I’ve been a fan of handheld electronic and video games for as long as I can remember. Over the years I’ve had lots of LCD Games, GameBoys, Game Gears, Vitas, and various Android based gaming devices. Heck, there’s even a Steam Deck in my household that’s been here since launch day.

I pre-ordered the ASUS ROG Ally right after the first reviews were released. My spouse has the Steam Deck and I’ve spent a lot of time with it. Most recently, I spent the better part of a weekend getting the EA edition of SIMS4 running on it after EA ended support for their Origin launcher. That experience led me to think that Windows may ultimately be an easier path for gaming overall.

Publishers are loathe to unify their frameworks and launchers. How many of them are there now, anyway? EA Desktop, Steam, BattleNet, Ubisoft Connect, Xbox, Epic Games, COG Galaxy, the list goes on and on. The studios and publishers seem to believe that their particular launcher gives them some kind of edge in the market. Sure, they’ll release some of their stuff on other launchers as a form of advertisement. The premium titles often remain locked.

The Steam Deck’s Linux-based operating system does not run most of these launchers natively. There can be a lot of setup to get them running in the Proton emulation layer. In addition, there are several games that use various anti-cheat mechanisms like Ricochet and Easy Anti-Cheat that simply do not function properly on the Linux OS (yet).

Enter the Ally. ASUS’s handheld features a similar form as the famous Steam Deck, but packs in even more power. The Ally can process data at up to 8.6 teraflops compared to the Steam Deck’s 1.6. The performance that the diminutive PC is capable of is frankly astonishing. The Ally runs AAA titles like Halo Infinite, Destiny 2, The Witcher 3, and Call of Duty Modern Warfare II at 1080P on low, at nearly 100 frames per second.

ASUS also wisely chose Microsoft’s Windows 11 and some clever add-ons for it’s operating system. This choice ensures maximum compatibility with all of your titles no matter which launcher they require.

Windows 11 is not customized for the Ally like Steam OS has been for the Steam Deck, but it effectively does not matter in my opinion. Steam OS is limited to playing games that have been specifically written for it, or those that work with its Proton emulation layer.

Those limitations can be extremely frustrating to deal with if you aren’t into engineering tech workarounds. The amount of work that went into getting SIMS4 to run properly on the Deck was immense.

It took less than 15 minutes to install SIMS4 on my Ally. No modifications of any kind were needed. The game just worked. I might recommend a Steam Deck to some of my engineering minded co-workers, but I’ll point my normal friends and family to the Ally every time. After my experiences with both, I can honestly say “Windows is the way”.