WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:04.400 A new product is supposed to be exciting, right? I get to tell you about all the cool new features, 00:00:04.400 --> 00:00:07.440 like the massively upgraded 80 watt hour battery, 00:00:07.440 --> 00:00:11.440 the second USB-C port that does 40 gigabit per second 00:00:11.440 --> 00:00:16.440 and can even work with Thunderbolt external GPUs, and of course the minor improvements to everything 00:00:16.440 --> 00:00:22.160 from buttons to ergonomics to specs. But the Ally X is so flipping expensive 00:00:22.160 --> 00:00:25.720 and comes so closely on the heels of the original Ally 00:00:25.720 --> 00:00:29.880 that if I'm anything like you and I've got a first generation Ally, 00:00:29.920 --> 00:00:35.440 which I do, I'm looking at this thing going, oh my God, you want my money again? 00:00:35.440 --> 00:00:38.800 And for a 10% performance improvement at 1080p? 00:00:38.800 --> 00:00:43.800 Oh, the battery life, guys, that's the standout to us. 00:00:44.000 --> 00:00:47.800 This thing manages 14 hours in our endurance battery life 00:00:47.800 --> 00:00:52.920 test and two hours in our stress test. And somehow it manages to do that 00:00:52.920 --> 00:00:56.200 while only being about 11% heavier. 00:00:56.200 --> 00:00:59.400 In fact, when I did my initial impressions of this, 00:00:59.440 --> 00:01:04.360 I had a hard time picking out whether I was holding the Ally or the Ally X. 00:01:04.360 --> 00:01:08.560 And a big part of that is that they haven't changed the ergonomics that much. 00:01:08.560 --> 00:01:12.440 The ABXY buttons sit a little bit more proud to the face. 00:01:12.440 --> 00:01:15.500 The D-pad has been improved with more clear delineation 00:01:15.500 --> 00:01:21.400 between all eight positions and the joysticks have a little bit more resistance on them. 00:01:21.400 --> 00:01:25.200 Although that does come with a benefit. They are now rated for two and a half times 00:01:25.200 --> 00:01:28.360 the number of rotations compared to the ones on the original Ally. 00:01:28.360 --> 00:01:32.960 We've got Hall of FET triggers again. Click here, nicer feeling shoulder buttons 00:01:32.960 --> 00:01:35.960 and a big improvement to the back buttons. 00:01:35.960 --> 00:01:40.100 Now they can be actuated really however you want. You can kind of slide across them, 00:01:40.100 --> 00:01:45.280 you can push down on them, really like this. We've got larger air intakes, a thicker internal heat pipe 00:01:45.280 --> 00:01:51.540 and a third exhaust grill that together contributed to both quieter and cooler operation in our testing. 00:01:51.540 --> 00:01:55.320 And up at the top for IO, we've got a fingerprint sensing, 00:01:55.320 --> 00:02:01.560 Windows Hello Power button, a headphone microphone jack. Ah, yes, the Micro SD card slot 00:02:01.560 --> 00:02:05.880 that led to so many challenges with the original Ally. Although to ASUS's credit, 00:02:05.880 --> 00:02:09.220 they have finally addressed that with the community. 00:02:09.220 --> 00:02:12.440 Volume rocker and of course that second USB-C port 00:02:12.440 --> 00:02:16.800 that I was really happy to see. And normally it doesn't matter, 00:02:16.800 --> 00:02:22.000 but every once in a while I run into a situation where I'm like, I wish the Ally had a second USB-C port. 00:02:22.000 --> 00:02:26.560 I came on a plane, I got a portable monitor and I realized I forgot to bring a dongle 00:02:26.560 --> 00:02:30.560 that supports pass-through charging. So I had no way to charge the Ally 00:02:30.560 --> 00:02:34.400 and also output to my portable monitor. No one seems to feel bad for me. 00:02:34.400 --> 00:02:39.040 Okay, it's a champagne problem, but a problem nonetheless, and one that ASUS has addressed. 00:02:39.040 --> 00:02:43.300 Got a 65 watt charger, which is nice to see included at all, 00:02:43.300 --> 00:02:47.920 but doesn't support the maximum charging speed of the Ally X which is 100 watts 00:02:47.920 --> 00:02:51.280 and that you're definitely gonna want if you're ever in a hurry when you're charging 00:02:51.280 --> 00:02:54.280 because an 80 watt hour battery is flipping big. 00:02:54.280 --> 00:02:57.720 Ah, yes, warranty information form. 00:02:59.360 --> 00:03:03.440 Awkward. There, now I'm done with accessories and I can get back to what matters. 00:03:03.440 --> 00:03:08.560 The Ally, oh, okay, no, I'm sorry. There is one, two more accessories. 00:03:08.560 --> 00:03:11.640 There's no kickstand on the Ally X itself, 00:03:11.640 --> 00:03:15.200 but ASUS does include little cardboard stands 00:03:15.200 --> 00:03:20.080 and you get two just in case you lose one. Apparently these were included with the original. 00:03:20.080 --> 00:03:23.180 I never noticed. Maybe because they aren't very good. 00:03:23.180 --> 00:03:26.300 You can't even adjust the angle. You know, I was expecting the display 00:03:26.300 --> 00:03:30.060 to be the first thing that stood out to me, but as I launched Steam Big Picture, 00:03:30.060 --> 00:03:34.980 it's actually the speakers. They've got a much fuller sound than the original Ally 00:03:34.980 --> 00:03:38.340 and as one of those monsters who does the vast majority 00:03:38.340 --> 00:03:43.640 of my handheld gaming with speakers rather than headphones, I'm sorry, sorry, sorry, everyone. 00:03:43.640 --> 00:03:48.380 That makes a pretty big difference to me. I'm actually gonna go crab rave before I even fire up a game here. 00:03:48.380 --> 00:03:51.780 Operating Windows on a handheld gaming PC is always gonna be awkward. 00:03:51.780 --> 00:03:56.780 That's something that the Steam Deck just does so much better than any Windows handheld 00:03:56.780 --> 00:04:02.260 can do at this time, but one of the reasons that I daily drive an Ally instead of a Steam Deck OLED 00:04:02.260 --> 00:04:05.300 is that game compatibility is damn near perfect 00:04:05.300 --> 00:04:09.140 and that's only gonna get better with the improved hardware in this new iteration. 00:04:13.140 --> 00:04:17.580 They still don't compare to something like a MacBook, but they're definitely better than the old one. 00:04:17.580 --> 00:04:22.620 Okay, let's maybe we'll go forza. You may not proceed without being signed into a profile. 00:04:24.780 --> 00:04:29.260 Well, what am I allowed to do? There's no option to close the game. 00:04:29.260 --> 00:04:31.180 God modern gaming sucks. 00:04:34.340 --> 00:04:39.180 The device is upgraded. It's now available with up to a one terabyte SSD 00:04:39.180 --> 00:04:42.900 out of the box and supports longer 80 millimeter sticks 00:04:42.900 --> 00:04:49.060 so that you can put it up to an eight terabyte drive. It has 24 gigs of RAM instead of 16 gigs of RAM 00:04:49.060 --> 00:04:54.300 this time around and it even runs at a higher 7,500 megatransfers per second 00:04:54.300 --> 00:04:58.900 which when you're using onboard graphics which uses your system RAM 00:04:58.900 --> 00:05:06.780 can make a significant difference to system performance. In fact, at 1080p we saw an approximately 10% uplift 00:05:06.780 --> 00:05:10.140 in FPS in games. However, on a device like this 00:05:10.140 --> 00:05:15.540 you oftentimes wouldn't be running at 1080p. You'd be running at 720 in order to get the best performance 00:05:15.540 --> 00:05:19.220 and at 720 we found that we ran into other system bottlenecks 00:05:19.220 --> 00:05:23.180 before that increased memory clock speed really made a difference. 00:05:23.180 --> 00:05:28.660 So just like the original Ally it clocks down from 30 watts to 25 watts 00:05:28.660 --> 00:05:31.940 when you're away from the wall even in its turbo operating mode. 00:05:31.940 --> 00:05:36.340 But to take advantage of the bigger battery in the lower performance modes 00:05:36.340 --> 00:05:40.900 it goes up to 13 and 17 rather than 10 and 15 00:05:40.900 --> 00:05:44.380 which does result in a measurable performance improvement 00:05:44.380 --> 00:05:47.780 while still maintaining better battery life than the original Ally. 00:05:47.780 --> 00:05:51.780 There's other quality of life improvements. It's easier to access the SSD for upgrades. 00:05:51.780 --> 00:05:55.100 It runs quieter and the display now gets dimmer 00:05:55.100 --> 00:05:58.620 if you're the kind of person who games in the dark and doesn't want to melt your eyes 00:05:58.620 --> 00:06:02.500 out of their freaking sockets but none of those things are big enough 00:06:02.500 --> 00:06:06.820 to overcome two major obstacles that are facing the Ally X. 00:06:06.820 --> 00:06:12.620 One is that the original Ally offers a lot of the same experience 00:06:12.620 --> 00:06:16.380 and two it does so at a much lower price. 00:06:16.420 --> 00:06:22.340 The Ally X is coming into a marketplace that is absolutely flush with competition 00:06:22.340 --> 00:06:27.340 from the likes of Valve, Zotac, Ionio, Lenovo. 00:06:27.660 --> 00:06:33.060 There's so many players in this space now. It might still be among if not 00:06:33.060 --> 00:06:40.340 the best handheld gaming PCs but $800 before I even put a decent sized SSD in it? 00:06:40.340 --> 00:06:44.100 Good Lord. What's a one terabyte Steam Deck OLED? 00:06:44.140 --> 00:06:47.460 $650 and yeah, this has advantages 00:06:47.460 --> 00:06:53.100 but so does the Steam Deck OLED. I mean, that's screen, oh, so nice. 00:06:53.100 --> 00:06:57.620 And making things even more awkward we're already starting to see rumors 00:06:57.620 --> 00:07:01.220 of what the performance of our DNA 3.5 mobile graphics 00:07:01.220 --> 00:07:04.740 are gonna be. Now the word on the street and I didn't hear this from ASUS 00:07:04.740 --> 00:07:09.860 is that AMD's upcoming Strix Point processors that feature those graphics are gonna be so expensive 00:07:09.860 --> 00:07:13.900 that this would have been more like $900 but I've got to wonder guys 00:07:13.900 --> 00:07:19.060 with how much more performance it would offer would that be more justifiable as an upgrade? 00:07:19.060 --> 00:07:24.340 As it is now, if I'm looking to buy a handheld gaming PC and I have a functionally unlimited budget 00:07:24.340 --> 00:07:27.620 this is gonna be a strong, if not the contender 00:07:27.620 --> 00:07:32.540 but if I'm upgrading from something older I don't know if it has enough on offer. 00:07:32.540 --> 00:07:35.820 I know the battery life, damn it, the battery life is incredible. 00:07:35.820 --> 00:07:39.940 It's so much better than it should be on paper. Like it's double the size 00:07:39.940 --> 00:07:43.860 and yet it manages three times the real world performance. 00:07:43.860 --> 00:07:48.780 That and I have one of the OG allies that has the dimmer 400 nit screen. 00:07:48.780 --> 00:07:53.260 As it is now the later model one seem to use the same 500 plus nit screen. 00:07:53.260 --> 00:07:56.760 I think only you guys can judge. Is this thing worth the increase? 00:07:56.760 --> 00:08:02.140 I mean, yeah, sure. You get rid of the proprietary XG mobile external GPU connector 00:08:02.140 --> 00:08:05.900 that costs so much but you add a Thunderbolt connector 00:08:05.900 --> 00:08:09.460 that you're gonna need an enclosure for for your GPU that costs so much. 00:08:09.460 --> 00:08:14.540 It's a really complicated story. What's not complicated is subscribing to ShortCircuit. 00:08:14.540 --> 00:08:15.540 Make sure you do it.