Which portable gaming PCs upgrade hammer swings the hardest?

Is early adoption a chumps game?

The only thing to do, clearly, is make them fight.

An Asus ROG Ally X and a Steam Deck OLED arranged next to each other on a table.

Then theres the whole, yknow, OLED thing.

The second is that 984cd/m2 is high enough for proper HDR.

For a games machine with portability at its heart, thats a vital improvement.

An Asus ROG Ally X on top of a Steam Deck OLED.

Its just… the Steam Deck OLED is even better.

The kind you might well have in your main desktop, in other words.

Then theres the Steam Deck OLEDs SteamOS, which… isnt.

A close-up of the Asus ROG Ally X’s display as it runs Hades II.

Off limits,unless youre willing to stream.

Deck-specific issues with other launchers have also beenwidelyrecorded.

And yet, I almost always find the Steam Deck OLED markedly less prone to inducing muttered curses.

An Asus ROG Ally X and Steam Deck OLED both running the Cyberpunk 2077 benchmark.

Not fun at all.

It never asks if I want to install Office 365, either.

Thats absolutely not an incorrect preference, especially if youre attached to your Game Pass collection.

A bar graph showing how the Asus ROG Ally X compares to the Steam Deck OLED on gaming performance.

That one and only 1TB ROG Ally X?

Itll set you back799/$800.

Lets be fair here.

A rear view of the both the Steam Deck OLED and the Asus ROG Ally X, together on a table.

A more premium-leaning price is to be expected.

What makes the ROG Ally Xs pricing seem even meaner is the lack of extras.

A bar graph showing how the Asus ROG Ally X compares to the Steam Deck OLED on gaming battery life.

The internal layout of an Asus ROG Ally X, showing the M.2 2280 SSD in the centre.

A Steam Deck OLED showing off its SteamOS library interface.

An Asus ROG Ally X and a Steam Deck OLED together on a desk.

An Asus ROG Ally X sat next to a Steam Deck OLED on an outdoor table.