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00:00Hey guys, I'm Tom from TechChap, and this is the ROG Ally X. It runs faster, it has a longer battery life,
00:06it's cooler and quieter, it's more refined, but it's also a little bit thicker, a little bit heavier,
00:11it's more expensive, and of course it still runs Windows 11.
00:15So you may have seen some unboxings and first looks at this,
00:18but this is my full review. Benchmarks and battery life and all that good stuff, and also I'll be comparing it to the OG Ally
00:23and some of its rivals. Although, make sure you do stick around and subscribe because I will have a full
00:29handheld gaming buying guide coming very soon
00:33with, well, all these guys. It's gonna be a big one.
00:36So last year they introduced the first gen Ally, and I liked it a lot, I really did, but battery life was pretty rubbish,
00:43there were lots of niggling issues with Windows and the Armory Crate software, the 512 gigs of storage felt pretty tight,
00:48and obviously we had issues around the SD cards, although that was quickly fixed.
00:52It was good, if perhaps falling short of great, but it was first gen.
00:56So here we are with the Ally X, which is more of a mid-life refresh, an Ally 1.5 rather than a 2.0, if you will.
01:03Kind of like the Steam Deco led to the original deck, and there is only one Ally X instead of the two models that we had
01:09with the OG Ally. Now I must admit, when I first got my hands on this and I saw the spec sheet,
01:14I was a little bit disappointed that there was no change to the screen or the processor,
01:18two pretty fundamental aspects of a gaming handheld. The X shares the same 7-inch 1080p
01:24120Hz VRR IPS display and the same Ryzen Z1 Extreme processor as the higher spec original Ally,
01:30no sign of any next-gen processors.
01:32But pretty much everything else has been upgraded, with the most important one by far being the battery.
01:38They have doubled the size from 40 watt hours to 80. It does mean it's a little bit thicker and heavier,
01:43we'll talk about the design in a second,
01:45but they've doubled the battery, which makes it by far the biggest battery in terms of gaming handhelds,
01:51and it addresses the biggest issue I think most of us had with the original Ally.
01:54Does it mean we get double the battery? Yes in some situations,
01:57but we'll come to all the performance benchmarks in a second.
02:00Plus you can increase the power limit for a higher FPS and still get a better battery life overall.
02:05It's a genuine game changer, or should I say game lengthener.
02:09They've also doubled the storage, we now have one terabyte built in here, plus of course
02:13you can expand it via microSD, and the internal SSD is now a standard size 2280 PCIe 4M2 drive.
02:21So you have way more and a lot cheaper upgrade options, including up to 8 terabytes.
02:26There's also extra RAM, 24 gigabytes of the stuff up from 16, which is also about 16% faster,
02:31plus there's a new USB 4 Type-C port for fast transfers, for connecting to external monitors,
02:36and of course for external graphics cards.
02:38Although that is still a very expensive option and you will have a lot of bottlenecks here,
02:42but it is more practical than the old XG mobile port that I'm pretty sure no one really used.
02:47Plus the front firing speakers are louder, charging is up from 65 watts to 100 watts,
02:52although you'll need a 100 watt compatible charger, and new fans improve the airflow and make the A11yX up to 24% quieter.
02:59As for the design, well again, it's an evolution of the original A11y, very familiar,
03:03but a few tweaks and refinements, and I do like this new stealth black look.
03:07It's definitely going to get less grubby than the original white A11y.
03:11Would have been nice if it came in both options. They are still selling this by the way,
03:14you don't have to go for the new A11yX because it is a bit more expensive.
03:17Although at the same time it does now look a bit anonymous amongst the other chunky black rectangular handhelds.
03:23I mean holding them side by side, the X does feel a little bit chunkier and
03:29slightly heavier, but you can't really tell unless you are holding them like this.
03:32It doesn't change how portable this is, and certainly next to the Legion Go, it is still
03:38pretty compact. The grips are comfortable, but still a bit shallow, so your hold isn't as secure as on some of the others.
03:46Also, the two Aura RGB thumbsticks now have a more weighted, more resistive feel, which helps gauge your movements more accurately,
03:53and there's a sort of narrower but deeper indent with a thicker textured edge grip,
03:57which does keep your thumb a little bit more securely centered.
04:00And apparently they're now rated for 5 million new cycles up from 2 million on the old one.
04:05There's also just way more feedback from the face buttons, thanks to a longer travel,
04:09you really do feel the click now, and also the matte finish on the D-pad
04:12makes it grippier than the glossy one from before, and the triggers are a bit chunkier and easier to use as well.
04:17Altogether then, a nice refinement. It does feel and look a bit more premium than before, although still no touchpad,
04:23which I know a lot of people do love, especially for games that work well with a mouse,
04:26something we do get on the Steam Deck OLED and Legion Go. The headphone jack and also the
04:30previously troublesome microSD card reader have swapped to the right-hand side, plus there's the double USB-Cs.
04:36One is the faster USB 4, and the other is a slightly slower USB 3.2 Gen 2. Like all handhelds though,
04:42it is still, you know, plasticky and not the most premium thing in the whole world.
04:47But let's talk about battery life, because that is by far the biggest reason to pick up an Ally X.
04:52Because a bigger battery gives you options. You can either play your games for longer,
04:56but it's also the ability to dial up to 25 watts turbo mode, or even a higher custom setting,
05:02and not worry that it's going to be all out of juice in under an hour.
05:05So the power presets give a target TDP, for example the 17 watt performance mode on the X.
05:11But once you factor in all the other system power draws,
05:13it's actually running at over 30 watts, and the top-end 30 watt turbo mode actually draws over 40 watts.
05:20And with the 40 watt hour battery in the old Ally, that meant maybe an hour of gaming at most.
05:25So the big question is, how much longer does this last? Well,
05:28I fired up F1-23, because for some reason F1-24 didn't actually work initially on this,
05:33although I'm sure we'll get an update soon, and running at 720p with 50% brightness, and using the more frugal,
05:39but still very capable 17 watt performance mode, the Ally X lasted a full three hours,
05:43which is over twice as long as the original Ally, even though that was using a lower 15 watt TDP mode.
05:50The Steam Deck OLED lasted two hours 15, the MSI Claw two hours, and the Legion Go from Lenovo lasted an hour 45.
05:56So the Ally X is way out ahead.
05:59And if you're playing in the 13 watt silent mode in less demanding games, you can easily get four to five hours.
06:04And setting the FPS limiter to 30, 45, or 60 FPS is a great way to extend the battery life.
06:11So big thumbs up for the battery life. Well done ASUS. But let's talk about this screen,
06:15which shouldn't take too long because as I say,
06:16it's exactly the same as the original Ally 7 inches, full HD, 16 by 9 display. And the jump in image clarity playing at TDP
06:24versus the 800p on the Steam Deck is quite significant.
06:27It's noticeably sharper. That said, the step up to 1600p on the Legion Go feels like an even bigger jump,
06:33although you could only get playable frame rates at that resolution in much less demanding games.
06:37Also, maxing out the 120hz display can be a bit tricky with this processor running high-end games.
06:42But again, if you're running simpler games like Minecraft, then if you can play at TDP and get 120hz, it looks amazing.
06:49And like before, one of the big selling points of the Ally is it's the only mainstream handheld to have VRR or a variable refresh rate.
06:56Especially demanding games, which have more fluctuating frame rates, feel a lot smoother to play.
07:01And it means you don't have to lock your frame rate to 30 or 60 to get a more consistent experience.
07:05Although for an IPS level screen, the viewing angles aren't particularly great.
07:09Nothing like as good as the Steam Deck OLED screen. Would I have liked an OLED screen?
07:14Yes. Would I have taken OLED and given up VRR?
07:18That's a tougher one. And the 500 nits of brightness is fine,
07:21although it would have been nice to go a little bit higher for gaming outdoors.
07:24While nothing's really changed here in terms of the screen and the competitors do offer different advantages,
07:29like the Legion Go is 144hz and high resolution, whereas the Steam Deck is OLED,
07:34I think this combination of TDP, this size, having VRR is still a very nice option.
07:39And I suspect ASUS are holding some upgrades back for a possible Ally 2 next year.
07:44Okay, so as I fire up Cyberpunk here,
07:46let's talk about the performance. Because as I say, this is using the same Z1 Extreme chip as the higher-end model of the original
07:52Ally. No new Ryzen architecture here, unfortunately. I think maybe we'll see that on the next-gen version.
07:57So in terms of the processor, we shouldn't be seeing much improvement in performance, but we do have more and faster RAM,
08:05which should translate to a slightly improved performance, or at least a smoother performance overall. In the Armoury Crate menu,
08:12you have three power presets. You've got the 13-watt silent, 17-watt performance, and the 25-watt turbo,
08:18although this jumps to 30 watts when it's plugged in. And there's also custom modes for tweaking.
08:22Now in Cyberpunk, using the Steam Deck preset running at 720p, I got around
08:2721 FPS using the 13-watt mode, 35 FPS at 17 watts, and a 45 FPS average at 25-watt turbo.
08:35So the turbo mode is definitely the sweet spot for playing more demanding games like this.
08:39And I think with that bigger battery, I do feel more comfortable running and playing at this,
08:44knowing that I'm going to get, you know, a couple of hours of battery rather than under an hour.
08:48And that's the big deal.
08:49It's kind of the whole point of this LIX, because it's changed my relationship with the performance of the handheld completely.
08:54Playing games like this at these settings with this wattage on any other handheld feels like you're asking to kill the battery life.
09:01And the bump up to 24 gigs of faster RAM and some other optimizations
09:05gives us a boost of around 1-5% in most games. It's not significant, although there were some outliers.
09:11But this is more about the original R-Lite being slow. In most games I tested though,
09:15the R-Lite X is appreciably faster than the Steam Deck OLED, and like the other Windows handhelds,
09:20lets you take advantage of the higher resolution and the higher refresh rates.
09:32Oh, and just a quick mention of AMD's FSR 3.1,
09:35which is a pretty big deal for handhelds, because with this latest version of their upscaling tech,
09:40it also now includes frame generation, meaning extra AI generated frames to improve your FPS,
09:45but without being more demanding for the hardware.
09:47It's kind of like a free performance upgrade, and I hope more games will implement it soon.
09:51And remember, you can always use your handheld for streaming games from the likes of GeForce Now or Xbox Cloud Gaming,
09:57or even streaming from your PlayStation, although you will need a fast and reliable internet connection.
10:03We hauled ass out through the kitchen. Wouldn't be here otherwise.
10:06I must admit, I'm also quite impressed by the speakers. They are definitely louder and punchier than the original R-Lite.
10:11I'd still recommend a pair of headphones though, and sometimes I've noticed when the framerate can still get a bit choppy,
10:16the sound can also stutter a little bit.
10:18But with all that said, as nice as this is, and with all the refinements, it is still a Windows 11 based handheld.
10:25Which, of course, they all are, except for the Steam Deck, and it's a bit of a love-hate relationship.
10:30I mean, it's got a little bit better.
10:31There are slightly fewer bugs than when the first generation of these handhelds came out a year or so ago,
10:36but it's still a full-fat Windows 11 PC running with Asus' ROG Armoury Crate software on top.
10:43And while on the plus side, of course, it gives you access to all the game libraries, you know, not just Steam,
10:48it does also mean you're going to get crashes and bugs and you're gonna have to fiddle around with the
10:52silly little Windows keyboard and things like that.
10:55Luckily, the Armoury Crate UI boots up after login and also gets its own dedicated shortcut button.
11:00So most of the time you'll be in here or one of the other game libraries, and hopefully avoiding the Windows desktop.
11:05The good news though is that it is only getting better over time.
11:08There was quite a big update for the Armoury Crate which
11:11launched with the Ally X and also came to the original Ally, so it's good to see them supporting both devices.
11:16Sometimes you'll be using this and want to pull your hair out and be like,
11:18why has it done that? Has it crashed?
11:20And you have to sort of go down to the home start menu and long press on the icon and go back to it because it's
11:24running in the background but going to a black screen. So I'll have to, oh, let's do it now, go back to that.
11:31It is frustrating sometimes, but that's
11:33a Windows issue really. And Asus, like the other companies with the other handhelds, have done their best
11:38to make the UI on top and everything else they can possibly do to make this the most streamlined
11:43experience possible. And most of the time it works fine.
11:46We do have to talk about SD card gate though. The controversy around
11:51SD cards essentially not quite melting but being destroyed in the original Ally. It didn't happen to everyone
11:57but there were enough cases that it became a bit of a, well, issue. Now, I've spoken to
12:02Asus directly about this, their internal technical marketing team, and I've been told that a few units of the original
12:08Ally, there was an issue with the circuitry, not ideal. Now, this was rectified,
12:12I was told, a few months after launch, fairly quickly. And so this is no longer a current issue with Allies
12:17and so I'm pretty confident that it's not gonna be an issue with the Ally X either.
12:22The screen did get pretty hot though.
12:23I measured around 42 degrees Celsius after a few minutes using it in 25 watt turbo mode and it's hotter than I'd like.
12:30Although most of the time you're not really using the screen, so it's not the end of the world.
12:35So that is the ROG Ally X and for me, this is by far the most complete
12:40Windows gaming handheld you can buy. Mostly because of that bigger battery, but it is just a nice refinement all round. But it is also
12:47$800. It's quite a lot of money and fundamentally, yes, while it will last a little bit longer
12:51and it's a bit nicer to use, a bit cooler, a bit quieter, and easy to upgrade the storage,
12:55it's not fundamentally different from the original Ally. And I think for most people, still,
13:01the Steam Deck is probably the better option. Mostly just down to the software. It's also a bit cheaper.
13:05I do kind of like this less glossy OLED screen. Either way, if you do buy stuff on Ally X,
13:10you're going to have a great time and I will do a full comparison, a full roundup of all the options
13:14in my big buying guide video. So make sure you've hit that subscribe button.
13:17If you've got any questions about the Ally X, drop a comment below. Let me know what you make of this.
13:21Thank you very much for watching guys and I'll see you next time right here on The Tech Chap.
13:25And it's frozen.
13:26Can't do anything.
13:30Great.