Disclaimer: I ordered both a Steam Deck and an ROG Ally at the same time, and ended up returning the Ally, mostly because of the reports of the SD card reader frying up cards. If in 2 months it turns out it was all a software issue, I might rethink my option.
That being said, I think the Ally has great potential and some of the problems listed can be solved/mitigated;
> - Windows as the key interface
You can boot straight into Steam Big Picture. It will show you the desktop for a second, for now, but surely there will be solutions to make it boot almost instantaneously. And then Windows remains as your Desktop Mode.
> - very poor battery life (even worse than the Deck!)
There's a tool called Handheld Companion (FOSS) that tries to do a lot of what the right hand side menu in SteamOS does, FPS limits, power control, etc.
It has a feature called AutoTDP which basically modulates power to target a certain FPS average, and it works surprisingly well, shaving off enough power to make the SD and the Ally battery comparable in situations over 9W. Below 9W I agree, the ROG Ally chip just eats more power for sometimes lower performance.
It even emulates a DualShock 4 controller so you can stream PS4/PS5 games to it via Sony's app. (that also enables gyro in Steam games, which Asus didn't care much to add, even though the hardware is there)
> - no trackpads so this limits what you can ever play with it to games made for gamepads
Nothing that can be done about that, except maybe yet another Handheld Companion tweak which adds virtual gamepads on the edges of the touchscreen. Very customizable, not perfect, hard to reach with smaller hands, but hey, it's an option.
> - none of the SteamOS goodness
See Handheld Companion above
That being said, I think the Ally has great potential and some of the problems listed can be solved/mitigated;
> - Windows as the key interface
You can boot straight into Steam Big Picture. It will show you the desktop for a second, for now, but surely there will be solutions to make it boot almost instantaneously. And then Windows remains as your Desktop Mode.
> - very poor battery life (even worse than the Deck!)
There's a tool called Handheld Companion (FOSS) that tries to do a lot of what the right hand side menu in SteamOS does, FPS limits, power control, etc. It has a feature called AutoTDP which basically modulates power to target a certain FPS average, and it works surprisingly well, shaving off enough power to make the SD and the Ally battery comparable in situations over 9W. Below 9W I agree, the ROG Ally chip just eats more power for sometimes lower performance. It even emulates a DualShock 4 controller so you can stream PS4/PS5 games to it via Sony's app. (that also enables gyro in Steam games, which Asus didn't care much to add, even though the hardware is there)
> - no trackpads so this limits what you can ever play with it to games made for gamepads
Nothing that can be done about that, except maybe yet another Handheld Companion tweak which adds virtual gamepads on the edges of the touchscreen. Very customizable, not perfect, hard to reach with smaller hands, but hey, it's an option.
> - none of the SteamOS goodness See Handheld Companion above
PS: how do I add quotes in here?