ROG Ally vs Legion Go vs OLED Steam Deck: Which gaming handheld is right for you?

With the release of three new and exciting gaming handhelds, this year figuring out which device is right for you suddenly got a lot more difficult. So to help sort out the best and worst things about ASUS ROG Ally, Lenovo Legion Go and the OLED Steam Deck, we’ve prepared a big face-off covering the most popular portable PCs on the market.

[SamRutherfordscr]

Correction: I stated that the ROG Ally has an OLED display when in fact it's an IPS panel. My apologies.

[eckomind]

I bought the Steam Deck Oled even after the fact the Asus ROG Ally was on sale. The reason was because I loved the original Steam Deck and I enjoyed the ease of use and setup. I also appreciate Valve's efforts to constantly update and improve the Steam Deck's compatibility with future and current releases. So I will happily support Valve, and I hope the Steam Deck 2 will be successful as well.

[cybernate]

Small correction. The Rog ally has an glossy IPS display. Not oled.

[rbdunne]

He didn't even mention that the ROG Ally has VRR, which is a huge plus for it. Or that the Steam Deck is the low watt / battery king. (Steam Deck APU beats Z1 Extreme below 15w) combine with 50w battery makes it last much longer than the others. Great for indie or games that are a few years old.

[ericbudo]

I have a LeGo. I use it all the time. The screen is what sold it for me. It's also run everything I've thrown at it so far in reasonable graphics settings and frame rates. I did quite a bit of research on all of the handhelds before buying one and it was a pretty hard decision. I agree with the reviewer, pick the one that fits. You can't go wrong with any of them.

[Autotad]

Picked up the ROG Ally when it first came on sale during Black Friday and have been very happy with it. It was kind of an impulse buy because I wanted to play games outside of my office. Originally thought I’d play mostly D4 but in reality it let me rediscover gems in my backlog and discover new ones to fall in love with (Hifi rush). Playing at my desk always felt like a big commitment, but playing anywhere else made gaming feel so much accessible and leisurely. Honestly, it’s kind of rekindled my joy of gaming. I don’t think you can go wrong with any of these offerings.

[brandongabel]

I loved my OG Steam Deck and I love my OLED even more now that I have it. It's a really solid upgrade. I'm not really interested in the other handhelds aside from the better performance, but at this point they're weaker in other categories that matter to portable gaming and the performance boost isn't enough for me to care when the Deck is as supported and optimized for the games I want to play as they are and continue to be.

The overall polished and comfortable experience will always reign supreme, but there will also always be a use case for any of these devices that depends specifically on the user since they're unique enough for someone to want one over the other. It's good to have all of these options and I can't wait to see what the future holds in the handheld gaming space.

[MmM-prcn]

Steam Deck - best battery life, least powerful, medium weight

Legion Go - best screen, heaviest/bulky design, performance can still be improved

ROG ALLY - best portable (lightest), optimal performance + VRR screen, but of course, worst battery life

Most of the time, I play plugged in (or with powerbank) anyway so I guess ROG ALLY is the one for me 😅

[Thebitbeard]

Get the device that fits your budget and meets your portable PC gaming needs. For me, that's the Steam Deck OLED. It has the best battery life of all of these, good enough performance with a careful and intentional balance between power and efficiency, an absolutely beautiful screen at a very purposefully chosen resolution for a 7.4" display, fantastic build quality, comfortable ergonomics, and excellent support from both Valve and the community, the former of which actually has good reason to continue support beyond the initial sale of the device.

[Simi]

Steam OS can actually work better in some instances for compatibility in older games. Proton can actually fix a number of issues that stops games from launching at all on modern windows installs

[itranscendencei]

Idk how you can say that the SD OLED has the worst screen of the 3. 800p is more than enough for a 7.4" screen and great for the performance target, 90Hz is also perfect for the performance target, and most importantly it is a *beautiful* OLED display with HDR that's actually good and 1000 nits peak brightness. It's just so damn gorgeous to look at. Even other reviewers, including Digital Foundry, mostly all agree that the new OLED display on the Steam Deck is by far the best screen on any handheld PC available right now.

[Azrael-xljl]

No one talks about the fact that Valve is a software company and are likely to support their hardware long term (with a great track record already), meanwhile both Asus and Lenovo are hardware companies known for really bad software updates and tend to abandon their hardware within 1 year. So whatever issues you have on the Ally and Lenovo whenever they decide to abandon them you'll be SOL.

[samuelneault]

I strongly suggest using Handheld Companion if using Ally or Legion. There is an auto TDP options that can almost double your battery life on a single charge.

[DerHerrSal]

The best solution would be if they bring SteamOS to other handhelds and maybe gaming laptops as well. That would push gaming on Linux to the next level and can give windows and its dominance a serious run for its money.

[MichaelLochowitz]

I have all three and I still have a hard time deciding which one to pick up and use. I tend to use the Go most because I love the big screen, but it is the least comfortable to hold and has the worst sound.

[RaccoonTech]

Rog Ally - One Love. 💙💛
UPD: Unfortunately, I sold it a week later and bought a Legion GO, which I don't regret) For me, the Legion Go has become the best all-in-one device for gaming and work.

[deathdecorvid]

The way he's going hard on the steam deck old shows that he really is not bias, very honest review 💯👏🏼

[jodysin]

I picked up a 512 gb steam deck used for $200 with the intention to flip for some profit.
After testing it out for a few days, I've decided to just keep it since it can play some of the games from my library without having to use my power hungry gaming rigs.
I can watch tv with my girl, while playing... its perfect.

[DM-hhiv]

If Asus releases the ROG Ally Gen. 2 with an 8" OLED display and narrower screen bezels, 144Hz and a larger battery, it will be the best handheld of all.

[mtx]

Quite outdated review at this point (Feb 2024), Legion Go is now the top performer thanks to updated driver/bios that fixed the TDP issue, and the Go has faster memory than the Ally to begin with. Now steamdeck, even with the OLED upgrade, is simply too underpowered (by a big margin compared to the other two systems), and Steam OS itself, while easy to navigate, is a big limiting factor to most of us seasoned PC gamers since you'll need to switch to desktop mode and tinker with different proton versions in order to side load anything that's not on Steam (emulators for example) -- same task on Windows could be done in a matter of minutes with minimal compatibility issue. Oh not to mention tons of games still can't run in the Steamdeck, where as they're guaranteed to work on Windows. Overall if you're used to gaming on PC, then the Legion Go or Ally are easy picks over the Steamdeck, and out of the 3, I kept the Legion Go because of its performance, comfort, and no doubt the best screen (reminder to the reviewer that 144hz is not really intended to run most games up to that framerate, but rather to enhance the responsiveness of the gaming experience -- try playing a 50fps game on a 60hz screen vs 144 screen, you'll feel the difference)