How the ASUS ROG Ally's Windows OS could give it an edge over the Steam Deck

[Windows Central]

ASUS is turning heads with its upcoming ROG Ally: a powerful yet mysterious handheld console to rival Valve's Steam Deck — with a subtle key to victory.

How the ASUS ROG Ally's Windows OS could give it an edge over the Steam Deck : Read more

 

[cknobman]

I actually consider the Steam Deck with Steam OS an advantage over Windows.
Why would I rather have a bloated piece of spyware with poorly designed interface for small screens and gaming?
My gaming handheld is meant for GAMING not interacting with a legacy OS with tons of tiny icons and no intuitive layout.

 

[wojtek]

I'm in the same boat as @cknobman -I don't game THAT much but decided to get The Deck because of the work that Valve is doing to break Windows monopoly...

WC argue that Ally advantage Is using the most popular OS... right... it's popular because of shady practices, vendor lock in and abysmal monopoly...

 

[Jez Corden]

I actually consider the Steam Deck with Steam OS an advantage over Windows.
Why would I rather have a bloated piece of spyware with poorly designed interface for small screens and gaming?
My gaming handheld is meant for GAMING not interacting with a legacy OS with tons of tiny icons and no intuitive layout.

my counterpoint here would be xbox game pass. i think steamOS is great for giving you that stuff and for people who care about it, but for me, who plays primarily on Xbox with a dash of Steam Deck PC Game Pass, Windows is a better choice. choices are great!

 

[Jez Corden]

I'm in the same boat as @cknobman -I don't game THAT much but decided to get The Deck because of the work that Valve is doing to break Windows monopoly...

WC argue that Ally advantage Is using the most popular OS... right... it's popular because of shady practices, vendor lock in and abysmal monopoly...

what vendor lock in are you referring to here? i find steam OS to be a pain to use as a regular PC, although i do appreciate the work Valve is doing to improve proceedings, especially from a gaming context. competition is important, but windows is clearly a better, more stable desktop offering for professional and general gaming purposes IMO.

 

[Ben Wilson]

I actually consider the Steam Deck with Steam OS an advantage over Windows.
Why would I rather have a bloated piece of spyware with poorly designed interface for small screens and gaming?
My gaming handheld is meant for GAMING not interacting with a legacy OS with tons of tiny icons and no intuitive layout.

Interesting take for a reader of Windows Central, not that we hold Windows up as a flawless OS - that seems clear from a quick browse of our articles. We've also covered the need for Microsoft to adapt a better UI for portable gaming since that was trending not so long ago.

It's fine to call out Windows for its bias towards larger screens, but as both Jez and I have mentioned in our topic of running the OS on Steam Deck, the touchpads and touchscreen both work natively. Plus, you can set the desktop scale to 125% or 150% if you feel the icons are too small. Feels like you're hating on the OS and not really looking for a conversation, which is a shame.

I'm in the same boat as @cknobman -I don't game THAT much but decided to get The Deck because of the work that Valve is doing to break Windows monopoly...

WC argue that Ally advantage Is using the most popular OS... right... it's popular because of shady practices, vendor lock in and abysmal monopoly...

Hardly feels worth addressing this one. Just tell us which Linux distro you prefer, and we can go from there, I guess.

 

[wojtek]

what vendor lock in are you referring to here? i find steam OS to be a pain to use as a regular PC, although i do appreciate the work Valve is doing to improve proceedings, especially from a gaming context. competition is important, but windows is clearly a better, more stable desktop offering for professional and general gaming purposes IMO.

Isn't it mostly due to habits?
As for lock-in -- maybe wrong phrasing but tools being available only on one platform and taking advantage it's the most popular platform is not the best thing. IE in the past being available only the Windows. MS doing lot's of exclusive deals with public entities (municipalities, government agencies, schools) with combined deals on Windows and office forcing everyone to use `.doc` format (and thus having to use office, and thus having to use windows) or basically nourishing the notion of "windows is the PC" right from the school age thus anything different being "pain to use"?

All big companies do it, Google being poster boy of it nowadays

Even Valve with SD isn't doing it out of pure intentions - just a way to counter MS efforts with Xbox/Windows store

Hardly feels worth addressing this one. Just tell us which Linux distro you prefer, and we can go from there, I guess.

This reply is being typed on MBP with macOS, I manage a bunch of home family PCs with Windows, I do have Linux on SD and servers. I wasn't aware that WC only allows all-hail-praise of MS and Windows

 

[Jez Corden]

Isn't it mostly due to habits?
As for lock-in -- maybe wrong phrasing but tools being available only on one platform and taking advantage it's the most popular platform is not the best thing. IE in the past being available only the Windows. MS doing lot's of exclusive deals with public entities (municipalities, government agencies, schools) with combined deals on Windows and office forcing everyone to use `.doc` format (and thus having to use office, and thus having to use windows) or basically nourishing the notion of "windows is the PC" right from the school age thus anything different being "pain to use"?

All big companies do it, Google being poster boy of it nowadays

Even Valve with SD isn't doing it out of pure intentions - just a way to counter MS efforts with Xbox/Windows store

This reply is being typed on MBP with macOS, I manage a bunch of home family PCs with Windows, I do have Linux on SD and servers. I wasn't aware that WC only allows all-hail-praise of MS and Windows

well edge is available on linux afaik. times are different now. can argue about the legacy of how windows became a monopoly and the virtues of such, but at the end of the day msft is beholden to its shareholders, for better or worse.

nah you can criticize windows here lol, we sure af do. look at some of my recent editorials on xbox ;p

 

[wojtek]

I'm aware that times are different now and tbh I actually do like MS's work and tilt towards FOSS (via github, work on OpenJDK, having own linux distribution and WSL which is awesome to work with) but at the same time they still tend to do odd things (like recent ef-up with chrome being default - on the surface it was sane approche... till the moment where it was revealed that only chrome.exe was affected ).

 

[Ben Wilson]

Windows is the source of the majority of my tech woes lmao. It makes me want to smash keyboards and throw monitors most days of the week.

I use Pop!_OS on a second machine and try to tinker with SteamOS as much as I can, around its limitations, anyway. Can't claim I use MacOS, but I do use iPhone and iPad daily. Not that I have anything inherently against MacOS, I just don't have a reason to own a MacBook etc. Probably the best touchpads around, though.