The Asus ROG Ally launched in 2023 before a refreshed ROG Ally X followed this year, and while many have praised the gaming PC laptop, one complaint seems to remain constant: Windows 11 sucks on portable devices. The good news is that it looks like the option to switch to SteamOS on the ROG Ally is now officially available.
Our reviews of the ROG Ally and ROG Ally X all share the same complaint: Windows 11 doesn't feel quite right on a portable device. While it feels familiar, Microsoft's operating system doesn't have the same fluidity as SteamOS on the Steam Deck.
That’s why some people have been very interested in a part of Valve’s latest SteamOS release notes, in which the company claims that it has “added support for additional ROG Ally keys.” That’s a pretty underhanded way of mentioning that ROG Ally is finally getting SteamOS support!
In fact, The Verge's Sean Hollister wasn't sure if this meant what it seemed to suggest, so he sought out Valve's confirmation that SteamOS is indeed coming to ROG Ally. He received a positive response from Valve designer Lawrence Yang, who stated: “The note about ROG Ally keys is related to third-party device support for SteamOS. The team is continuing to work on adding support for additional wearables on SteamOS.”
SteamOS is on the way! Coming soon…
That's not to say we'll wake up to the prospect of installing a completely new operating system in a few weeks – it'll be a long process before we see SteamOS on the ROG Ally (or other Windows laptops). However, according to Yang, Valve is “making steady progress” towards this goal.
Yang also comments on Valve’s previous promise that switching between SteamOS and Windows will be supported on the Steam Deck. Known as dual-boot, on that topic Yang notes: “On the Windows side, we’re preparing to make the remaining Windows drivers available for the Steam Deck OLED (you may have seen that we’re preparing firmware for the Bluetooth controller). There’s no update on when dual-boot will be supported – it’s still a priority, but we haven’t been able to do it yet.”
It's interesting to see Valve step in and help a competitor in a tough spot with the software side of their product, but it makes sense, at least from a business perspective.
Greater exposure for SteamOS (which is tied to Valve’s own gaming platform) has to be a good thing in the end. And while it’s not about hardware sales, Valve is turning rival handheld consoles into Steam Decks — in a way, at least as far as software is concerned.
