Hello steam deck community! Well to start I know first and foremost that this question a has been beaten to death, but I have scoured the internet but can’t seem to find the specific answer for some of my niche questions.

To start, I have a 256gb LCD steam deck and I absolutely love it. Recently with the OLED model it has been making me contemplate an upgrade and because I love my deck but at times I really wish I could run games at a higher FPS and have better visuals. I have a solid pc gaming rig, but I mainly use my deck when my wife gets home from work for some couch gaming while we watch Netflix, and the occasional gaming away from home. So my questions are as follows:

  1. I have an iPad Pro with Magic Keyboard that I bought prior to the deck, so I don’t want to buy a different external monitor/keyboard. I really enjoy playing Guild Wars 2, and even with the community layouts it’s frustrating for me to play on the deck, so I use steam link on the deck to my iPad for the use of bigger screen + mouse and keyboard. Will a steam deck OLED or ROG Ally give increased performance streaming onto my IPad Pro? And if so is one better than the other.

  2. I mainly play AAA titles, so I am aware that gives the ROG Ally the advantage, but I am afraid that losing my trackpads and extra 2 buttons on the back will make me have buyers remorse if/when the time comes that I really need them. For anyone that has made the jump from steam deck to the ally, was this truly an issue for you or have you even been effected by the loss of those features.

  3. I have seen on occasion people have mentioned that their ally after a BIOS update has crashed and have had to completely reinstall windows, for somebody that has both devices, is this a common issue?

  4. For those that own the OLED. Was it fairly significant performance upgrade for you from your LCD models, or was it negligible?

Looking forward to hearing your replies! Sorry for the long read.

  • npaladin2000@alien.topBEnglish
    1·
    1 year ago

    I own both a Deck OLED and an Ally. They’re both good devices, but with different focuses and different advantages/disadvantages.

    The Ally runs Windows…which some people want. It’s also got great performance, will eat AAA games for breakfast, and has a very nice 120hz VRR screen. However, you don’t want to go very far from a battery pack or power outlet, because you’ll be lucky to get 2 hours of battery playing those AAA titles.

    The OLED Deck, on the other hand, does not run Windows, so certain games that rely on certain DRM or Anti-cheat software won’t even work. Windows drivers aren’t ready for the Deck yet. The GPU is weaker than the Ally, because the Deck focuses on battery life, which is much better. Likewise the screen is lower resolution…but it’s OLED, which makes it very nice, but in different ways than the Ally’s screen. Which is better is a metter of opinion.

    The OLED Deck does not have a noticable performance increase over the LCD Deck. The screen is better, and battery life is better. And if you open your Deck up a lot, the screws are much better. :)