WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:03.760 It's hard for me to even understand what this is, let alone explain it to you. 00:00:03.760 --> 00:00:09.120 I mean, Microsoft calls it an Xbox, but it's plastered with ROG branding, 00:00:09.120 --> 00:00:12.320 you can't play the vast majority of your old Xbox game library, 00:00:12.320 --> 00:00:17.840 and even the special sauce, the Xbox full-screen experience that runs over top of Windows, 00:00:17.840 --> 00:00:22.160 feels like it could have just as easily been an app that runs over top of Windows. 00:00:22.160 --> 00:00:28.240 But then, hey, I'm a PC gamer, so this kind of collaboration between the Xbox team, 00:00:28.240 --> 00:00:33.280 who takes gaming very seriously, and the Windows team, who takes, I don't know, telemetry very 00:00:33.280 --> 00:00:37.760 seriously, it's basically what I've been asking Microsoft to do for years, and many of you watching 00:00:37.760 --> 00:00:44.800 probably feel the same way. I mean, imagine it, the perfect fusion of the game library and versatility 00:00:44.800 --> 00:00:49.920 of Windows gaming, with the optimization and the seamless, more affordable console experience 00:00:49.920 --> 00:00:58.560 of Xbox gaming in one perfect device. Now, keep imagining that, because unfortunately, 00:00:58.560 --> 00:01:06.000 the ROG Xbox ally isn't it. That doesn't mean it's bad, it just isn't what we were promised. 00:01:15.120 --> 00:01:19.280 I'll get into all the benchmarks in a sec, but first, there's something more important 00:01:19.280 --> 00:01:24.080 than the hardware I'm holding today, and that's the software. In a lot of ways, 00:01:24.080 --> 00:01:28.080 Windows handheld mode, it's not a whole lot different from the typical Windows experience. 00:01:28.080 --> 00:01:32.880 You get Windows app compatibility, Windows game compatibility, multitasking, co-pilot, so 00:01:33.760 --> 00:01:40.000 good or bad, if it's in Windows, you got it. So then, what exactly did they cut out? 00:01:41.280 --> 00:01:45.920 I don't know, but they weren't kidding when they said that it is way more efficient. Now, 00:01:45.920 --> 00:01:50.960 two gigs of memory savings might not sound like that big of a deal, but when our system memory 00:01:50.960 --> 00:01:57.280 is also acting as our VRAM, it is a very respectable amount to claw back, and it's especially important 00:01:57.280 --> 00:02:02.400 if you're on an older Windows handheld, or if you're on the non-X version that only has 16 gigs 00:02:02.400 --> 00:02:07.120 of memory, not to mention the numerous other hardware downgrades that we will get to later. 00:02:07.120 --> 00:02:12.080 Another nice feature I really appreciate is the shutdown confirmation. Before, if you accidentally 00:02:12.080 --> 00:02:17.360 held the power button down, maybe you're gaming in a weird position, it would just turn off like a 00:02:17.360 --> 00:02:24.480 PC. Now, you get this nice little slide down to confirm. It really makes it feel more console-like, 00:02:24.480 --> 00:02:32.000 and speaking of console-like, hey, we got a quick resume. Well, almost console-like? Also, 00:02:32.000 --> 00:02:36.800 classic Windows. Don't be too surprised if your device randomly wakes up for a little bit before 00:02:36.800 --> 00:02:40.560 going back to sleep. Not enough to drain your battery too much over the course of the day, 00:02:41.200 --> 00:02:45.600 but if you leave it for a week, it might be dead by the time you come back, kind of like a hamster. 00:02:46.480 --> 00:02:51.280 These complaints, though, aren't meant to take away from the incredible work that the Xbox team 00:02:51.280 --> 00:02:57.760 has done here, and the coolest part is that these optimizations are for everyone. If you want to try 00:02:57.760 --> 00:03:04.400 the Xbox full-screen experience, you can do it right now. No purchase necessary. And I would 00:03:04.400 --> 00:03:09.840 recommend at least taking it for a test drive. It's pretty slick, and if you've used the Xbox app 00:03:09.840 --> 00:03:15.840 before, it should feel pretty familiar right out of the gate, except for the extra benefit of having 00:03:15.840 --> 00:03:20.800 all your games in one location now, regardless of where they were purchased. It kind of feels like 00:03:20.800 --> 00:03:26.080 a way better version of what Microsoft tried to do with that cool games folder on Windows Vista. 00:03:26.080 --> 00:03:30.960 It's not perfect. I mean, just because you aren't using the Steam interface doesn't mean that it 00:03:30.960 --> 00:03:35.600 doesn't need to run. So waiting around for Steam to launch and then dismissing all the annoying 00:03:35.600 --> 00:03:41.760 little pop-ups the first time you fire up a Steam game, that's a distinctly Windows experience here. 00:03:41.760 --> 00:03:47.280 But the only other real issue we encountered with the full-screen experience was occasionally the UI 00:03:47.280 --> 00:03:52.560 would get randomly stuck, and then all of our inputs would action at once. It does seem to happen 00:03:52.560 --> 00:03:58.000 less once the device has been running for a while, and we expect this to improve over time. But it 00:03:58.000 --> 00:04:02.240 is something we saw, so it's something we have to mention. Other than that, it is shockingly 00:04:02.240 --> 00:04:08.240 polished and complete feeling for launch software. Social features, store, cloud gaming, game pass, 00:04:09.040 --> 00:04:13.440 I mean, thanks to Armory Crate's overlay, you've even got things like built-in performance 00:04:13.440 --> 00:04:20.720 monitoring. The only major thing missing is Xbox games. Modern ones, no problem. Cross-platform 00:04:20.720 --> 00:04:25.440 play-anywhere licenses have been common for years now, but if you have a big digital library of 00:04:25.440 --> 00:04:30.720 older Xbox games, I'm sorry to say that a bunch of them will not run on this device. And there 00:04:30.800 --> 00:04:36.960 were plenty of comments on Xbox's reveal video asking, okay, well, how is this an Xbox then? 00:04:36.960 --> 00:04:43.600 And the truthful answer is, I don't know. But, I mean, given that all it is is just a mode for 00:04:43.600 --> 00:04:49.200 Windows 11 that happens to be launching on these new devices that have Xbox branding on them, 00:04:49.200 --> 00:04:55.520 maybe that shouldn't be a surprise, except that Microsoft kept shouting, Xbox, Xbox! 00:04:56.240 --> 00:05:02.080 Every time the subject of the ROG Ally 2 came up, so this is a completely self-inflicted wound, 00:05:02.080 --> 00:05:08.800 on the subject of the Ally 2, sorry, excuse me, I mean, the ROG Xbox Ally X. Let's talk about the 00:05:08.800 --> 00:05:15.600 hardware. This is a generational leap, both in terms of the internals and in terms of the design, 00:05:15.600 --> 00:05:21.120 with the most obvious change being the ergonomics. Let's start with the most controversial change, 00:05:21.760 --> 00:05:29.360 the angled screen. I was pretty skeptical about this one, but after using it for a week, 00:05:29.360 --> 00:05:36.320 I gotta give them credit. In a lot of cases, it's pretty great. If you ride the bus or you're a 00:05:36.320 --> 00:05:40.400 distracted pedestrian who holds your device up in front of you like this, it is more golden 00:05:40.400 --> 00:05:46.960 than the K-pop Demon Hunters. But if you lie on the floor or on the couch or you sit with bad posture, 00:05:46.960 --> 00:05:52.160 you might find yourself wishing that they'd left it flat or maybe even angled it the other way. 00:05:52.160 --> 00:05:59.600 And we got a couple of other little gripes too. What was this? They went and flipped the menu buttons. 00:05:59.600 --> 00:06:05.920 That's not awful on its own. New users probably won't notice and returning allies should get used 00:06:05.920 --> 00:06:12.640 to that sort of thing pretty quickly. But guys, the lower one on the right used to be a dedicated 00:06:12.640 --> 00:06:19.200 button for armory crate. So I never even noticed how much the placement sucks. Now that it's a 00:06:19.200 --> 00:06:25.040 button that I need to use regularly, why is this thumbstick in the way of reaching it? 00:06:25.040 --> 00:06:31.280 On the subject of thumbs and buttons, I'm not too crazy about the face buttons. They do have a nice 00:06:31.280 --> 00:06:37.040 long kind of desktop grade travel distance. I just wish they were a little bit less wobbly. 00:06:37.760 --> 00:06:44.320 To ASUS's credit though, in just about any position, the Ergo grips make this as comfortable, 00:06:44.320 --> 00:06:49.040 maybe even more comfortable than any handheld we've tested before. And that is in spite of the fact 00:06:49.040 --> 00:06:53.600 that it is heavier than most of them. Another huge improvement is the thumbsticks. Seriously. 00:06:53.600 --> 00:06:58.800 Like, I handed this to my son and the first thing he said was, wow, these are way better. 00:06:58.800 --> 00:07:04.400 And they also managed to squeeze impulse triggers into the X and hall effect triggers into the 00:07:04.400 --> 00:07:08.800 non-X. The thumbsticks, by the way, are not hall effect, but we did hear a rumor that a certain 00:07:08.800 --> 00:07:13.120 someone might be making some nice TMR sticks for these bad boys. Oh, speaking of which, 00:07:13.120 --> 00:07:16.960 time for a quick teardown, don't you think? Since we've got both units here, let's talk about 00:07:16.960 --> 00:07:23.920 the specs because both the price and the hardware are very different between these two. Both have 00:07:23.920 --> 00:07:28.320 easily accessed screws, making it dead simple to get apart with my precision screwdriver, 00:07:29.040 --> 00:07:34.880 lttstore.com, and also maybe some help from my prying tool. Both have easily accessed screws, 00:07:34.880 --> 00:07:38.720 and if you just get a little pry tool in here, you should be able to remove the backing just 00:07:38.720 --> 00:07:43.120 like that. Just watch out for this ribbon cable. You don't want to rip that. Now that we've 00:07:43.120 --> 00:07:48.560 moved the magic to them both open, you can see both feature a full length 80 millimeter m.2 00:07:48.560 --> 00:07:56.720 NDME slot and, oh, oh, that's really nice. Ample clearance on the underside for a double-sided 00:07:56.720 --> 00:08:03.680 m.2 module. Oh, hold on. At least that's definitely true of the X for the non-X. I'm not sure I might 00:08:03.680 --> 00:08:10.080 have to take this up. Today, nobody is putting, you know, an eight terabyte freaking double-sided 00:08:10.080 --> 00:08:14.160 SSD in this one because if you're spending that kind of money on your SSD, you should probably 00:08:14.160 --> 00:08:18.560 just be getting the X. But in the future, if you wanted to put a double-sided SSD in there, 00:08:18.560 --> 00:08:24.400 I think you could probably get away with it. I would just be very curious to see the logic for 00:08:24.400 --> 00:08:29.360 why this one needed this grounding strip attached to what appears to be a pretty rudimentary heat 00:08:29.360 --> 00:08:35.360 spreader and this one didn't because it has a heat spreading sticker. I always enjoy playing spot the 00:08:35.360 --> 00:08:39.600 differences between cousin devices. Here's the power for the impulse triggers and here's the pad 00:08:39.600 --> 00:08:45.760 where we don't need it over here. Also, the front chassis is apparently the same other than the color. 00:08:45.760 --> 00:08:50.400 There's a lot of shared components here. You can see the joystick modules back here are exactly the 00:08:50.400 --> 00:08:55.120 same as well as some of these little daughter boards. But the biggest difference between the two 00:08:55.120 --> 00:09:04.160 is look at the size of the SOC on the X. This thing is loaded for bear with AMD's new flagship 00:09:04.160 --> 00:09:11.120 handheld CPU, the Ryzen Z2 Extreme. This thing is nuts, you guys. Eight cores, 16 thread CPU, 00:09:11.120 --> 00:09:18.080 16 cores of our DNA 3.5 graphics. Okay, yes, you'll be paying a lot for it. The starting price is 00:09:18.080 --> 00:09:27.280 999, so a thousand US dollars for the X. It's paired up with 24 gigs of LPDDR5 memory, a 1TB SSD 00:09:27.280 --> 00:09:32.800 to start with, a second USB-C port that is Thunderbolt 4 compliant, enabling the use of external 00:09:32.800 --> 00:09:38.400 GPU enclosures, Thunderbolt Docks, and high-resolution external displays. And the performance difference 00:09:38.400 --> 00:09:44.960 is very noticeable, even doing mundane things like installing games. One and a half gigabit 00:09:44.960 --> 00:09:51.840 download speeds? Yes, please. As for the non-X, I don't know what to call this thing other than 00:09:51.840 --> 00:09:58.160 a massive disappointment. Guys, do not let AMD's bullshit naming scheme fool you here. 00:09:58.160 --> 00:10:06.880 The Z2A has nothing Z2 about it. This chip is essentially a mini update of the same 00:10:06.880 --> 00:10:12.160 Ayrith processor that first launched inside the Steam Deck three and a half years ago. I mean, 00:10:12.160 --> 00:10:17.680 sure, they juiced it with another five watts of power, but guys, this is ZEN2, an RDNA2. 00:10:18.720 --> 00:10:22.720 Neither of which would be a huge problem if it was priced right, but as it stands, 00:10:22.720 --> 00:10:27.600 you can get a Steam Deck or even a Steam Deck OLED for less than these things. And then, 00:10:27.600 --> 00:10:32.320 if you love Windows handheld mode so much, you can just install that on it, making this 00:10:33.600 --> 00:10:40.000 Xbox a pretty tough sell unless there are some surprises when it comes to performance. Four 00:10:40.080 --> 00:10:47.520 shadowing. Boom, let's go! Now, to be clear, it does have advantages over the Steam Deck. 00:10:47.520 --> 00:10:54.160 The 1080p 120Hz IPS type screen is the same one that is featured on the X variant, although it's 00:10:54.160 --> 00:10:59.760 worth noting it's also the same one that was featured on the original ROG ally two and a half 00:10:59.760 --> 00:11:05.440 years ago. It's solid, but I wouldn't have minded seeing an upgrade. With that said, the non-X is 00:11:05.440 --> 00:11:09.680 going to struggle to drive that resolution anyway, especially in more demanding games, 00:11:09.680 --> 00:11:18.240 bringing us perfectly to performance where, surprisingly, the extra five watts gives the 00:11:18.240 --> 00:11:25.840 Xbox ally a roughly 22% advantage over the Steam Deck in Cyberpunk at 720p. Oh, maybe this thing 00:11:25.840 --> 00:11:33.520 deserves to exist after all. And even at 15 watts, it still manages a 10% uplift in average FPS, 00:11:33.520 --> 00:11:39.520 likely thanks to its faster memory. Don't get too excited, though. While that percentage sounds 00:11:39.520 --> 00:11:45.120 pretty big, we're still only talking about three to six FPS more, so it's unlikely that it's going 00:11:45.120 --> 00:11:52.240 to be the difference between completely unplayable and smooth in demanding titles. What is, though, 00:11:52.240 --> 00:11:59.440 is upgrading to the Xbox ally X. Would you look at that? Once again, though, the advantage over 00:11:59.440 --> 00:12:05.440 the last generation ally X is less than we'd like, especially since it's sucking back more juice 00:12:05.440 --> 00:12:10.480 to get that extra performance. As for the rest of our games, the general trend continues, though it 00:12:10.480 --> 00:12:17.280 is notable that in Grid Legends, MSI's claw eight AI plus manages to marginally beat the Xbox ally X, 00:12:17.280 --> 00:12:22.400 and the same goes for Shadow of the Tomb Raider, where it tops in averages but loses in the all 00:12:22.400 --> 00:12:29.200 important minimum FPS. But come on, most of the devices we're looking at can do 1080p, not 720p, 00:12:29.200 --> 00:12:35.520 so why are we limiting ourselves? Well, for the same reason that Valve wisely opted for a 00:12:35.520 --> 00:12:43.280 1280 by 800 pixel panel on the Steam Deck. See, only the Xbox ally X and the MSI claw managed to 00:12:43.280 --> 00:12:49.840 maintain console-like performance, reaching a consistent 30 FPS gaming experience in Cyberpunk. 00:12:49.840 --> 00:12:54.320 And for the claw, the story's not all positive. It was the reason that we couldn't include red 00:12:54.320 --> 00:12:59.040 dead redemption in our results due to the anomalies that made it impossible for us to compare it to 00:12:59.120 --> 00:13:04.720 our other devices. Keep trying Intel. I do really mean that though. Then in the rest of the games, 00:13:04.720 --> 00:13:10.320 the story remains much the same. Now that the Xbox ally X can really flex its more powerful GPU, 00:13:10.320 --> 00:13:16.320 it crushes the old ROG ally X when both of them are running in their maximum power profile. But 00:13:16.320 --> 00:13:21.520 there's an interesting subplot here that emerges when we turn down the power profiles. We found 00:13:21.520 --> 00:13:28.320 that running the new ally X in the lower 17 watt power profile yielded about the same performance 00:13:28.320 --> 00:13:35.040 in Cyberpunk as the old ally X at full power. And that's no one off. We got similar results in 00:13:35.040 --> 00:13:40.480 Shadow of the Tomb Raider as well. That means that while both the ROG ally X and the ROG Xbox 00:13:40.480 --> 00:13:46.640 ally X might have the same 80 watt hour capacity battery, you can expect a lot more real world 00:13:46.640 --> 00:13:53.440 playtime out of the ROG Xbox ally X if you typically game at 1080p without compromising on 00:13:53.440 --> 00:13:57.920 performance. By the way, can I take a moment to offer some constructive criticism on the naming 00:13:57.920 --> 00:14:03.440 of these new consoles? Microsoft, you couldn't name your way out of a wet paper bag, but we already 00:14:03.440 --> 00:14:11.120 knew that. So ASUS, it's you that I'm truly disappointed in. This is the ally X2, and it 00:14:11.120 --> 00:14:17.520 really would have made everyone's lives better if you had just f***ing called it that. Anywho, 00:14:18.080 --> 00:14:22.480 bad names aside, the icing on the cake here is that for the sake of compatibility with our 00:14:22.560 --> 00:14:28.000 benchmarks automation tools, we actually ran all of our tests in Windows desktop mode, 00:14:28.000 --> 00:14:32.720 not in the Xbox full screen experience. So when you bring one of these home, I would bet money 00:14:32.720 --> 00:14:38.480 that they run even faster than the results we've shown today. How much faster? That seems like the 00:14:38.480 --> 00:14:41.920 sort of thing that the Fox would investigate. So I'm just going to optimistically link to 00:14:41.920 --> 00:14:46.160 his channel in the video description. He does great videos on handhelds. Coming back to battery life, 00:14:46.160 --> 00:14:53.120 the MSI claw managed to exceed six hours in our light gaming workload at 720p. That's enough 00:14:53.120 --> 00:14:59.040 for the lead, but both of the ally Xs are nipping on its heels at five hours in change. A surprise 00:14:59.040 --> 00:15:04.960 here for me was the Xbox ally non X, which managed almost six hours. Though it is worth noting that 00:15:04.960 --> 00:15:10.160 you cannot manually adjust SPL or sustained power limits on this thing. So it's actually running 00:15:10.160 --> 00:15:18.320 at six Watts rather than eight Watts. So that's a little unfair. Let's crank things up now where 00:15:18.320 --> 00:15:24.800 there are two main takeaways. First, it's clear that the Xbox ally X and the older ROG ally X 00:15:24.800 --> 00:15:30.400 are going to deliver similar battery life in similar power profiles. It's just a question of 00:15:30.400 --> 00:15:35.360 how much power you need and whether the ergonomics of the new package are enticing for you. 00:15:36.080 --> 00:15:40.000 The second thing that's clear is that the Steam Deck smaller battery is holding it back 00:15:40.000 --> 00:15:45.280 in a big way compared to the Xbox ally. The Steam Deck OLED does have a larger battery, 00:15:45.280 --> 00:15:50.960 but it wouldn't be enough to close this gap. Also, since we're on the subject, while we will be 00:15:50.960 --> 00:15:55.840 forever grateful to Valve for their work bringing handheld PCs and especially Linux gaming to the 00:15:55.840 --> 00:16:01.920 masses, the deck also charges pretty slowly compared to the new hotness. Our LCD Steam Deck 00:16:01.920 --> 00:16:07.920 takes three hours to charge from zero to full while our white Xbox charges in just over 90 minutes. 00:16:07.920 --> 00:16:11.200 At this point, I kind of feel like they should have just called this thing the Steam Deck Extreme. 00:16:12.560 --> 00:16:16.400 Actually, I'm kidding. We already made the Steam Deck Extreme. Nobody else needs to make one. 00:16:16.400 --> 00:16:21.360 And they probably won't need to make an extreme version of the Xbox ally either. The non-X hit a 00:16:21.360 --> 00:16:28.560 maximum of 65 degrees with an average of just 54. And even though the X draws an extra 15 Watts of 00:16:28.560 --> 00:16:34.480 power and it did peak briefly at 90 degrees in our testing, it hit an average of just 69 degrees, 00:16:34.480 --> 00:16:40.240 which is pretty nice to see in a handheld like this. Bottom line, is it finally time for me 00:16:40.240 --> 00:16:46.000 to replace my OG ally that I actually upgraded the battery in rather than pay for the ally X? 00:16:46.000 --> 00:16:52.800 And I gotta say, when I saw the 720p results, I was underwhelmed. Yeah, the ergonomics, 00:16:52.800 --> 00:16:59.760 yeah, the convenient Xbox button, but like, whatever. But I game at 1080p, like most people, 00:16:59.760 --> 00:17:06.080 and the difference in battery life while still providing a great 1080p mobile gaming experience 00:17:06.080 --> 00:17:10.880 has literally changed the way that I've used my handheld over the last week. I put probably 00:17:10.880 --> 00:17:16.960 25 hours into the Middle East Chronicles and almost all of that was away from the wall, 00:17:16.960 --> 00:17:21.760 not stressing about finding a charger. And I'd have the ability to play heavier games that way as 00:17:21.760 --> 00:17:29.360 well. So yeah, it's not an Xbox. But as a PC gamer who already loves my handheld PC and already 00:17:29.360 --> 00:17:35.520 accepts the crappy, non subsidized PC pricing model, this is a clear step up from what we had 00:17:35.520 --> 00:17:41.040 before. It's not as big of a step up as we would have liked. And like basically everyone else, 00:17:41.040 --> 00:17:46.880 I was really hoping for a more Xbox like price to accompany the Xbox name. But with that said, 00:17:46.880 --> 00:17:50.640 based on the recent trajectory of Xbox pricing, maybe that would have been a monkey paw outcome 00:17:50.640 --> 00:17:55.680 anyway, it is worth noting that we didn't really investigate the Xbox LIX as a streaming device. 00:17:56.320 --> 00:18:00.640 Given the importance of Xbox cloud gaming to Microsoft, that probably seems like a huge 00:18:00.640 --> 00:18:05.520 omission. But I gotta be honest with you guys, I didn't really feel like there was much to say. 00:18:05.520 --> 00:18:11.120 Yeah, it works fine. Of course it does. But if I wanted cloud gaming, there are cheaper, 00:18:11.120 --> 00:18:16.080 lighter devices that are better optimized for that, like the Logitech G Cloud. If I want to game on 00:18:16.080 --> 00:18:22.560 local hardware though, and I don't want to spend $2,000 or fight with Ark things, this is the play. 00:18:23.440 --> 00:18:29.200 The Nodex, that's another story entirely. If this thing was price competitive with the LCD 00:18:29.200 --> 00:18:34.240 Steam Deck, instead of being above the OLED, it'd be a no brainer for anyone who's not married to 00:18:34.240 --> 00:18:38.880 the Deck's track pads. But it isn't. And regardless of why they're pricing it so high, 00:18:38.880 --> 00:18:44.560 it's a pretty tough pill to swallow at $600. I mean, they didn't even manage to sweeten the deal 00:18:44.560 --> 00:18:51.120 by including a one terabyte SSD. If only they'd had the foresight. Now I just wish I had the foresight 00:18:51.120 --> 00:18:56.880 to write a better segue to our sponsor. If you guys enjoyed this video, maybe check out our unveiling 00:18:56.880 --> 00:19:03.920 of the Xbox Ally series. Or how about our original coverage of the Steam Deck? It really has changed 00:19:03.920 --> 00:19:05.360 the handheld PC space.