Is The ALLY X The BEST Handheld?

Yes, we have the ASUS ROG ALLY X! Is it better than Valve's Steam Deck? Is it worth the £799 price tag?
Join AJ & Andy discuss all this and more!
🛒 Pre Order The Ally X Now: geni.us/2EQrWU
Our ASUS ROG ALLY X review:
• ASUS ROG ALLY X Change...
Our ASUS ROG ALLY X discussion:
• The ASUS ROG ALLY X Is...
#ASUSROGALLYX #ALLYX #ROGALLYX
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[@128KB]

Since filming... I've now Pre-ordered the ALLY X... Ooops!

[@128kbpodcast]

honestly andy... no one is surprised ;)

[@128KB]

@@128kbpodcast 🤣🤣🤣

[@ChrisFitTaylor]

Believe it or not, in 2022 I built a pretty nice Gaming PC with a 3080Ti and all. However, I still chose to sell it and I’m looking forward to gaming on the ROG Ally X. For me it’s all about portability. I plan on going the eGPU route although it will be a huge bottleneck with less performance which i will gladly trade that to be able to game anywhere

[@benthompson5170]

Had my steam deck oled for just over a week love it. The next few years for hand held gaming is going to be exciting. Keep the good work up. Great video 👍

[@BlueCollaredGrit]

Steam deck is a great machine 2 years ago. My Rog Ally replaced my consoles already and I’m staying PC only now. Asus listened to the feedback and are giving us what we all asked for in this new revision. Steam deck is very limited but wayyy better than a switch

[@ChrisFitTaylor]

🎯

[@philliposbakanas]

Great video, you gained another subscriber! I started with Nintendo Switch and felt the need for something more powerful. I have a Series X and PlayStation 5, but the way of playing with Switch enchanted me. I was definitely waiting for the most updated version of Rog Ally to arrive in Brazil! Thank you very much for the video!

[@128kbpodcast]

Awesome, thank you!

[@scottwood1533]

i think the last game i played was sonic on the mega drive but listening to you both in the back ground whilst doing some projects has given me a great insight into the cutting edge of gaming

[@128kbpodcast]

this comment gave me wood ;)

[@gillatte]

Thanks AJ and Andy!!! You guys put rationality and financial considerations into perspective for the normal gamer. Thanks for breaking it all down for me(us)!!! Keep up the great work!!!!

[@128kbpodcast]

So glad you enjoyed the episode and you're welcome!

[@Hunnan1012]

I’m so tempted to preorder it but wanna see what goes wrong (if anything) with the device before

[@thescousecleaner]

As someone in the discord, I can confirm that the discord is just filled to the brim with the greatest gamers I've ever met.

[@tyo101]

Here, here! 😊

[@128kbpodcast]

We have to agree!!!

[@thescousecleaner]

@@128kbpodcast Yeah, it's definitely in my top 3 cult list

[@128kbpodcast]

the 128KB cult... I could get onboard with this

[@thescousecleaner]

@@128kbpodcast All hail Emperor Andy and Empress AJ

[@TehSmithy]

I’m so interested in how big of a jump valve makes with the steam deck 2 especially with the handheld market getting bigger and better with more and more competition in it but Valve and Microsoft are definitely the ones to watch

[@128kbpodcast]

Can't wait to see what they do in a couple years with the SD2 too, and just handheld gaming in general!

[@nathanjuan6042]

Don't let your hopes on deck 2 since valve never get profit on their hardware device they get profit in their games so the more handheld enters the market the better for valve because other companies will do it for them without taking a loss in profit of making an affordable handheld at a loss.

[@TehSmithy]

@@nathanjuan6042 Yeah absolutely Microsoft and Steam can literally afford to keep making devices at a loss because everyone is baked into steam games and gamepass

[@Hayden120]

I'd love to see the default suspend/resume functionality tested in different games. I'm hearing that AC SE 1.5 has greatly improved its Extreme Standby Mode and Modern Standby Assistant features (which override some of the jank intrinsic to Windows). If it's now comparable to the Steam Deck in this regard, I'm tempted to grab one.

[@ConnorORya]

Hmm I dunno I have the steam deck oled and it wouldn't turn on twice already since I've had it. I had to hold the power button down for like 15 sec to start it up twice already. I also have the rog ally and I haven't had any problems so im getting the rog ally x and can't wait

[@ksred]

I've always found the whiplash from Steam Deck vs ROG Ally conversations crazy. I always hear SD owners saying they'd never use a Windows handheld for one reason or another, then suddenly they're singing its praises and announcing it as their new "main" handheld.

[@128kbpodcast]

hahaha, yeah that sounds like us to be fair!! Guilty as charged

[@CombatMonkey11B]

I don’t have a handheld, so I’m getting the Ally X, for its easy 2280 storage upgrades. You can pick up a 4TB pretty cheap. I can relate to games everywhere after decades. I have a ton of on Steam, Free epic games for years, Ubisoft, GOG, Gamepass sub… it just would be counterintuitive for me to get a Steam deck.

[@allanfrost9839]

You can grab a rog ally for 400 in good condition will you get very similar performance to the ally x for half the money ? I would probably upgrade the ssd to avoid using sd card

[@128kbpodcast]

yeah I think that is the samrt move. I'm eyeing the open box prices and mindful that they may drop a little more next month when the Ally X goes to retail. For me (like you) it's a great move.

[@PixelShade]

Oh yeah. A little nit-pick correction for the future. Steam Deck/Linux/Proton has full support for anti-cheat. It's not on Valve to fix it anymore but rather for certain developers to enable it in Linux. "Are We Anti-Cheat Yet?" showcase tons of anti-cheat software working flawlessly in Linux (sort after "status" and you will find tons of popular games working for Steam Deck). And to be fair, It's not even difficult to enable, it's basically just a "true" or "false" statement for the developers. I would argue that has more to do with with business decisions, bureaucracy and cost. Especially considering that certain AAA studios will just see it as an unnecessary cost in terms of support and added time spent on QA in the development cycle (new content, bug fixes, fixing cheat issues etc).

[@josealbuquerque4223]

Valve wins for me for their dedication and customer support. That is more valuable, the lessons that they are learning with the Steam Deck give us a lot of hope for a Steam Deck 2, slow and steady wins the race! Cheers guys

[@nathanjuan6042]

What lesson did steamdeck give them? As far as I know switch is the reason why companies are leaning towards handheld which now has 141M units sold and based on switch sales these companies saw the potential of handheld. The first known company to enter the handheld PC was alienware UFO which is just a concept before and Asus, and lenovo has a lot of similarity with Alienware UFO which also has windows OS if you don't know you can check it on youtube I think they are more inspired on UFO and not the deck. Costumer Support is subjective since companies have different CS in different countries what matters is the device. And don't let your hopes on deck 2 since valve never get profit on their hardware device they get profit in their games so the more handheld enters the market the better for valve because other companies will do it for them without taking a loss in profit of making an affordable handheld at a loss.

[@unknowncaller4739]

Ok

[@StopJerkingOff]

That’s just cope. People need to learn to take care of their products and they won’t need a companies customer support

[@Jakey44]

@@StopJerkingOffFor Asus is isn’t cope. They have an awful track record. I’d much rather go with something from Valve who has arguably the best track record and pro consumer attitude in the space over Asus who hates the consumer and will scam their customers

[@StopJerkingOff]

@@Jakey44 people just need to take care of their devices better. I’ve never had any problem with any of their devices. I don’t care if they have a good track record or not because I’m never going to have to rely on it. How many times have you had to replace your Steamdeck?

[@mrradikal69alex59]

I've a Steam Peck OLEPD. I hate Windows yet I keep fiding myself looking at the Lenovo Legion Go in particular plus the Ally X, Each of those can have Steam on it. So my question is, if you had the Legion Go or Ally X, why would you keep the Steam Deck OLED?

[@nathanjuan6042]

If you got the money you can keep both if not sell the deck or if your ok with deck stick with the deck. I have ally and I am really happy with it however if I have the money I would probably buy the ally X and Legion Go as well. Its nice having collection of handhelds if you have the money.

[@128kbpodcast]

This is absolutley the right answer. If you can afford it, do it, you won't be dissapointed. If it's too much of stretch, stick with the OLEDeck because it offers so much and IS still an awesome handheld.

[@MK_1Ultra]

Everyone chasing what Valve accomplished with Steam Deck 😂😂 so it's exciting to see these companies create handheld gaming to the next level. We are becoming portable!!

[@Bikertyke]

Dream combination. Steam deck oled 1tb and ROG ally X. I have the Deck. Might be time to fully move back to pc gaming. Could be goodbye PS5 and Portal

[@128kbpodcast]

100%! I'll be rocking the SD OLED and ALLY X as the dream team! Honestly my PS5 gathers dust now, other than the odd exclusive I'm interested in.

[@Bikertyke]

@@128kbpodcast That's the only reason to keep PS5. I've only used it for Ea24 since I bought a Deck. But that's available on PC so I'm tempted to just stay with my Gaming PC and fully move back to it.

[@nathanjuan6042]

If only sony makes another handheld that doesn't rely on their console and internet. They almost got it right on the vita OLED version just didn't deliver properly. The lack of games which is the reason I decided to sell in in 2015 because it is collecting dust wait for a good games to release. Now I am very happy that I can play a console like game in my Ally which is my dream for the vita before add the fact that I was playing it in 1080p. I'm always a handheld guy which is why I'm happy that handhelds are booming again at the same time you can play the same games you play in PS5, and XBOX which you would never imagine before thanks to the Nintendo switch.

[@Bikertyke]

@@nathanjuan6042 I have a Portal and I think it's Sony testing the water. Wouldn't it be great to play PS5 native on a portable handheld. Without streaming

[@PixelShade]

Yeah, I think we're at a point where the absolute latest and most demanding AAA games are starting to struggle on Steam Deck, looking more and more like "impossible ports" on the Switch (playable, but blurry with a lot of upscaling and slowdowns below 30fps etc.) Personally, I still want the Steam Deck to be a performance target since developers need to come to grips with handheld optimizations and graphics scalability. bruteforcing extra performance like the ROG Ally X does, doesn't help handheld gaming as a platform in the long run. If we look at the ROG Ally X they essentially needed to double the battery capacity as well as run the device above 15W to make it happen. The Steam Deck is perfectly optimized to be a template for handheld gaming, it's most efficient at around 5-10W, which is far more reasonable for handheld gaming.

[@128kbpodcast]

Well said and totally agree. Let's hope future devs really work on optimisation and who knows, by the time Steam Deck 2 comes out APU's may be much more optimised too.

[@buddhabob359]

Thanks for the podcast, entertaining and fascinating stuff as always. It is truly a great podcast that I like to listen to keep updated in an entertaining way. I'm sooo hyped for the Ally X, it will become my main driver for sure. I have an aged ROG laptop for almost a decade now, and it is aging very well ; ROG have always done fantastic products. I'm sure this Ally X fixes all the downfalls from V1. Even it is lacking the long awaited OLED screen, I can't wait 2 extra years to have a proper handled, so Ally X here I come :) And btw, people can of course see way more than 24 fps ; this 24 fps was decided a century ago by then film makers to be cost effective without destroying too much film smoothness back then, and then people started to think this was a biological human limit. But hell no, 60 fps all the way ^^

[@128kbpodcast]

thanks so much dude. And yeah SOOOO hyped for the Ally X, can't wait for my pre-order to arrive!!

[@zzzzzap]

I can almost get 3 Steam Decks with 64 gb for the price of the rog ally x. ;-D

[@128kbpodcast]

Very true. The price is the big sticking point.

[@silverstein8308]

How does it compare to ayaneo kun?

[@128kbpodcast]

We've not been hands on the Ayaneo Kun. It's to keep up with Ayaneo and the amount of devices they drop.

[@marcinlegacy9660]

But High Five Rush on max graphic no fsr gives You 80fps on Ally so... If You say YES to ex. 60fps on Starfiled when Ally get 30/40 then I will be impressed.

[@128kbpodcast]

I'll just say then, you will be impressed ;)

[@marcinlegacy9660]

@@128kbpodcast :)

[@mrradikal69alex59]

£800 and no carry hard case? 🤷🏻‍♂️😱😭

[@euden]

The issue really is price for me. I own a steam deck OLED but I want to play game pass native, however I do not willingly want to pay that much. the current ROG Ally is more reasonably priced and thanks to the second hand market it's getting cheaper (Saw one for £350) I'd be able to buy it, have money left over and buy loads of games for the price of a single X. Not sure it's worth it really.

[@128kbpodcast]

Andy pre-ordered one as soon as we started testing it. So it is awesome. For me, I'm in exactly the same boat as you. I love the SDOled, but want to play Game Pass Natively... but I'm not sure I can justify the rrp to do that. Knowing me though, I'll probably crumble and do it!

[@quintingreyling2571]

You guys are now going to bloody force me to get a handheld 😂. My last handheld was the PS Vita (I owned 2, one for me and another for my son), and both had dead pixels and a mediocre game catalogue, which completely put me off handhelds. Now I'm reconsidering my stance...

[@128kbpodcast]

Don’t worry. Andy did the same to me too 🤣 we all blame Andy that we’re broke 🤣

[@128KB]

@@128kbpodcast 🤣 I'm not going to tell you I've now pre-ordered the ASUS ROG ALLY X.. :P

[@nathanjuan6042]

If only sony makes another handheld that doesn't rely on their console and internet. They almost got it right on the vita OLED version just didn't deliver properly. The lack of games which is the reason I decided to sell in in 2015 because it is collecting dust wait for a good games to release. Now I am very happy that I can play a console like game in my Ally which is my dream for the vita before add the fact that I was playing it in 1080p. I'm always a handheld guy which is why I'm happy that handhelds are booming again at the same time you can play the same games you play in PS5, and XBOX which you would never imagine before thanks to the Nintendo switch.

[@tyo101]

In my opinion, the Ally X is the best handheld unit for playing 'Triple-A' games on the go, while the OLEDeck is the best 'all-rounder' handheld console.

[@128kbpodcast]

100% agree with this

[@hk6926]

Why not legion go for triple As? , it has a bigger and more immersive screen and Lenovo has a better tack record than Asus .

[@tyo101]

@@hk6926 Mainly because the Ally X has more RAM and a better battery 🙂

[@nathanjuan6042]

@@hk6926 I don't think Legion Go is better on the go since it is bigger and heavier. Ally X with that 80wats Battery and has higher ram 24gb compare to 16 gb. VRR freesync and AMD Fluid Motion is also one factor. Don't get me wrong I like legion Go as well its just that ally has more to offer on the go also since this is ally's refresh ofcourse it is much better. Let's wait for Legion go's refresh maybe that time legion go will be a lot closer to the Ally X.

[@StopJerkingOff]

But 90% of games are triple a titles so how does that not make the ally the best all rounder ?

[@hk6926]

This isn't sponsored guys , they are a small KZbin channel who are literally begging Asus to sponsor them and send all future devices lol .😂😂😂

[@128kbpodcast]

hahaha yeah you're right and wrong. No begging, we just make videos about things we love. We were lucky to get hold of the ally x pre-release and loved it, so we just sharing that enthusiasm. Us bringing up the sponsorship thing is due to how many cynical comments we got on the review content. And I get it, there's stigma from Asus and so much content out there is obviously bought and paid for. But I can assure you, there's no sponsorship here, just us sharing our honest excitement from our experiences with the device.

[@hk6926]

@@128kbpodcast I know and you guys are doing a great job , love your channel though . Keep up the good work .

[@donebk]

$800 is a lot but it might be worth it