WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:06.400 The ROG-LIZ-1 has been criticized for being underpowered, overpriced, and do you really 00:00:06.400 --> 00:00:13.760 need a third thing? That's kind of enough reason to not like it. But I disagree. Well, 00:00:13.760 --> 00:00:17.600 I don't disagree that it's overpriced. And I don't disagree that it's underpowered. 00:00:17.600 --> 00:00:22.080 But I think there could be a justification for its existence. Let's start by taking a look at 00:00:22.080 --> 00:00:28.400 what comes included though. Power adapter, fixed cable, because why would you ever want to replace 00:00:28.480 --> 00:00:32.880 it with a longer or shorter one? If this cable is good enough for you, it's good enough for you. 00:00:32.880 --> 00:00:36.880 We're developing a bit of a tone in this video, okay? Warranty information form, 00:00:36.880 --> 00:00:41.680 that'll come in handy. Who would fill this out? Moving on to the device then, there's a lot to 00:00:41.680 --> 00:00:46.480 like here. We've got a power button with a fingerprint sensor, volume rocker, XG mobile 00:00:46.480 --> 00:00:51.520 interface allowing you to hook up an external graphics card to the ally, microSD slot, talk 00:00:51.520 --> 00:00:57.520 about that later, headset jack, vents for the shockingly quiet cooling system, then flipping 00:00:57.520 --> 00:01:03.120 around to the face, we have again, surprisingly good stereo speakers, an Xbox alike layout with 00:01:03.120 --> 00:01:10.080 full sized joysticks, a serviceable d-pad and ABXY buttons, then the whatever this button, ROG 00:01:10.080 --> 00:01:13.840 button, I don't know, whatever, it brings up their command center allowing you to adjust 00:01:13.840 --> 00:01:18.640 quick settings like the power profile the device is running in, the operating mode of the joysticks, 00:01:18.640 --> 00:01:24.240 radio and super resolution toggle, even toggles for the display resolution and refresh rate. 00:01:24.240 --> 00:01:31.120 You see, natively, it runs at 1920 by 1080 at up to 120 hertz, but these toggles can be useful so 00:01:31.120 --> 00:01:37.280 that games don't get confused and try to run at anything higher than 720, 60 hertz. And the reason 00:01:37.280 --> 00:01:41.600 I say that games would have to be confused to do that is because this, for those of you who have 00:01:41.600 --> 00:01:49.440 not been paying close attention, is the ROG Ally Z1, not the ROG Ally Z1 Extreme, which means it 00:01:49.440 --> 00:01:54.080 has everything that's good about the ally that I reviewed about six months ago and have been 00:01:54.080 --> 00:02:00.800 using very actively ever since, except the high-powered processor. We get cut from eight CPU 00:02:00.800 --> 00:02:09.120 cores down to six, and the onboard graphics processor goes from 12 CUs down to just four. 00:02:09.120 --> 00:02:12.320 By the way, I realized I didn't finish going through the buttons, more Xbox buttons and then 00:02:12.320 --> 00:02:16.080 this will return to the desktop. I believe this one's programmable though, so your mileage may 00:02:16.080 --> 00:02:23.600 vary on that one. Now, I thought that maybe other reviewers overlooked a potential outstanding 00:02:23.600 --> 00:02:28.480 use case for this version of the ally because one of the things that I don't like about my Z1 00:02:28.480 --> 00:02:33.280 Extreme Ally is the extremely short battery life. Most of the gaming that I've done on that device 00:02:33.280 --> 00:02:39.120 has been playing Sea of Stars and playing Chained Echoes. Both of which are pretty light games, 00:02:39.120 --> 00:02:43.600 and not being able to get more than a few hours away from the wall has been kind of a downer. 00:02:43.600 --> 00:02:49.040 So I thought, okay, why don't we give this thing to the Labs and see if there's a way for us to push 00:02:49.040 --> 00:02:55.760 way better battery life out of this, thanks to its same-sized battery unit, but much less 00:02:55.760 --> 00:03:01.920 powerful hardware. And unfortunately, I ended up sorely disappointed. Let's look at these 00:03:01.920 --> 00:03:08.160 performance numbers. As expected, at 15 or 30 watts, it lags behind significantly, 00:03:08.160 --> 00:03:15.600 though I was surprised to find that at 10 watts, the Z1 actually not that far behind, 00:03:15.600 --> 00:03:21.840 which seems to suggest that the Z1 Extreme, for all its extra CUs, has to throttle clock 00:03:21.840 --> 00:03:28.240 speed down even further in order to achieve the same kind of power envelope, looking good so far. 00:03:28.240 --> 00:03:34.000 Where things fall apart is when we do our battery life endurance test playing back YouTube videos, 00:03:34.000 --> 00:03:39.280 and you can see that even with all that extra horsepower on board with the Z1 Extreme, 00:03:39.280 --> 00:03:45.280 it ends up lasting for the same amount of time. Now, that's not the case in our CPU or GPU stress 00:03:45.280 --> 00:03:52.000 tests, where we managed over 20 additional minutes of battery life on the Z1 versus the Z1 Extreme, 00:03:52.000 --> 00:03:58.560 which seems to suggest that my idea of this being a way more power efficient handheld for 00:03:58.560 --> 00:04:05.040 people who just want to play light games on the go is not entirely wrong, but where it falls apart 00:04:05.040 --> 00:04:11.440 is in the raw numbers, guys. 20 to 25 more minutes away from the wall when fully loaded, 00:04:11.440 --> 00:04:17.120 that being an absolute best case scenario, this thing would need to offer me double the 00:04:17.120 --> 00:04:22.800 battery life to justify the fact that it performs so much worse when it's running in high power mode 00:04:22.800 --> 00:04:29.760 and only costs $100 less than the full fat Z1 Extreme. And that ignores the fact that by the 00:04:29.760 --> 00:04:35.280 time ASUS actually managed to get this thing out into the wild, it turned out that Valve had a 00:04:35.280 --> 00:04:41.120 refreshed steam deck waiting in the wings that was going to make it look absolutely pointless. 00:04:41.200 --> 00:04:46.400 I mean, at least the screen is good. It manages to hit the claimed 500 nits peak brightness. 00:04:46.400 --> 00:04:51.280 It's quite accurate, especially compared to the original steam deck, and especially or being 00:04:51.280 --> 00:04:56.000 able to run at high refresh rate means that in games that support it, you can get a much smoother 00:04:56.000 --> 00:05:02.720 gaming experience. It's just that the new steam deck, the OLED one, makes all of those numbers 00:05:02.720 --> 00:05:07.840 look kind of like child's play, except the refresh rate. It's only 90 versus 120, but 90 00:05:07.840 --> 00:05:12.880 hertz on an OLED. Yeah, I would take that over 120. We'll have a full video on the new steam 00:05:12.880 --> 00:05:18.320 deck OLED over on the LTT channel. Valve also isn't dealing with a micro SD card controversy. 00:05:18.320 --> 00:05:24.720 Cards have been dying in the original ROG Ally, and again, we were hoping that the Z1 version 00:05:24.720 --> 00:05:30.320 would run much cooler and therefore not have the same issues. But as it turns out, nope, 00:05:30.320 --> 00:05:37.440 the Z1 really is just a crappier binned chip and it does suck back power and it does get hot. 00:05:37.920 --> 00:05:42.560 So any issues that they would have on the Z1 extreme version are probably going to be replicated 00:05:42.560 --> 00:05:47.520 here. Now, ASUS says that they do have a BIOS fix coming for this, but I don't think that has 00:05:47.520 --> 00:05:53.600 materialized yet. Credit words due to ASUS. Their command center thing has been shockingly not buggy. 00:05:53.600 --> 00:05:58.880 Like Ioneos one used to be really good back in the day, and now last time I used it was a piece 00:05:58.880 --> 00:06:05.680 of garbage. This is what that's supposed to be. Oh, let's turn up to 120 hertz. Like look at that, 00:06:05.680 --> 00:06:12.560 seamless. Not bad. Those six cores turbo pretty good. If you only play very light games on the go, 00:06:12.560 --> 00:06:17.520 you want to hook up your eGPU whenever you're docked, except if you can afford one of ASUS's 00:06:17.520 --> 00:06:23.280 XG Mobile eGPUs, then you can afford the extra hundred bucks. I mean, it needed to be like $250 00:06:23.280 --> 00:06:28.080 less expensive, but I also understand why it isn't. I get it. Everyone complaining. Yeah, it needs to 00:06:28.080 --> 00:06:33.040 be $250. But you got to understand guys, this is exactly the same tooling. This is exactly the 00:06:33.120 --> 00:06:39.280 same hardware other than just that chip change. So unless AMD is charging $200 plus dollars less 00:06:39.280 --> 00:06:45.520 for that chip, it's not happening. You know what? This is not nearly as bad as I thought it was going 00:06:45.520 --> 00:06:49.440 to be. You know, if it wasn't for Steam Deck OLED being so good for the price, maybe I've talked 00:06:49.440 --> 00:06:54.080 myself back into it. I could see people buying this one. Yeah, you're only saving $100 or whatever, 00:06:54.080 --> 00:07:00.480 but you're saving $100. Yeah, it was kind of silly of them to use the exact same hardware other 00:07:00.480 --> 00:07:04.080 than the processor because that makes the cost so high. But the flip side of that is they're 00:07:04.080 --> 00:07:07.760 using the exact same hardware. It's really good hardware. It feels great. It's a great gaming 00:07:07.760 --> 00:07:12.480 experience other than it's a little slower. A lot slower. Overall, there's a lot to like, 00:07:12.480 --> 00:07:16.720 but the truth is I'm only making a video about this right now because it's still in my queue 00:07:16.720 --> 00:07:20.800 and I need to get it done before I move on to more interesting ones like the Lenovo Legion Go. 00:07:20.800 --> 00:07:22.080 Subscribe to ShortCircuit.