experience, and ever since configuring the ROG Ally X properly, I’ve been gravitating toward it more and more for my handheld gaming.

A proper sleep

The biggest hurdle for using the ROG Ally is the lack of a sleep function. By default, the ROG Ally and ROG Ally X go into Sleep mode whenever you hit the power button. This isn’t the same as the sleep function of something like a Steam Deck or Nintendo Switch, though. It’s the Sleep mode built into Windows 11, which isn’t designed for handheld gaming. Every time you click the power button, you’re rolling the dice on if you’ll be able to pick your game back up where you left off.

In Windows, Sleep is supposed to work by storing your session in memory and placing the handheld into a low-power state. That way, you can just press the power button and get right back to what you were doing. The problem is that it doesn’t always work. Games are prone to crash when you put your device asleep, and in games like Elden Ring where you can’t pause, you can die while the handheld is asleep. As I wrote in my original ROG Ally review, pressing the power button with a game running is like closing the lid on a laptop —