Representative appearances

• ROG Xbox Ally X - a PC Gamer’s Perspective

  VIDEO: "ROG Xbox Ally X - a PC Gamer’s Perspective"; I mean, Microsoft calls it an Xbox, but it's plastered with ROG branding. You can't play the vast majority of your old Xbox game library. And even the special sauce, the Xbox full screen experience that runs over top of Windows feels like it could have just as easily been an app that runs over top of Windows. But then, hey, I'm a PC gamer. So, this kind of collaboration between the Xbox team who takes gaming very seriously and the Windows team who takes, I don't know, telemetry very seriously, it's basically what I've been asking Microsoft to do for years. And many of you watching probably feel the same way. I mean, imagine it. The perfect fusion of the game library and versatility of Windows gaming with the optimization and the seamless, more affordable console experience of Xbox gaming in one perfect device. Now, keep imagining that because unfortunately, the ROG Xbox Ally isn't it. That doesn't mean it's bad. It just isn't what we were promised. What is bad though is Dbrand's treatment of me over the years. What is it this time? Oh, a relatively simple assignment. I just put one of their kill switch cases onto a handheld. Yay. No broken glass. No saw traps. Oh, good job, Dbrand. That is a very open ventilation hole thing. No, seriously. I mean, you don't want your case to affect your cooling. Wow. They uh they really had to think about how to get this thing into a kill switch. That slit's pretty smart. They may be ass, but they're smart ass, you know. I'm sure there are instructions, and I'm Oh, wow. Yeah, this really doesn't seem right. This little piece is full. Oh wow. Okay, there we go. Hey, not bad. Nice little grip on there. Ribbed for your gaming pleasure. Includes a kickstand, which how is it that this thing was so bulky and didn't manage to include a kickst Nintendo managed to include a kickstand with the Switch. Now we got a kickstand. Got a travel cover so you can keep your joysticks and your screen safe when you're on the go. Although for your screen, you should probably just have a prism screen protector anyway. And maybe the coolest thing is Dbrand is finally growing up. Instead of taking an adversarial relationship with the makers of the devices that they profit off of with their accessories, they're actually certified designed for Xbox. Wow. Good job, Dbrand. And there's a hidden SD card holder. Where's that? Is that it? Oh, yeah. And you can save $10 if you bundle it with a screen protector. No code required. Check it out at shortlinus.com or at Best Buy in the US. [Music] I'll get into all the benchmarks in a sec, but first there's something more important than the hardware I'm holding today, and that's the software. In a lot of ways, Windows handheld mode, it's not a whole lot different from the typical Windows experience. You get Windows app compatibility, Windows game compatibility, multitasking, co-pilot. So, good or bad, if it's in Windows, you got it. So, then what exactly did they cut out? I don't know. But they weren't kidding when they said that it is way more efficient. Now, 2 gigs of memory savings might not sound like that big of a deal, but when our system memory is also acting as our VRAM, it is a very respectable amount to claw back. And it's especially important if you're on an older Windows handheld or if you're on the nonX version that only has 16 gigs of memory. Not to mention the numerous other hardware downgrades that we will get to later. Hey, we got quick resume. Well, almost console-like. Also, classic Windows. Don't be too surprised if your device randomly wakes up for a little bit before going back to sleep. Not enough to drain your battery too much over the course of a day, but if you leave it for a week, it might be dead by the time you come back. kind of like a hamster. These complaints though aren't meant to take away from the incredible work that the Xbox team has done here. And the coolest part is that these optimizations are for everyone. If you want to try the Xbox full screen experience, you can do it right now. No purchase necessary. And I would recommend at least taking it for a test drive. It's pretty slick. And if you've used the Xbox app before, it should feel pretty familiar right out of the gate, except for the extra benefit of having all your games in one location now, regardless of where they were purchased. Kind of feels like a way better version of what Microsoft tried to do with that cool games folder on Windows Vista. It's not perfect. I mean, just cuz you aren't using the Steam interface doesn't mean that it doesn't need to run. So, waiting around for Steam to launch and then dismissing all the annoying little pop-ups the first time you fire up a Steam game, that's a distinctly Windows experience here. But the only other real issue we encountered with the full screen experience was occasionally the UI would get randomly stuck and then all of our inputs would action at once. It does seem to happen less once the device has been running for a while and we expect this to improve over time, but it is something we saw, so it's something we have to mention. Other than that, it is shockingly polished and complete feeling for launch software, social features, store, cloud gaming, game pass. Uh, I mean, thanks to Armory Crates overlay, you've even got things like built-in performance monitoring. The only major thing missing is Xbox games. Modern ones, no problem. Cross-platform play anywhere licenses have been common for years now. But if you have a big digital library of older Xbox games, I'm sorry to say that a bunch of them will not run on this device. And there were plenty of comments on Xbox's reveal video asking, "Okay, well, how is this an Xbox then?" And the truthful answer is, "I don't know." But, I mean, given that all it is is just a mode for Windows 11 that happens to be launching on these new devices that have Xbox branding on them, maybe that shouldn't be a surprise. except that Microsoft kept shouting Xbox every time the subject of the ROG Ally 2 came up. So, this is a completely self-inflicted wound. On the subject of the Alli 2, sorry, excuse me, I mean the ROG Xbox Alli X. Let's talk about the hardware. This is a generational leap both in terms of the internals and in terms of the design with the most obvious change being the ergonomics. Let's start with the most controversial change, the angled screen. I was pretty skeptical about this one, but after using it for a week, I got to give them credit. In a lot of cases, it's pretty great. If you ride the bus or you're a distracted pedestrian who holds your device up in front of you like this, it is more golden than the K-pop demon hunters. But if you lie on the floor or on the couch or you sit with bad posture, you might find yourself wishing that they'd left it flat or maybe even angled it the other way. And we've got a couple of other little gripes, too. What was this? They went and flipped the menu buttons. That's not awful on its own. New users probably won't notice, and returning allies should get used to that sort of thing pretty quickly. But guys, the lower one on the right used to be a dedicated button for Armory Crate. So, I never even noticed how much the placement sucks. Now that it's a button that I need to use regularly, why is this thumb stick in the way of reaching it? On the subject of thumbs and buttons, I'm not too crazy about the face buttons. They do have a nice long kind of desktop grade travel distance. I just wish they were a little bit less wobbly. To ASUS's credit though, in just about any position, the Erggo grips make this as comfortable, maybe even more comfortable than any handheld we've tested before. And that is in spite of the fact that it is heavier than most of them. Another huge improvement is the thumb sticks. Seriously, like I handed this to my son and the first thing he said was, "Wow, these are way better." And they also managed to squeeze impulse triggers into the X and Hall effect triggers into the nonX. The thumb sticks, by the way, are not Hall effect, but we did hear a rumor that a certain someone might be making some nice TMR sticks for these bad boys. Oh, speaking of which, time for a quick tear down, don't you think? Since we've got both units here, let's talk about the specs because both the price and the hardware are very different between these two. Both have easily accessed screws, making it dead simple to get apart with my uh precision screwdriver, ltstore.com, and also maybe some help from my prying tool. Both have easily access screws. And if you just get a little pry tool in here, you should be able to remove the backing. Just like that. Just watch out for this ribbon cable. You don't want to rip that. Now that we've movie magicked them both open, you can see both feature a fulllength 80mm M.2 NVME slot. And oh, that's really nice. Ample clearance on the underside for a doublesided M.2 module. Hold on. At least that's definitely true of the X for the nonX. I'm not sure. I might have to take this up. Today, nobody is putting, you know, an 8 TBTE freaking double-sided SSD in this one because if you're spending that kind of money on your SSD, you should probably just be getting the X. But in the future, if you wanted to put a double-sided SSD in there, I think you could probably get away with it. I would just be very curious to see the logic for why this one needed this grounding strip attached to what appears to be a pretty rudimentary heat spreader and this one didn't cuz it has a heat spreading sticker. I always enjoy playing spot the differences between cousin devices. Here's the power for the impulse triggers and here's the pad where we don't need it over here. Also, the front chassis is apparently the same other than the color. There's a lot of shared components here. You can see the joystick modules back here are exactly the same as well as some of these little daughter boards. But the biggest difference between the two is look at the size of the SoC on the X. This thing is loaded for bear with AMD's new flagship handheld CPU, the Ryzen Z2 Extreme. This thing is nuts, you guys. 8 core 16thread CPU, 16 cores of RDNA 3.5 graphics. Okay, yes, you'll be paying a lot for it. The starting price is $999, so $1,000 for the X. It's paired up with 24 gigs of LPDDR5 memory, a 1 TB SSD to start with, a second USBC port that is Thunderbolt 4 compliant, enabling the use of external GPU enclosures, Thunderbolt docks, and high resolution external displays. And the performance difference is very noticeable, even doing mundane things like installing games. 1 and a half GB download speeds. Yes, please. As for the NonX, I don't know what to call this thing other than a massive disappointment. Guys, do not let AMD's naming scheme fool you here. The Z2A has nothing Z2 about it. This chip is essentially a mini update of the same Aith processor that first launched inside the Steam Deck 3 and 1/2 years ago. I mean, sure, they juiced it with another 5 watts of power, but guys, this is Zen 2 and RDNA2. Neither of which would be a huge problem if it was priced right, but as it stands, you can get a Steam Deck or even a Steam Deck OLED for less than these things. And then, if you love Windows handheld mode so much, you can just install that on it, making this Xbox a pretty tough cell, unless there are some surprises when it comes to performance. foreshadowing. Boom. Let's go. Now, to be clear, it does have advantages over the Steam Deck. The 1080p 120 Hz IPS type screen is the same one that is featured on the X variant. Although, it's worth noting it's also the same one that was featured on the original ROG Ally 2 and 1/2 years ago. It's solid, but I wouldn't have minded seeing an upgrade. With that said, the NonX is going to struggle to drive that resolution anyway, especially in more demanding games. Bringing us perfectly to performance, where surprisingly, the extra 5 watts gives the Xbox Ally a roughly 22% advantage over the Steam Deck in Cyberpunk at 720p. Huh, maybe this thing deserves to exist after all. And even at 15 watts, it still manages a 10% uplift in average FPS, likely thanks to its faster memory. Don't get too excited, though. While that percentage sounds pretty big, we're still only talking about 3 to 6 FPS more. So, it's unlikely that it's going to be the difference between h completely unplayable and smooth in demanding titles. What is though is upgrading to the Xbox Ally X. Would you look at that? Once again though, the advantage over the last generation Ally X is less than we'd like, especially since it's sucking back more juice to get that extra performance. As for the rest of our games, the general trend continues. Though, it is notable that in Grid Legends, MSI's Claw 8 AI Plus manages to marginally beat the Xbox LAX. And the same goes for Shadow of the Tomb Raider, where it tops and averages but loses in the allimportant minimum FPS. But come on, most of the devices we're looking at can do 1080p, not 720p. So why are we limiting ourselves? Well, for the same reason that Valve wisely opted for a 1280x 800 pixel panel on the Steam Deck. See, only the Xbox Alli X and the MSI Claw managed to maintain consolelike performance, reaching a consistent 30fps gaming experience in Cyberpunk. And for the claw, the story is not all positive. It was the reason that we couldn't include Red Dead Redemption in our results due to the anomalies that made it impossible for us to compare it to our other devices. Keep trying, Intel. I do really mean that, though. Then, in the rest of the games, the story remains much the same. Now that the Xbox Lax can really flex its more powerful GPU, it crushes the old ROG Liix when both of them are running in their maximum power profile. But there's an interesting subplot here that emerges when we turn down the power profiles. We found that running the new Liix in the lower 17watt power profile yielded about the same performance in Cyberpunk as the old X at full power. And that's no one-off. We got similar results in Shadow of the Tomb Raider as well. That means that while both the ROG Alli X and the ROG Xbox Alli X might have the same 80watth capacity battery, you can expect a lot more realworld play time out of the ROG Xbox if you typically game at 1080p without compromising on performance. By the way, can I take a moment to offer some constructive criticism on the naming of these new consoles? Microsoft, you couldn't name aim your way out of a wet paper bag, but we already knew that. So, Asus, it's you that I'm truly disappointed in. This is the Ally X2, and it really would have made everyone's lives better if you had just called it that. Anyh who, bad names aside, the icing on the cake here is that for the sake of compatibility with our benchmarks automation tools, we actually ran all of our tests in Windows desktop mode, not in the Xbox full screen experience. So, when you bring one of these home, I would bet money that they run even faster than the results we've shown today. How much faster? That seems like the sort of thing that the fox would investigate. So, I'm just going to optimistically link to his channel in the video description. He does great videos on handhelds. Coming back to battery life, the MSI claw managed to exceed 6 hours in our light gaming workload at 720p. That's enough for the lead, but both of the Alli X's are nipping on its heels at 5 hours and change. A surprise here for me was the Xbox Ally NonX, which managed almost 6 hours. Though, it is worth noting that you cannot manually adjust SPL or sustained power limits on this thing. So, it's actually running at 6 watts rather than 8 watts. So, that's a little unfair. Let's crank things up now where there are two main takeaways. First, it's clear that the Xbox Liix and the older ROG Alli X are going to deliver similar battery life in similar power profiles. It's just a question of how much power you need and whether the ergonomics of the new package are enticing for you. The second thing that's clear is that the Steam Deck's smaller battery is holding it back in a big way compared to the Xbox Ally. The Steam Deck OLED does have a larger battery, but it wouldn't be enough to close this gap. Also, since we're on the subject, while we will be forever grateful to Valve for their work bringing handheld PCs and especially Linux gaming to the masses, the Deck also charges pretty slowly compared to the new hotness. Our LCD Steam Deck takes 3 hours to charge from zero to full, while our white Xbox charges in just over 90 minutes. At this point, I kind of feel like they should have just called this thing the Steam Deck Extreme. Actually, I'm kidding. We already made the Steam Deck Extreme. Nobody else needs to make one. And they probably won't need to make an Extreme version of the Xbox Ally either. The NonX hit a maximum of 65° with an average of just 54. And even though the X draws an extra 15 watts of power, and it did peak briefly at 90° in our testing, it hit an average of just 69°, which is pretty nice to see in a handheld like this. Bottom line then, is it finally time for me to replace my OG Ally that I actually upgraded the battery in rather than pay for the Alli X? And I got to say, when I saw the 720p results, I was underwhelmed. Yeah, the ergonomics, yeah, the convenient Xbox button, but like whatever. But I game at 1080p like most people, and the difference in battery life while still providing a great 1080p mobile gaming experience has literally changed the way that I've used my handheld over the last week. I put probably 25 hours into the Elise Chronicles and almost all of that was away from the wall, not stressing about finding a charger and I'd have the ability to play heavier games that way as well. So, yeah, it's not an Xbox, but as a PC gamer who already loves my handheld PC and already accepts the crappy nonsubsidized PC pricing model, this is a clear step up from what we had before. It's not as big of a step up as we would have liked, and like basically everyone else, I was really hoping for a more Xboxike price to accompany the Xbox name. But with that said, based on the recent trajectory of Xbox pricing, maybe that would have been a monkey paw outcome. Anyway, it is worth noting that we didn't really investigate the Xbox LAX as a streaming device. Given the importance of Xbox Cloud Gaming to Microsoft, that probably seems like a huge omission. But I got to be honest with you guys, I didn't really feel like there was much to say. Like, yeah, it works fine. Of course it does. But if I wanted cloud gaming, there are cheaper, lighter devices that are better optimized for that, like the Logitech G-Cloud. If I want to game on local hardware though and I don't want to spend $2,000 or fight with Arc things, this is the play. The NonX, that's another story entirely. If this thing was price competitive with the LCD Steam Deck instead of being above the OLED, it'd be a no-brainer for anyone who's not married to the Dex trackpads, but it isn't. And regardless of why they're pricing it so high, it's a pretty tough pill to swallow at $600. I mean, they didn't even manage to sweeten the deal by including a 1 TBTE SSD. If only they'd had the foresight. Now, I just wish I had the foresight to write a better Segway to our sponsor. Or maybe I could have had the foresight to know I don't need one cuz this video is sponsored by Dbrand featuring their kill switch. I love doing Segways though. It's more like a killjoy. Check it out at shortlininus.com. If you guys enjoyed this video, maybe check out our unveiling of the Xbox Ally series. Or how about our original coverage of the Steam Deck? really has changed the handheld PC

• Nintendo Switch 2 Review - a PC Gamer’s Perspective

  Mentioned at the end as another handheld gaming device.