What is the ultimate gaming handheld in 2024? Tony and Paul are back at it arguing which they think is worth your money. Tony is still rocking the Steam Deck OLED while Paul has taken up the new Ally X. Which one wins?!
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TechTranscript
00:00B&S is like, that's it, I'm done, I won, OLED baby.
00:03We're back at it again with another handheld tech takedown.
00:06I've got the ASUS ROG Ally X.
00:09And I've got the Steam Deck OLED.
00:11All right, Tony, you're up first.
00:12Why do you think the Steam Deck OLED
00:14is still relevant in 2024?
00:16Well, the Steam Deck OLED is still relevant
00:18because of the OLED part.
00:20This screen is absolutely gorgeous.
00:22You wouldn't think it would make
00:23that much of a big difference,
00:25but it actually does.
00:26Colors just pop.
00:28The contrast between the darker and light elements
00:31just makes everything look fantastic.
00:34It just really immerses you.
00:36It's one of those things where you wouldn't think
00:38it would help that much, but it really does.
00:40And it kind of offsets the fact that,
00:43of an advantage that the Ally has,
00:45which is a 1080p screen.
00:47Yeah, that's great and all, but there's no OLED,
00:49so it just makes things so much richer.
00:52So right there alone,
00:54that could be just the biggest selling point
00:56where most people say, got an OLED,
00:58I'm buying this, end of story.
01:00And right now, aside from the Nintendo Switch
01:02is the only handheld right now that has an OLED.
01:05So right there, that gives it a huge edge.
01:08All right, 30 seconds on the clock.
01:09Here's why that doesn't really matter.
01:12Sometimes you do want to play games at 1080p.
01:13You know, I'm playing Red Dead Redemption 2.
01:15I want this to feel like a triple A console on the go.
01:20And sometimes I do want that extra screen fidelity.
01:22You can't get that there,
01:23even if you did have the performance,
01:25but you don't.
01:26I think the Ally X, especially now with its upgrades,
01:29is closer than ever to giving you
01:31true console experience on the go.
01:34I mean, undeniably, your screen is much better.
01:36I mean, it's an OLED.
01:38This does not hold a torch to it
01:39just like with the previous Ally.
01:41That's one of the few things that wasn't upgraded on this.
01:44What was upgraded,
01:45and it makes actually a lot of difference,
01:48is the performance.
01:49And even though this does have the same processor here,
01:51I think it gives a lot of quality of life improvements,
01:55both with its RAM, its heat dissipation,
01:57and even the ergonomics here,
01:58which we'll get to in a little bit.
02:00But in terms of performance,
02:01games that previously would, you know, chug along
02:05are running a lot smoother now
02:06because it has more of that headroom of performance.
02:09You know, we've gone from 16 gigabytes of RAM
02:11over to 24 gigabytes of RAM.
02:13Games that previously wouldn't even launch,
02:15like, what was it, Alan Wake 2,
02:17you'd have to go into the system settings
02:19and change it to from auto RAM
02:21to allocating all 16 gigabytes to the GPU.
02:25Now you don't have that problem.
02:27So games are gonna run smoother.
02:29You're gonna have now about, like,
02:30three to four frames per second more than you did before.
02:33And that's on top of the performance gains
02:35that it already had compared to the Steam Deck OLED.
02:39All right, so I'm not gonna deny
02:40that it has better performance,
02:42but as you said, and this is something I noticed myself,
02:45you get about five extra frames
02:47around the board, 720p and 1080p.
02:49Is that really worth the extra cost?
02:51Like, for some people, yes,
02:53if you're a competitive gamer, sure,
02:54but I think for most people,
02:55they're not even gonna notice that.
02:56Unless they have the little frame counter on the side,
02:58they're not gonna notice that big deal.
03:00Yes, I like more frames myself,
03:02but I don't think it's gonna matter to most people.
03:06Three to four frames per second maybe isn't as noticeable,
03:10but what is noticeable is smoothness.
03:12All right, so which one do you think is winning so far?
03:14Let us know in the comments below.
03:16And if you wanna learn more about Tony's thoughts
03:17on the new Ally X, check out his Buyer Skip live on YouTube.
03:21All right, Tony, you already know
03:23what my final point on this is going to be.
03:25This isn't just a gaming handheld.
03:27It's also a desktop replacement,
03:29and in fact, that's what I mostly use this for.
03:31I have this docked on my nice 49-inch ultra-wide monitor,
03:35and when I'm not playing games, I can do work on this.
03:37I can run Slack, I can run Word documents on it.
03:40When I'm not gaming, this is also a productivity machine
03:43that I can take anywhere with me,
03:45and I think the fact that you have SteamOS,
03:46which, yes, does have its pros, is limiting.
03:50The fact that this runs full Windows,
03:52which, yes, can suck at times,
03:54and I know you're gonna bring that up,
03:56that also unlocks a lot of potential with this
03:59because I can connect external SSDs,
04:02I can run programs on this,
04:03I can do a lot of things
04:04that this isn't really designed to do
04:06unless you do some workarounds for it.
04:09So as an all-in-one PC,
04:10which does cost a little bit more,
04:12it's a desktop laptop gaming console replacement.
04:15It's all three in one.
04:18Okay, those are all great points,
04:19but you're talking about a PC.
04:23That's great, but I buy these things
04:25because I wanna gaming handheld.
04:28I don't care about all that extra stuff.
04:30It's nice, but I just wanna pick up my machine and play,
04:33and as you said, Windows 11 isn't great for handheld,
04:36so I don't even wanna go through all that stuff.
04:39Like, why am I being asked if I want Office 365?
04:42I wanna know what games I can play.
04:44I don't care about any of that other stuff.
04:46It's cool, but I just wanna play my games.
04:49All right, and my last point,
04:51and this ties back to what you talked about,
04:54this runs on Steam OS,
04:57which is perfectly built for this form factor.
05:00When I start this up, it takes me right into my games,
05:04my launcher, and all that.
05:05You can do that with Arbitrary.
05:06Yeah, you can do that, but after you've installed Windows,
05:09which you have to go through that whole process.
05:11You sign up, you log into your Outlook,
05:13all that nonsense, I'm not trying to do that.
05:15I just wanna play my games.
05:16The biggest strength this has,
05:17and not only because of how easy it is to use,
05:19because games are actually better optimized for Steam OS
05:22and for this specific chip,
05:25and there's even a website that tells you
05:26which games are compatible, which aren't,
05:29and even sometimes games that aren't compatible
05:31still are compatible, so I think for most people,
05:34Steam OS is just the way to go.
05:36It's just so seamless.
05:37I never have to use the touchscreen at all,
05:39whereas you have to use the touchscreen all the time
05:41on the other systems.
05:44I'm not even just talking about the ASUS ROG Ally.
05:45Every single Windows 11 has that issue.
05:48This doesn't.
05:49It's just play your games seamlessly.
05:51Steam OS is the greatest advantage this machine has
05:54over all other handhelds.
05:56Rebut.
05:57Honestly, I think Armory Crate has come a long way,
05:59and once you're in it,
06:00and you can also set it to auto-launch
06:02once you log into Windows,
06:04so you don't have to worry about that.
06:05Yeah, you have to do the initial setup of compares, dude.
06:07I have all my games here.
06:08I have all my quick settings.
06:09I can monitor all my PC stats
06:11if I wanna get nerdy about that,
06:13but I think I basically have the same user experience
06:17once the game is installed here,
06:19and I have a lot more options.
06:21I don't have to go through Steam to get my games.
06:23I can go through GOG.
06:26I can go through Epic.
06:27I can do Xbox Cloud Gaming.
06:29Do you have all those apps on yours?
06:30I can get those, but you're right.
06:32It is a little bit more work.
06:34This feels a lot like when we took this on
06:37about a few months ago,
06:38and I think when we were doing that original video,
06:41we were all hypothesizing about this
06:43because rumors were coming out.
06:44We were like, what's gonna be new about this?
06:46And I think we were kind of in the right ballpark.
06:48We said, it's probably not gonna be
06:49a big performance upgrade,
06:51and I personally didn't even need a big performance upgrade.
06:53I just wanted them to fix
06:54a lot of the quality of life things.
06:56An additional USB-C at the top,
06:58also Thunderbolt, faster charging, a bigger battery.
07:01I think those are things I didn't even get to in the video,
07:03but they do make this feel like
07:04a more complete Windows gaming handheld,
07:07and the key word there is Windows.
07:09Yeah, I was about to say that, yeah.
07:11I want people to understand that
07:13I'm not just shilling for Steam Deck.
07:16I want something better, right?
07:17That has better specs than this,
07:20but at the end of the day,
07:21SteamOS really makes a big difference.
07:22Everything's just so seamless,
07:24so if I could have SteamOS in that form factor,
07:28that'd be fantastic, or, hey, Microsoft,
07:31if you're listening, Windows 11 for handhelds.
07:34Why don't we have that?
07:34What are we waiting for?
07:35Yeah, come on, that would really give Steam Deck
07:39and Valve a run for its money,
07:41but again, I think the fantastic upgrade,
07:43I think it addresses all the problems people originally had,
07:45but at the end of the day,
07:46I would still recommend a Steam Deck OLED,
07:48not only because of how seamless everything is,
07:50but it's also not as expensive.
07:52It comes down to value and convenience,
07:55and knowing that your games are just gonna launch well,
07:59versus, okay, I want the additional performance,
08:01I want the ability to use this, again,
08:03as a desktop replacement.
08:04I'm spending more money on it,
08:05but I'm getting a little bit more here
08:07if that's something that you want.
08:09That's great and all, but what do you guys think?
08:11Which handheld do you think came out on top,
08:13the Steam Deck OLED or the new ASUS ROG Ally X?
08:17You know what we think,
08:17but we wanna know what you think in the comments down below.
08:20If you wanna learn more,
08:21be sure to check out Tony's full video
08:22for the ASUS ROG Ally X.
08:24You can follow me to see more of the behind the scenes
08:26of what cool tech I'm working on.
08:28And you can read my articles over at TomSkai.com.
08:30Until the next one, we'll catch you guys later.
08:36New York, baby, New York, baby.