| Feature | Ally | SD | Winner |
|---|---|---|---|
| Looks | Ally is white, looks modern and sleek, really nice touches with the vents, holo strip, RGB | Sleek and industrial | Ally |
| Shape | Hands a bit more pronated, console has more sharp angles, back buttons and middle finger tips are awkward together, 3D printable fix | Feels like an F1 steering wheel, very substantial, fingers wrap around nicely, much better | SD |
| Weight | Not much of a difference but can be felt | Heavier but better comfort | - |
| Top button positioning | Fingerprint is great, volume buttons are awk | Power button is awk | - |
| Front menu buttons | Annoying that they're so similar and close together, I love the feel of them though | Don't like the bottom two, love the top two | Ally |
| D pad | I like the round but crisp one better | Not bad at all either | Ally |
| ABXY | Larger, crispier, no weird B button | Weird B button, small | Ally |
| Joysticks | Softer, more precise, grippier | My left thumb slips | Ally |
| Touchpads | None | They're great in games that need a mouse, and for navigation | SD |
| Triggers | L2/R2 ain't bad, L1/R1 feels cheap | L2/R2 are 'substantial', love the tiny vibration feedback at the end, L1/R1 feel more serious | SD |
| Back buttons | The 2 are in the way of my middle fingers, not very easy to press | The 4 feel great, although not easiest to press | SD |
| Feature | Ally | SD | Winner |
|---|---|---|---|
| Screen | Better colours, love the refresh rate, love the resolution | Better minimum brightness | Ally |
| Fan Noise | Great | Horrendous! | Ally! |
| Input Lag | Super low, amazing vid, beats a PS5 / SD | Average, no problem | Ally |
| Feature | Ally | SD | Winner |
|---|---|---|---|
| OS | Windows is not nearly as broken as reviewers have you think | SteamOS not nearly as 'perfect' as reviewers have you think, needs tinkering for some things | - |
| Steam | Buggy in Big Picture with game playing, but recoverable and has alternative | Integration is seamless, lacks some basic features, is the only option | - |
| OS Overlay | Armory Crate is not that bad, but somewhat extra, would rather just have a Steam layer | No extra fat, Steam BP is the overlay | - |
| Tinkering | About the same | About the same | - |
| Other Launchers | Easy Peasy lemon Squeezy | A bit finicky, Lutris and Heroic are your friends, good luck playing anything with Anti-cheat or incompatible with Proton | Ally |
| Emulation | A bit more manual, better performance | EmuDeck makes it very easy, but will strruggle with PS3 titles, not all Switch games will be 60fps | - |
| Games | More compatibility with almost all games, but many will require playing with game settings | Many games require less tinkering because of pre-configured options and pre-compiled shaders availability | SD |
| Problems so far | Steam is buggy | Steam is buggy | - |
| Game | Ally | SD | Winner |
|---|---|---|---|
| GTA V | in 110fps plugged in / 80fps on battery is gorgeous | 80fps plugged in / 60fps on battery | Ally |
- [the Verge] thinks June updates nerf Ally a lot compared to May](https://www.reddit.com/r/ROGAlly/comments/1490t1u/the_verge_compares_bios_performance_changes_in/)
- Ally seems to be the king of low input lag
- Ally runs ChimeraOS
| Feature | Ally | Steam Deck | Winner |
|---|---|---|---|
| Weight | 608g | 669g | Ally |
| Dimensions | 280x113x39mm | 298x117x49mm | Ally |
| Feature | Ally | Steam Deck | Winner |
|---|---|---|---|
| Controller | Cross Joysticks | Symmetrical Joysticks | SD |
| Extra buttons | 2 | 4 | SD |
| Extras | none | Joysticks with touch sensitivitiy, two touchpads | SD |
| Haptic feedback | Yes | Yes | SD? |
| Feature | Ally | Steam Deck | Winner |
|---|---|---|---|
| APU | AMD Ryzen Z1 (or Z1 Extreme) | AMD Van Gogh (Custom) | Ally |
| CPU Arch | Zen 4 | Zen 2 | Ally |
| CPU Cores | 8 cores, 16 threads | 4 cores, 8 threads | Ally |
| CPU Power Range | 15-30W | 3-15W | ? |
| CPU Max Freq | 5.1GHz | 3.5GHz | Ally |
| GPU architecture | RDNA 3 | RDNA 2 | Ally |
| GPU compute units | 12 | 8 | Ally |
| Max GPU clock | 2.7GHz | 1.6GHz | Ally |
| RAM | 16GB LPDDR5 | 16GB LPDDR5 | - |
| Battery | 4000 mAh | 4000 mAh | - |
| Battery Life | 80 mins on high load | 100 mins on high load | SD |
| WiFi | WiFi 6E | WiFi 5 | Ally |
| Bluetooth | Bluetooth 5.2 | Bluetooth 5.0 | Ally |
| Feature | Ally | Steam Deck | Winner |
|---|---|---|---|
| Screen | 7 Inch Touchscreen | 7 Inch Touchscreen | - |
| Resolution | 1920x1080 | 1280x800 | Ally |
| Aspect ratio | 16:9 | 16:10 | SD |
| Refresh rate | 120Hz | 60Hz | Ally |
| Adaptive sync | AMD FreeSync Premium | None | Ally |
| Brightness (quoted) | 500 nits | 400 nits (actual ~550) | - |
| Panel type | IPS | IPS | - |
| Feature | Ally | Steam Deck | Winner |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cooling fans | 2x | 1x | Ally |
| Speakers | 2x front-facing, Dolby Atmos certification | 2x front-facing | Ally |
| Fingerprint unlock | Yes | No | Ally |
| microSD slot | Yes, with UHS2 | Yes, with UHS1 | Ally |
| External GPU connector | 1x Asus XG connector | No | Allys |
| USB ports | 1x USB-C with DP | 1x USB-C with DP | - |
| Headphone jack | 1x | 1x | - |
| RGB | Around Joysticks | none | Ally |
| Feature | Ally | Steam Deck | Winner |
|---|---|---|---|
| OS | Windows 11 | SteamOS 3.0 | - |
| Gaming Overlay | Armory Crate, Steam Big Picture | Steam Big Picture SD edition | SD |
| Game Launchers | Steam, Xbox, Epic, EA, Battle.net | Steam, Lutris, Heroic | Ally |