- This is the ROG Ally and it is a fully
portable handheld game PC running Windows 11.
Now a lot of people are comparing this to the Steam Deck,
and that's fair enough, but why I'm actually excited
about it is for a very different reason.
So over the last little while,
I have been using this, the Ayaneo Air Pro.
While this is decent, there's a lot of issues,
and I can kind of talk about that in a minute.
But with the ROG Ally,
not only can this be a good gaming PC on the go,
but my question is
could this replace your gaming PC period?
I already went from gaming desktops to gaming laptops.
Can I go all the way
to doing everything on my gaming handheld?
With the Ryzen Z1 Extreme Processor inside,
while this is an offshoot of AMD's laptop chips,
it is very much optimized for handheld use
and using pretty much all the latest AMD tech,
including a full eight core CPU that's based
on their Zen 4 architecture
and a boost frequency of up to 5.1 gigahertz.
But on top of that,
you also do have RDNA 3-based graphics as well
as fast 16 gigs of LPDDR5 RAM and a 512 gig SSD,
which is meant to be somewhat user upgradable,
at least slightly easier than the Steam Deck.
This is paired with a micro SD card slot
for expansion as well as the XG mobile port,
which not only does have a full fat USB-C port,
but also if you do wanna buy one
of the ASUS proprietary external GPUs,
you could in theory increase the performance even more.
Although when you look at the price of those,
it's maybe better to just not do that.
Unfortunately, what I'm immediately running
into is that to get decent battery life with this,
there's a lot of software trickery to go on.
So there's a few different modes here.
You have Silent, Performance, and Turbo.
So Turbo is what you wanna enable
if you want to get that sort of maximum performance.
The downside though is
that the battery life doesn't look particularly great,
but what I really wanna do with this is
I actually don't care
that much about it running in portable handheld mode.
If my hunch is correct,
I think there's a real argument to be had
that this is $700 might actually be a good gaming desktop.
Just so happens to be run in portable modes sometimes.
So our Cinebench score on the multicore is 15,188.
So that is mind you just one single run,
but that's a lot of performance.
Next, let's run 3DMark Time Spy to get a little bit
of an idea for the gaming performance
and specifically the graphic side of things.
So I'm curious to see where this lands
because this is a bespoke processor,
right now specifically only on the ROG Ally.
So AMD have basically made a slightly tweaked version
of their laptop CPU and GPU combination,
their APU, the theoretical max
on the Z1 Extreme is like above
like an Xbox Series S.
It's gonna be on par with a relatively decent gaming PC.
So I spent a little bit of time before shooting the video
playing around with this in handheld mode.
And you definitely notice
in handheld mode it's trying to throttle things back.
Even when you're running in
like the performance mode, it's trying to save battery
by conserving as much as it can.
But when you plug it in,
when you unlock the full 1080p 120 hertz,
you throw the TDP at it,
that responsiveness has come right back
up to the point of a little gaming computer.
So the number we need to beat is 3144.
That's pretty good.
I will say that's a much stronger CPU score
than a graphic score, which makes sense.
Okay, so now let's compare the ROG Ally
with both a gaming desktop as well as a gaming laptop.
So starting out with, we have the HP Victus,
which typically runs about $600.
This is outfitted with a Core i5-1245OH,
eight gigs of RAM as well as a GTX 1650.
On the desktop side of things, we actually have a little bit
of a sneak peek at an upcoming video.
So you may wanna subscribe
and ringaling that dingaling button.
But this is the Boson 5.0 which is running
a Ryzen 5 5500, 16 gigs of RAM, as well as an RX 6500 XT.
I'm going to the benchmark zone,
I'm gonna benchmark all three of these.
I think the ROG Ally is gonna be slightly behind the desktop
and maybe slightly behind the laptop as well.
They might be ballpark the same though,
which if this gets even close, considering how small it is,
that'll actually be I think a pretty big win.
And we're gonna see
if the ROG Ally can compete in this same kind of space.
I feel like I've got like crazy hair right now.
I feel like I'm like Doc Brown
like trying to tell you about the DeLorean or something.
- 1.21 jigawatts.
- What the hell is a jigawatt?
- So here's the deal.
This HP Victus was an open box laptop
that we purchased from Best Buy.
And only now have we realized
that something is very deeply wrong
when the CPU score was about one eighth
of what it should have been.
Assuming that this was actually working correctly,
we should be seeing a Cinebench score
of just under 10,000 for the CPU.
And on the GPU side,
we should be looking at Time Spy at around 3,400.
This is actually not bad compared to the Ally,
which has a significantly more powerful CPU.
But it is a little bit behind on the graphic side.
The more interesting comparison though is
with the Boson Desktop Gaming PC,
which I will remind you is about $500 in components,
but clearly has some advantages when it comes
to power and size.
It's much, much larger and therefore, while it is behind
on the CPU score, does win out on the graphic side.
But the important thing to know here is
that I'm not totally crazy and the Ally can kind of hang
especially with the laptop and almost with the desktop.
So after running benchmarks, it seems like the ROG Ally
is in the same kind of ballpark performance-wise
as a gaming laptop around this price point.
And while it's a little bit behind this $500 desktop,
keep in mind that not only is this far larger,
but also it is lacking some things
that the Ally has built in.
It doesn't have a display, doesn't have a battery.
So generally speaking,
I actually think that the Ally might just be capable
of really being a full gaming PC.
But for now, let's go ahead and get the desktop outta here,
pretend the laptop never existed,
and let's actually do some gaming
on the Ally to see can I use this as my gaming device?
Because I kind of think I can.
I don't know if this is gonna work,
but we're gonna try "Cyberpunk 2077".
Now "Cyberpunk" is a game that doesn't really run
on most portable devices.
It's obviously very demanding,
but I think that the ROG Ally might just be able to play.
Probably have to turn some settings down,
but let's give it a try.
Cyberpunk, we got it.
Also for the record, those are the speakers of the Ally.
That's actually, that's pretty loud.
So I am plugged in to this 1080P 144 hertz display,
which is almost exact same
as the 1080P 120 hertz display on the internal.
Let's see if this will actually work.
Hey, we're 48 FPS. We got "Cyberpunk".
This is actually good.
Now again, low settings and we are running at 1080P,
but using the AMD FidelityFX,
which is essentially the upscaling,
so this is in the performance mode,
which is probably running it a little bit
of a closer to like a 720P native resolution.
Now I'm actually curious, so while this is running,
I'm gonna turn the volume all the way down.
Let me actually listen for the fan.
So mind you
this is the microphone almost touching the exhaust.
It's really quiet.
Oh, it's done. Okay, cool.
What's my score here?
52.6 FPS.
I actually think that I'm just gonna rock with it like this.
If I really wanted to, I could turn the resolution down
and actually start pushing like 60 plus FPS,
but I don't need to do that.
I guess one of the big differences if you're thinking
about the Ally compared to something like the Steam Deck
and the Ayaneo for that matter, is that you've got
a different class of hardware, right?
I will say there's still concerns here like battery life
and whatnot, but at the end of the day,
this has just a significantly higher level of performance,
which enables certain games to actually work.
Now mind you, I will say actually walking around,
that FSR is pretty strong.
There's a little bit of like artifacting as well with some
of like the motion, like you see,
almost leaves a little bit of like ghost trails.
That being said though, this is running on a handheld.
All right, so here's the real test.
Can I just flip it over to running on the internal display?
So I'm gonna go PC screen only,
so it's gonna hop it over to the Ally and then...
See, now I'm just using the controls on the Ally.
This, while it's a little touch blurry
on my 1080P, my 24 inch display.
When you shrink it down
to the seven inch panel, it looks terrific.
Mind you, I am plugged in right now
and I'm running at the full Turbo max settings.
Essentially it's actually a very slight overclock
compared to what it runs at from stock,
but this is such a good experience.
All right, so while this game's actually running,
I'm gonna turn it down and unplug it
and see what happens.
We're gonna unplug it.
We're now in Performance mode handheld.
Performance mode is kinda like the default mode.
So this is kind of the battery optimization mode.
And now we're a little bit closer to 30 FPS.
You know what? I'm kind of about this ROG right now.
I had low expectations.
Again, I was like, oh, okay,
this is gonna be annoying,
battery life's gonna be bad, blah, blah, blah.
But this level of performance just unlocks something,
like it's just a different class of hardware.
All right, let's play some other games.
But, didn't tell these guys, I have a little secret.
When I was thinking
about ideas of how I could test the ROG Ally,
I mean obviously it's super easy to just grab
like a USB hub and monitor and everything,
but I have something a little bit more creative in mind.
- Oh, okay. Hi. - Hello.
Can I show you something
which either is genius or stupid?
- So probably stupid?
- It's kinda stupid.
Okay, this is the NexDock.
This is an item that is really meant to be used
with a Samsung device, you know, DeX,
you plug it via a USB-C and you turn your phone
into a laptop.
- We did a whole Mystery Tech on it.
- Whole Mystery Tech on it.
Right now, with a single USB-C cable,
the ROG Ally is outputting a 1080P 60 signal
to this display, but also because it's a NexDock,
even though there's not any like processing inside here,
we've got a track pad, we've got a keyboard.
Theoretically I could just use this like a little laptop.
So say the Ally is my only computer
and I want to actually get some work done, I can plug it in.
The downside here is that the NexDock
won't push enough power to the Ally and I have now
also used my only USB-C port, so I can't plug anything in.
- So what is stopping you from plugging this
into a normal keyboard mouse and monitor setup?
- I already did that.
That's easy. That's too easy.
I want the portable setup.
And as you can see here, this is so much more portable.
- You know what's also portable?
- Yeah.
- It's so portable,
I could just, you know, put in my pocket and bye.
- Is that an ROG Ally in your pocket
or are you just happy to see me?
- I'm definitely not happy to see you.
- Aw. This was almost a good idea.
- This thing is very hot in my pocket.
It is burning a hole in my pocket.
- We've done a lot with the ROG Ally so far.
We've shown off the performance.
We've shown off the gaming PC chops.
Why don't we actually use it portably
and not use all this nonsense?
Let's see how it is.
I'm gonna go play some games.
- I wish you luck.
- This thing is really neat.
I will say as a person who loves playing
with gaming PCs and portable devices,
this really adds something to the market.
No, it is not better than the Steam Deck.
I think it's different.
I think it's a different market.
The Steam Deck is much more similar
to something like a Switch.
It is a portable handheld gaming console,
less so of a proper PC.
They literally say on the back here,
do you see this, handheld console PC.
That's what they put on the sticker.
The thing I haven't really talked about much
in this video is that once you're
in a game and everything, it's fine,
but as soon as you're actually trying
to do like regular Windows-y things,
it's really challenging.
The touchscreen doesn't work all the time with the keyboard.
You have to like tap it.
You have to swipe, like it's okay, but it's early.
It feels like this needs more time in the oven
for it to be like a proper like handheld console.
But if you're looking for a relatively affordable
very powerful handheld gaming computer,
and you're gonna hope that the console part
of the equation is made good
at some point with software updates,
then I will say I'm really happy with this ROG Ally.
It's legitimately really neat.
- [Alex] Is this gonna replace your Switch?
- I'm still gonna be using my Switch Lite.
A lot of Switch games that are just really good.
And there's a lot
of PC games that are really good that play on this.
It's like different strokes for different folks.
Some people like lemon, some people like lime.
Not everyone wants to drink Sprite.
- [Ken] What?
Or people just like spicy water.
- Topo Chico is not spicy water.
That's just bubbly water.