Steam deck and why its not for me

I have a Steam Deck and while its a great handheld console for me the biggest issues are it takes a lot of tinkering to make it run xbox app ,games etc but for me its to heavy. I cant hold it as long as i need to after a few minutes i either have to put it down before i drop it or just put it away.

also i dont like the touch pads on the steam deck they take up a lot of space pushing up the joystick and the ab xy buttons. i found it fair easier to get my Asus rog Ally and use the steam deck app on that i come with the ally and i notice the weight difference straight away i could play my games for longer.

i have a lot of games. As steam deck has nearly all computers and consoles operating systems covered , so you find games that were on the xbox 360 which aren’t on xbox one there . I ancient of the oogla on my xbox360 but its not available on my xbox one and it much easier to buy it on the steam deck then it is to get the 360 out plug in and play the game then pack everything back up after 5 minutes or hours .

the steam deck app vs the steam deck console

as i said before i start using the steam deck app on my computer, but i wanted to have the handheld as i need play my games in bed while im ill.

but the problem like i said was the steam deck handheld is to heavy for me to hold . yes it was a good investment at the time but after several near misses where it nearly hit the floor. i knew i had to go back to having steam deck on the computer.

Not the best way to play the games library on the steam deck but it works. The app is identical in everyway to the steam deck handheld console as far as i can see except one

No fiddling in konsole mode to get games to work. because the stem deck app im running is on windows then my windows games i brought on steam deck dont need tweeking to get them to run they run. you just need setup how your controller is going to work.

so when The Asus Rog Ally was announced i knew i had to buy one it solved everthing it cost just slightly more than my steam deck.

The steam deck cost £650 where as the Asus Rog Ally would cost £699. both the steam deck handheld i had for christmas second hand off ebay ( if its second hand u can clam the goodies that come with the 512gb steam deck)

so basically the windows handheld running Steam deck app is the best solution for me. i can if i want have it automatically load steam os when i turn the ally on. but i also have my xbox app (3 months free game pass ultimate) i also have playstation plus, gog, ea,epic games ,ubisoft to name a few. these can work on the steam deck too

if i had to choose between the Steam Deck hand held console and the Asus Rog Ally. Then the Ally would be the one id get. because i can play all my games on one console and its not heavy.

I love my Asus Rog Ally!

i love it its not as heavy as the steam deck not complicated to set up xbox as the steam deck. i love my ally for those reasons alone. if u want to try the steam deck app for games to it comes with it. i feel its so much easier i thought the steam deck would be good but i cant get xbox app to work, and i wanted spend my time playing games not having to enter lines of code to talk it into runing xbox .

i love the asus rog ally because of it easy of use, just turn it on sign in to your xbox account and you can play any games in the xbox and microsoft store or gog.com ,ea, epic , rockstar , amazon etc

u can add emulation to by using big box (emudeck is coming soon if ur a member of there patron group u get early access if you pay but it coming out soon)

if your games run on windows then they should be fine

if you read about the sd card problem dont worry dont let that stop u buying asus rog ally there working on a fix so dont be. every new console , handheld etc has problems when released
there are a lot of youtube reviewers who had early access to the ally and they mentioned problems some of which are long gone. and the youtubers have updated those reviews

there are still a few problems getting sorted like the sd card reader might stop working, but there a fix on its way and mine is fine i had myine on 28 june 2023 and im extremely happy with my ally. you will love it to. i can’t promise that u wont hit a problem because that would be unfair and im not going say that there aren’t problems cus that would not be fair either. all i will say is buy it try it have fun.

Don’t buy the Ayaneo air before reading this

we recieved our ayaneo air afew days ago. the problems began soon after

the joy pad and joysticks wouldnt work unless u had virtual mouse turned on

then it locked up if u tried to add games

then the screen which is a portrait screen which they put in landscape desided to get stuck in portrate moded

you cant read the screen .

so we then put remix os on which ment insted of adding a folder it wiped the hidden system restore disk , the system backup doesnt work either.

we turned on the virtual machine and the other thing underneath in the system manager. once we could get the ayaneo air to stay on long enough

put bluestacks android emulator on.

by this point i managed 4 hours on battery including rebooting and error beeps

cant uninstall software.

it shows up as a oneplus a301 with o2 as carrier

what do i think of this console.

buy the ayn odin pro insted

well im glad its not just me!

Two companies similar names

Well i’m so gllad its not just me . we orderd my AYA NEO AIR PC Gaming Handheld or thought we did . but we didnt after waiting and waiting we re checked the order to find we had orderd Ayn Odin with superdock.

you think that when your told in an email that the device you had orderd doesnt have a discount . byt even tho peny told me that in an email it didn’t register .

so we been waiting Three weeks for the wrong console . i re read the email penny sent and understand what she ment so ive just cancelled it we had 16 days to do it so im just in time. Thankforly the other one can be order via a uk site .

AYA NEO AIR PC Gaming Handheld is Aurora white it can play all my console games. so i cant wait.

update

aya neo air console has died so had a very polite email saayimg

“ on investigation our engineers have found a fault. please finll in your details for collection and modle and order number so we can collect it”

so the review is going to tell the story of the faulty aya neo air

Evercade

if you love hand held gaming but prefer carts. just like the game boy, game gear, and others. then the evercade is for you.

I got my first evercade when it came out . it was the premium pack with 10 game carts.

these carts come in a hard case with a full colour glossy manual that tells you all about the games on that cartridge, hints and tips.

im a bit behind on my collection right now im on cart 23.

My favourite games so far

romeow and juliecat

which is sort of colums type game where you have to use up all the puzzle pieces to collect points while keeping juliecat happy with music and protecting her . it is a very hard game. because you cant change the puzzle pieces direction. it really addictive.

other games you will recognise are

Worms, Dizzy, Zool , sensible soccer , the list is long but there something for everyone. you can get the games for £18. which isnt bad considering that normally you pay about £60 for 1 game. There anything from 2 to 10 games per cart for the evercade hand hald which isnt bad as your collection soon grows.

the handheld i have is the white and red collectible edition , there is a black and red collectible edition these both came with a limited edition coin signed certificate. then later on Evercade brought out the purple and grey version this came with a certificate and a keyring. i don’t own this one yet . my partner calls it the evercade minion. as i love minions.

Evercade vs console

Evercade then brought out the evercade vs founders edition i don’t own that either. but its black and red and connects to your tv via hdmi. It come with a poster , keyring, hard case, and depending on your pack you can get 4 games with it . it also had your name on the certificate so your a founder and 2 black controllers. Ive seen the controllers on ebay for £ 20 – £50 and the console for £ 400.

There is a white and red version. which i seen for £80. this just comes with one game and one controller.

the best is you can plug in your evercade handheld into the evercade vs. also the evercade vs has 2 cart slots so you can play a 12 and a 12 cart. but it gets better when you have two carts in the vs you can unlock a secret game, not all carts combos do this. i don’t think. but as i don’t have a evercade vs for this review i cant tell you. and i don’t no if it specifically to do with if you use the white/red , back/red or purple and grey hand held or not. The evercade vs has wifi built in so it updates for you.

More Evercade goodies

The coolest thing then happened Evercade Fans brought out a magazine called Evercade Evolution currently £7.99 in printed format and £ 6.99 in Kindle format. ( price change so there only a rough guide) I’m unsure if the magazine is available in other ebook formats because i get mine from amazon.co.uk . currently a waiting the next issue . its full of goodies reviews, q and a letters ect in the same style as the booklet you get with your game carts.

My only problem ( not read anyone else had it happen)

you can plug in your handheld to the tv hdmi socket via the recommended cable but i don’t no what happened but when i did that i lost all my game saves. I used the official evercade hdmi cable for my handheld linked it to my tv. played happily for several hours . Save my progress regularly, turn off my handheld correctly , un plugged the hdmi correct, charged up my evercade and go ready to play romeo and juliecat in hand held mode, all my saves were gone. i cried this game is hard for me to play so i was really upset to discover that all the progress i had made ( got to level 4) on a really difficult game had some how been lost.

yeah ok its level 4 but this game is very difficult. ive not dare plug in my handheld to the hdmi cable since. Not sure if its my unit or what but just wanted let you no.

System update

with my evercade hand held i had to do a systems update, which i was nervous about, it went ok , you download the update and run it plug in the evercade turn it on making sure there no cart in the handheld and follow the instructions which are really easy .

i was only nervous because the first time it couldn’t find my evercade also i think my experience with the hdmi and loosing my game saves didn’t help, but i shouldn’t have worried.

since the update there are more saving slots and a new interface. the interface matches the evercade vs interface which took some getting use to as i don’t own a evercade vs.

It just been announced that the red/white , the black/red/ and the purple/grey handheld evercade have been retired.

but don’t panic. the new evercade hand held is out at end of the year ( 2022) it call the Evercade Exp. Pre orders have sold out.

i will write more on the Evercade EXP when i know more but for now. all I can say is the pre order units are white, and the non pre order units are black . it has wifi built in , plays all 300 + games from both the original Evercade handheld and the Evercade vs.

Retroid pocket 2

We only got this to be our compare unit there are things i do love about it but i prefer the ambernic consoles.

my first problem was the thumb slider fell off twice. this the shorter thumb stick on the left hand slide

second problem i solved using a usb c lead the sd cards on both this and the ambernic consoles are impossible to put in the sd slot or take out of it without using something to push the card in the slot till it clicks.

ive got use to this although the retroid pocket the card now gets stuck behind the plastic casing . I do like the dual android or retroid os idea . hoping ambernic come out with something similar soon.

predictable by threapy box

Ive  been  meaning  to  review   this  app   for a while  .   so  here  it   is.

i  was   given  this  app   by  thearypbox.   but  wont   effact  my  review  i  use  the  ipad  version. my   current   set  up  is  some  what  difficalt   i am  having  tom use  head  tracking   which  i  find  really

painful due  to   my  various  disabilitys  ( ostio arthrightus,  cerebel pulsy , restless leg syndrom  , complex regional pain syndrom dysmotility, dysphonia, dyarthria  , hyperacusi, asthma  ,  periodic paralysis)  and   frustrating   as i cant   move  my  head as  much  as  i  neeed.

so  i  have  the  app  set  up    and  signed  into  my  account .  i  have   it  set  to    qwerty keyboard  ,   set    to  head traking ( my  head  is   now    moveing the  cursor )   also  have   the  dwell  funtion  set  up   

you  need  to  use  an ipad pro   i   need  to  borrow   my  frends  ipad  pro  test  the  head  tracking feature as  i dont own one

so this  is  what   u  do  u  turn ur  head  left   or  right    to  go  left  or   right and move ur head  up or down if up or  down.

i  got   my app to automatically speak   for me

it works  great   i  can  store  sentances    i  will   use  a lot       so  i  dont have to   type  em

but for  me  head tracking  is  to  painfull   i    check  the therapy box  web site  and   there  adding  eye  tracking  soon

im really  looking forwars to  that.

cups

we  need  a  cup  that  was  light  enough for   my  parner  or  carer     etc   to  hold  that     could   let  me   use  a straw . it  also  had to cope  with   me  jumping  or  droping it  so  it leak.   there  are  loads  of  cups    i   could   use  so  we  picked  two.
the   first  one   has  a  screw on  lid   and   you  put  your   strew   into  the  lid.   well    first  problem    what  if  u  need  the   lid  but  u  want  to  drink  normally     you   cant.    its    use  straw  only.   not   a big   deal.

my  second  problem

went  to  pick  it  up the  handle  on the  kenady  cup  is  super  thin   and  very  bendy. so  i  cant  hold  the  cup

third  problem    u cant   fill   the   cup  to the  top   there  a faint    flill  line   where  the  cup  gets   bigger .  

so  thats   half  a mug worth  of  drink.

 im  not  sure  if  it  was   my  cup    but     it   only   came  with  one   lid   no  spare

also  this   cup   gets  really hot which  ment  the   handle  more bendy

for   me  it  was   totally  unuseable

so  the   hunt  for   a  cup  continues

the best cups for me to use ( with help)

there nothing better than a nice cold drink of juice in this hot weather i use and  i  use  these  . the  cup comes  with  two tops.  the  cup  has  a  strong   handle  which  is  easy to  hold  in   different ways.  also   very light  weight.  and    comfortable  for your  carer  , family member  or friend  to  hold for you.

its  dishwasher  and  drop proof  to  a  point    we managed  to   knock  mine  out the top of  our fridge  freezer    it  hit  the tiled  floor     bounced    wasnt  till  i wanted a drink  that  we  noticed a  small crack.  and only  noticed  that as my  drink  was   coming  out  the   bottom.    i love  these  cups      so light   to  hold   . 
well  worth  getting