The Steam Deck’s success boils down to ease of use, something that you may soon get on Asus or Lenovo-brand handhelds.
You don’t have to look hard for the best gaming handheld PC on the market today. It’s the Steam Deck, it’s always the Steam Deck, and that’s mostly thanks to the console-like ease of SteamOS. There’s good news on that front (for everybody but Microsoft). We now have several videos of SteamOS working on an Asus and Lenovo handheld, and they’re running games better than their Windows counterparts, even before the official release.
Valve’s SteamOS offers the most console-like experience for handheld PCs. So after the Steam Deck maker promised that SteamOS 3.8 will support non-Valve handhelds, gamers got excited. First on the list of consoles with SteamOS preinstalled was supposed to be the Lenovo Legion Go S. The version with Valve’s operating system is supposed to arrive later this year. However, handheld-centric YouTuber Phawx posted a video of him running SteamOS on the unsupported Asus ROG Ally, one of Steam Deck’s earliest, most-capable competitors.
This isn’t exactly the full SteamOS 3.8 release, though. Phawx crowbarred SteamOS Holo onto the handheld, which means that the software doesn’t recognize the handheld’s back buttons or other device-specific inputs. It also continues to lock the handheld’s TDP, or thermal design power, at 15 W. This means the OS isn’t taking into account the Ally’s full power draw capabilities, which will necessarily limit game performance.
But here’s where things get exciting. At 15 W TDP, the Ally running SteamOS manages to outperform the Steam Deck. The Ally uses the AMD Ryzen Z1 Extreme chip, which is notably more powerful than the Steam Deck’s proprietary, less powerful AMD processor. At those base settings, the Ally running SteamOS was outperforming the Steam Deck by 13 average FPS on Batman Arkham Knight. The Steam Deck still managed to outperform the Ally in a game like Horizon Zero Dawn: Remastered, so it’s not like you should be gearing up to sell your precious Valve handheld on eBay. But imagine the performance and battery life you could get on the more-powerful Asus ROG Ally X.
Previously, modders have managed to run Bazzite—a Linux-based operating system made to function similarly to Valve’s SteamOS—on non Valve handhelds. YouTuber ETA Prime showed off the SteamOS 3.8 beta running on a Windows-based Lenovo Legion Go S. It supports higher RAM specs than the $550 SteamOS version that is currently up for preorder. Surprisingly, the Legion Go S running SteamOS performs marginally better than the same handheld running Windows.
SteamOS seems to be offering better performance on average compared to similar Windows builds. That could pose a problem for Microsoft, who is reportedly working with Asus on an Xbox-centric handheld. That handheld may run a version of Windows that will actually be usable on smaller screens with thumbsticks and buttons. But that effort won’t matter if SteamOS offers only an easier-to-use interface and more FPS in games. But then Windows handheld owners could upgrade their systems for themselves, which means we’re closer than ever to the perfect gaming handheld.
