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Valve's Steam Deck made waves in the PC gaming handheld market, with SteamOS one of its best features. Now, the favored operating system of many portable gamers looks to be officially coming to more handheld PCs, and the Asus ROG Ally may be first in line.
As seen on SteamDB, new branding guidelines suggest Valve's SteamOS will soon officially run on more devices, with a "Powered by SteamOS" badge indicating that devices will automatically boot into the operating system.
The updated guidelines state: "The Powered by SteamOS logo indicates that a hardware device will run the SteamOS and boot into SteamOS upon powering on the device. Partners/manufacturers will ship hardware with a Steam image in the form provided by and/or developed in close collaboration with Valve."
That's yet another indication of Valve's operating system finally coming to more PC gaming handhelds, but there's still no word on when it will happen.
Asus ROG Ally looks to be the first
Valve already confirmed it will support SteamOS on rival gaming handhelds, with the company updating the operating system with back button support for the Asus ROG Ally X. That was earlier this year, although it is yet to arrive officially. However, that hasn't stopped owners from running SteamOS anyway, with our own Jason England turning the Asus ROG Ally X into a de facto Steam Deck.
Right off the bat, it completely floored the ROG Ally's original Windows 11 operating system, offering a 15% increase in frame rates and 22% longer battery life. It's been well known Windows 11 doesn't suit gaming handhelds, and our tests now prove it.
One of our gripes about the Asus ROG Ally was that Windows 11 was letting it down, reducing its battery life, and stopping games from reaching their full potential. With SteamOS onboard, however, a few of its faults can be fixed, giving it a more competitive edge over the Steam Deck.
That also goes for the Lenovo Legion Go, and with rumors of a Legion Go 2 and budget-friendly Legion Go "S" in the works, it's likely we may find SteamOS on more upcoming handheld PCs sooner rather than later.
With the "Powered by SteamOS" badges officially in order, we may not have to wait much longer to finally use Valve's operating system on anything other than the Steam Deck. It's already proven to be a major upgrade on the ROG Ally X, so who knows; it may change up our list of the best handheld gaming consoles.
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