Enlarge

I held off on buying the Steam Deck after it came out a little more than a year ago. At the time, it had lots of bugs, long shipping delays, and some uncertainty about how much commitment its maker, Valve, really had for its latest hardware experiment. I gave in and bought one about two months ago, and I’ve been enjoying this much-improved device ever since.

But now comes the Asus ROG Ally, which is powered by a new 55 percent faster AMD Ryzen Z1 chip yet costs only $50 more than the highest-end Steam Deck at a purported (store-leaked) $700. It also runs Windows 11 (perhaps in “handheld” mode), making it easier to run many games, including blockbuster AAA titles and massive online titles like Fortnite. The Ally is seemingly a bit flatter and lighter than the Steam Deck, and it has a sharper and brighter screen and a refresh rate of up to 120 Hz. It might even run cooler and quieter, according to brief hands-on experiences posted by reporters. It will seemingly arrive in early May or shortly thereafter.

Nearly every one of these specs shows a notable improvement over the Steam Deck, and yet I, a new Deck owner, remain sanguine.

As you might expect, the gaming press—which, like all press, is fundamentally geared toward conflict—is cheering to see another combatant enter the arena. Asus’ device is “gunning straight for the Steam Deck,” “bad news for Steam Deck,” and “big trouble for the Steam Deck.” It has one writer “ready to ditch my Steam Deck.” The ROG Ally, Giovanni Colantonio writes at Digital Trends, “fixes almost every single problem I have with the Steam Deck.”