Steam Deck sale (up to 20%)

[Twinblade★ 3,928]

2 minutes ago, Remij said:

I can literally suspend any game and play it within 2 seconds of pressing the power button on my Deck  

 

Thats a handy feature, but ya'll act like windows on the Ally makes it unusable eventhough launching installed games takes no effort or tinkering whatsoever.

[Remij 4,682]

2 minutes ago, Twinblade said:

 

Thats a handy feature, but ya'll act like windows on the Ally makes it unusable eventhough launching installed games takes no effort or tinkering whatsoever.

It's not that it's unusable (I've never touched/tried the Ally so I have no real idea) but Gerstmann isn't the first person to complain about the user experience on this thing.  Even you complained about the Ayaneo experience using Windows when you had one.  Unfortunately there's more to using these devices than just launching installed games... there's installing, uninstalling, there's 3rd party apps and clients, there's the lack of a keyboard and Window's pathetic attempt at a bult in one, there's no trackpad for mouse controls, Windows 10/11's touch screen experience isn't exactly ideal on devices of this size... or even tablets for that matter.

 

Valve has really gone in and done a lot of work to make many of those quirks either disappear completely, or become much less tedious on the Deck, ranging from the hardware itself with the track pads, the control interface layer with Steam input being easily the most robust control configuration software in existence, to running on a tailored version of Linux designed around Steam...  And of course that's not to say Steam Deck is perfect.. far from it.. it still has issues with the onscreen keyboard (in my experience anyway sometimes it doesn't appear or disappear when you want it to) and there's still other issues to work out and make smoother.. but they're constantly working on that stuff and you get the impression that they're extremely committed to improving every aspect of it, and they have the ability and openness to do it.  With Windows, a lot of these issues would fall on Microsoft to fix and make better for these devices, and it doesn't look like that's going to happen any time soon.  So Asus can do what it can, but it's obviously not going to be as committed to improving the experience on the Ally as Valve is with the Deck.  Asus doesn't have that much of a stake in it, IMO.

[Twinblade★ 3,928]

8 hours ago, Remij said:

It's not that it's unusable (I've never touched/tried the Ally so I have no real idea) but Gerstmann isn't the first person to complain about the user experience on this thing.  Even you complained about the Ayaneo experience using Windows when you had one.  Unfortunately there's more to using these devices than just launching installed games... there's installing, uninstalling, there's 3rd party apps and clients, there's the lack of a keyboard and Window's pathetic attempt at a bult in one, there's no trackpad for mouse controls, Windows 10/11's touch screen experience isn't exactly ideal on devices of this size... or even tablets for that matter.

 

Valve has really gone in and done a lot of work to make many of those quirks either disappear completely, or become much less tedious on the Deck, ranging from the hardware itself with the track pads, the control interface layer with Steam input being easily the most robust control configuration software in existence, to running on a tailored version of Linux designed around Steam...  And of course that's not to say Steam Deck is perfect.. far from it.. it still has issues with the onscreen keyboard (in my experience anyway sometimes it doesn't appear or disappear when you want it to) and there's still other issues to work out and make smoother.. but they're constantly working on that stuff and you get the impression that they're extremely committed to improving every aspect of it, and they have the ability and openness to do it.  With Windows, a lot of these issues would fall on Microsoft to fix and make better for these devices, and it doesn't look like that's going to happen any time soon.  So Asus can do what it can, but it's obviously not going to be as committed to improving the experience on the Ally as Valve is with the Deck.  Asus doesn't have that much of a stake in it, IMO.

 

The whole point of these devices is to play games on them. Once you get things set up thats what you spend 95% of the time doing. Windows isn't holding it back from doing what its intended to do.

[Remij 4,682]

37 minutes ago, Twinblade said:

 

The whole point of these devices is to play games on them. Once you get things set up thats what you spend 95% of the time doing. Windows isn't holding it back from doing what its intended to do.

 

 

 

 

 

[sugarhigh 519]

Gerstmann is selling his Ally because it's shit. The games that don't work on SteamOS are also bad to play on Ally.

 

Edited July 3, 2023 by sugarhigh

[Twinblade★ 3,928]

1 hour ago, Remij said:

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ayaneo's equivalent of the Armory Crate is horrible and that worsened the whole experience on that device.  Thats one example where the management software is bad enough that it impacts the user experience and makes windows seem worse than it is.

[TLHBO 2,162]

If all you want is a handheld PC then any one of them is fine, but people underestimate how much work has gone into SteamOS and how it transforms the experience.

 

I installed Chimera on a test PC and you know what? I could actually see myself running this on my main PC The chimera "app" is a bit weak sauce but you can use the Lutris and Heroic flatpaks instead.

 

In the mean time I picked up the Steam dock in the sale

[sugarhigh 519]

The industry needs to let Valve cook. They're solving problems nobody else wants to touch. Largely problems MS created.

[JonDnD 2,640]

Fire Sale already 😂

[Remij 4,682]

I've heard a few people now say that SteamOS 3.5 is supposed to be pretty fucking cool.  I wonder what new features it's going to bring  

 

 

[lynux3 2,101]

4 hours ago, Remij said:

I've heard a few people now say that SteamOS 3.5 is supposed to be pretty fucking cool.  I wonder what new features it's going to bring  

 

 

Thanks for the update, but aren't you a Winblows blood sucker? Winblows.  

[Remij 4,682]

6 hours ago, lynux3 said:

Thanks for the update, but aren't you a Winblows blood sucker? Winblows.  

No.  I've been pretty vocal about Windows not being good for handhelds if you've ever read anything I've posted about the Steam Deck  

[-GD-X★ 7,748]

1 minute ago, Remij said:

No.  I've been pretty vocal about Windows not being good for handhelds if you've ever read anything I've posted about the Steam Deck  

I can confirm this. 

[TLHBO 2,162]

My dock arrived, I didnt think I had much use for one but this is great how easily it switches. It saves time for people like me who live in countries with 3rd world internet No need to download twice.

[Cooke 2,030]

On 2023-07-02 at 1:00 AM, lynux3 said:

Maybe… maybe not. Honestly, I can’t see how anyone can be threatened by a Windows based handheld.

At least it plays every game without dumb workarounds 

[lynux3 2,101]

2 hours ago, Cooke said:

At least it plays every game without dumb workarounds 

What?   Are you talking about Winblows or SteamOS?

Edited July 9, 2023 by lynux3

[Cooke 2,030]

7 hours ago, lynux3 said:

What?   Are you talking about Winblows or SteamOS?

SteamOs