I got it last week and went on a gaming spree. I finished High on life, Guardians of the Galaxy, Resident evil 2 remake and currentlly playing RE 4 remake and Promedeus. This beast can run almost everything so well.
Very genuine and honest review! Appreciate that! I love my Ally. I would agree the initial setup was a mess but after all the BIOS and several software and drive updates, the device performs well. Needless to say, I’ll be keeping mine to play Diablo 4 and among other triple A titles on the go 💪🏼
Just picked up mine two weeks ago and I had no issues anything during set up. Only issue I had so far was with the one screen keyboard going really small on the desktop and not being able to expand the size. But I love it. Sold my steam deck. I’ll get a steam deck 2 because this display is just stunning and it’s much quieter than my steam deck. This device is so versatile. Battery life isn’t the best but it does what I need it to do. Also you can drop from 1080 to 720 and upscale to 1080. It’s gorgeous. I think certain fans boys just hate on it so much cause of their precious steam deck. I like both but I don’t need them both. I also have my switch Oled and that display is still my fav. Also new to your channel and thank you for your unbiased review. New sub here.
Thanks for coming by and leaving your thoughts I echo a lot of what you are saying. A lot of the negativity isn’t fully warranted some is. But so far I have been completely in love
I bought mine on Thursday and been playing Elder Scrolls Online, and its AMAZING!!! can't fault it and I have come from PS4/ PS5 System. While at work I'm on it and needs a car charger, apart from that its been great. I would fully recommend. From Neo in Australia :)
Screen is definitely the best thing about the Ally. I was also incredibly surprised with how well it performed with newer AAA games. Anything with FSR or more than 5 years old will almost surely perform well at 1080p at Medium.
The customer service I've had from Asus has been awful. I tried to return the product after 3 weeks for a refund and they have refused to refund me. My SD card reader won't work at all it's dead. I'm getting it repaired then selling it on eBay. I've no confidence in the company or the product.
this is the thing though... SD cards are rated to operate at up to 85c, the air coming out of those vents is not 85c, the airflow even though its very warm air is neither a positive or negative for the SD card, on one hand the SD card has warm air blowing over it but on the other hand its being passively cooled, yes cooled, as long as the air flowing over the card is cooler than the card is actually operating then it is being actively cooled even though the air is warm. Ofcourse if the card is not operating at super high temps then the airflow likely is warming up the card but it still should not be near the max operating temp, you wouldn't be able to physically touch the card when ejected after a gaming sesh if it was getting to those temps. Now i dont know for a fact that the air being expelled is less than 85c, i suspect strongly that it is because it would pose a serious risk to your surroundings, place the device on a table and it may damage that table if the air coming out of the vent is 85c, a typical hair dryer at its hottest setting will blow out air around 60c, 60c is hot you would not be able to place your hand over the opening, you wouldn't want to on the ally at full tilt either but you certainly could for a short period, there is just no way the air being expelled is 85c. The real test that needs to be conducted is finding out exactly what conditions that SD card reader and SD card are operating under, how hot exactly is the air flowing over the card and reader, perhaps the SD card is just not living up to what the manufacturer says it should, who knows... i just strongly suspect its not a heat issue and i think Asus have been bamboozled into giving an answer quickly and it was likely the wrong answer.
As for the sd make, I experienced the 100% active and nonexistent read/write speed issue with a 512 samsung pro like you recommended after formatting as ntfs and moving a couple of games to it. This was when it was in the ally slot, as well as an external slot on a dock. I managed to move one game back to the ssd, but the second on refused to move anything back. I eventually just reformatted the card to exfat and it performed fine, but not as game storage. I wouldnt be surprised if it was windows 11 itself, or defender that is causing the issue. Glad yours works fine, but its not the solution in all cases.
I just posted a test vid on my channel. Its not the card, and it doesnt seem to destroy the card either. Reader hardware isnt all the novel, so its either something new to win11, or a wonky reader driver.
I think the overheating is occurring during downloading massive games. The heat of the system combined with the heat of the SD card during those 100% use periods.
@@Gamekod3 My Ally murdered my Silicon Power SD card and then the reader committed seppuku in shame. I'm about to RMA my system and even though I have the deck, I'm gonna miss that screen and the extra juice.
@@JASONKENTJANAI have no mods in turbo Mode 30W i get Arround 30 fps on Medium settings and 25 on high I didn,t optimized the game at all just started it after downloading and Switches to Medium settings
while I love the Ally and am enjoying it, your Audio is terrible. I could not hear you at normal and barely understandable at Max. Sorry couldn't stay, get that Audio sorted out. Peace
Do you think this device will be able to upgrade hardware in the future? Such as upgrading internals for better performance? Battery, RAM, CPU, etc etc?
Not without doing so very manually, a couple downsides is that memory is soldered to the board, the battery is custom and the cpu is a custom built apu with power supply custom built for it too. So the only real upgrade you will get is nvme drives and over air firmware improvements (which will help). There really aren't any modular ones on the market. If you are really adamant at extending the life you can use their xgmobile external graphics cards which are quite impressive.
lol comments like these talk way more about ppl than the "problem" itself. Love the ally as well.. linux and apple fanboys are crying instead of coming up wit awesome drivers for it.
@@Gamekod3the issue is if you are prepared to have a laptop/desktop OS missing it's primary input devices of keyboard and mouse. Then sure if you're prepared to work around that. Personally I want a handheld pick up and play console. That's not the Ally. Today Windows literally shit the bed twice with a complete bsod on my work machine. Multiple decades and it's still as unstable as it ever was🤦. On a desktop ok you can live with it, on a portable handheld console there is no way I want to deal with that shit.
@@eagle_rb_mmoomin_418 i have not had a BSOD on my pc in the last 6 years, legit hand on heart not had one, in that time ive changed components many times, went from a 2080ti to 3080ti to now a 4090, went from a 9900k to a 5800x 3d, went from 16gb ram to 32gb ram, added nvme storage and eliminated any HDD in the system... not once had a BSOD. As for the ally, i currently own a steam deck and ally... other handhelds aswell like a miyoo mini etc but for the sake of this point a steam deck and ally, starting both systems up i would say the ally takes 10-15 seconds longer to get into a game than steam deck, as soon as i boot the ally up i have to do literally nothing more than steam deck to get a game running, start the steam deck and you a presented with your game list right... start the ally and it immediately opens armory crate and presents you with your game list, click on the game you want to play and it boots just like steam deck. What people do not seem to understand about the Ally is you only have to interact with windows when you do not want to play a game or if wish to install a game... thats it, 9 times out of 10 i do not even see the windows desktop, it loads into the crate and i launch a game. The only difference being that 10 or 15 seconds you wait for the crate to actually load. When actually interacting with windows itself its pretty much seemless, the screen is far more responsive than steam deck thankfully because if it wasn't then yes windows would be tragic to use on handheld but its really not, tap what you want and it works, there are shortcuts to bring keyboard up and there you go, the one single issue ive had is if you need to click a small box next to other small boxes you might fat finger it and tap on the box above or below, not exactly the end of the world. I think a lot of people imagine how bad it could be or listen way to closely to other people who also have never used the device and just parrot what they say.
I had a few Problems with Windows (Not a big Deal ) but once its done you just can,t stop playing and iam comming from console never touched Windows before
I got it last week and went on a gaming spree. I finished High on life, Guardians of the Galaxy, Resident evil 2 remake and currentlly playing RE 4 remake and Promedeus. This beast can run almost everything so well.
It’s so great to play real AAA games on the go
Very genuine and honest review! Appreciate that! I love my Ally. I would agree the initial setup was a mess but after all the BIOS and several software and drive updates, the device performs well. Needless to say, I’ll be keeping mine to play Diablo 4 and among other triple A titles on the go 💪🏼
Just picked up mine two weeks ago and I had no issues anything during set up. Only issue I had so far was with the one screen keyboard going really small on the desktop and not being able to expand the size. But I love it. Sold my steam deck. I’ll get a steam deck 2 because this display is just stunning and it’s much quieter than my steam deck. This device is so versatile. Battery life isn’t the best but it does what I need it to do. Also you can drop from 1080 to 720 and upscale to 1080. It’s gorgeous. I think certain fans boys just hate on it so much cause of their precious steam deck. I like both but I don’t need them both. I also have my switch Oled and that display is still my fav. Also new to your channel and thank you for your unbiased review. New sub here.
Thanks for coming by and leaving your thoughts I echo a lot of what you are saying. A lot of the negativity isn’t fully warranted some is. But so far I have been completely in love
I bought mine on Thursday and been playing Elder Scrolls Online, and its AMAZING!!! can't fault it and I have come from PS4/ PS5 System. While at work I'm on it and needs a car charger, apart from that its been great. I would fully recommend. From Neo in Australia :)
323 bios works perfect! fixed all my dock and powerbank issues.
I have verified this as well! My third party dock now works great!
@@Gamekod3 and be careful with some cables. I thought my dock was still not working after the 323 bios. changed the cable and voila. it worked!
Screen is definitely the best thing about the Ally. I was also incredibly surprised with how well it performed with newer AAA games. Anything with FSR or more than 5 years old will almost surely perform well at 1080p at Medium.
one of the most informative reviews!! Kudos
Thanks just trying to help out this newer community! Appreciate you coming by!
The customer service I've had from Asus has been awful. I tried to return the product after 3 weeks for a refund and they have refused to refund me. My SD card reader won't work at all it's dead. I'm getting it repaired then selling it on eBay. I've no confidence in the company or the product.
Ever think it's overheating because it's right above the fan heat port!!! Why would you put a SD card reader there!! Lol
this is the thing though... SD cards are rated to operate at up to 85c, the air coming out of those vents is not 85c, the airflow even though its very warm air is neither a positive or negative for the SD card, on one hand the SD card has warm air blowing over it but on the other hand its being passively cooled, yes cooled, as long as the air flowing over the card is cooler than the card is actually operating then it is being actively cooled even though the air is warm. Ofcourse if the card is not operating at super high temps then the airflow likely is warming up the card but it still should not be near the max operating temp, you wouldn't be able to physically touch the card when ejected after a gaming sesh if it was getting to those temps.
Now i dont know for a fact that the air being expelled is less than 85c, i suspect strongly that it is because it would pose a serious risk to your surroundings, place the device on a table and it may damage that table if the air coming out of the vent is 85c, a typical hair dryer at its hottest setting will blow out air around 60c, 60c is hot you would not be able to place your hand over the opening, you wouldn't want to on the ally at full tilt either but you certainly could for a short period, there is just no way the air being expelled is 85c.
The real test that needs to be conducted is finding out exactly what conditions that SD card reader and SD card are operating under, how hot exactly is the air flowing over the card and reader, perhaps the SD card is just not living up to what the manufacturer says it should, who knows... i just strongly suspect its not a heat issue and i think Asus have been bamboozled into giving an answer quickly and it was likely the wrong answer.
As for the sd make, I experienced the 100% active and nonexistent read/write speed issue with a 512 samsung pro like you recommended after formatting as ntfs and moving a couple of games to it. This was when it was in the ally slot, as well as an external slot on a dock. I managed to move one game back to the ssd, but the second on refused to move anything back. I eventually just reformatted the card to exfat and it performed fine, but not as game storage. I wouldnt be surprised if it was windows 11 itself, or defender that is causing the issue. Glad yours works fine, but its not the solution in all cases.
I looked in task manager, but it didnt indicate what process was running the sd in a 100% active state with no read/write thruput.
Thanks for sharing your situation I hope it gets resolved
That’s the weirdest part for me as well
Im going to look into it more. If i find something ill try and post. Cheers.
I just posted a test vid on my channel. Its not the card, and it doesnt seem to destroy the card either. Reader hardware isnt all the novel, so its either something new to win11, or a wonky reader driver.
I think the overheating is occurring during downloading massive games. The heat of the system combined with the heat of the SD card during those 100% use periods.
It’s possible I have continued to only have issues with the silicon power sd card but likely it happened during that 100% usage phase
@@Gamekod3 My Ally murdered my Silicon Power SD card and then the reader committed seppuku in shame. I'm about to RMA my system and even though I have the deck, I'm gonna miss that screen and the extra juice.
Unfortunately, this review came out right before the awesome 323 bios.
Yep it’s definitely improved things a lot but I was high on the device from the beginning
how does beamng run on that? i’m also concerned with the upcoming cities skylines 2. the previous (current) game is already incredibly ram heavy
I RUN BEAMG MG IT WORKS FANTASTIC NO LAG GOOD NUMBERS ALL AROUND THE BORED :}
@@jonathanesqueda6164 nice. do you have any mod? what fps do u get?
@@JASONKENTJANAI have no mods in turbo Mode 30W i get Arround 30 fps on Medium settings and 25 on high
I didn,t optimized the game at all just started it after downloading and Switches to Medium settings
while I love the Ally and am enjoying it, your Audio is terrible. I could not hear you at normal and barely understandable at Max. Sorry couldn't stay, get that Audio sorted out. Peace
Do you think this device will be able to upgrade hardware in the future? Such as upgrading internals for better performance? Battery, RAM, CPU, etc etc?
Not without doing so very manually, a couple downsides is that memory is soldered to the board, the battery is custom and the cpu is a custom built apu with power supply custom built for it too. So the only real upgrade you will get is nvme drives and over air firmware improvements (which will help). There really aren't any modular ones on the market. If you are really adamant at extending the life you can use their xgmobile external graphics cards which are quite impressive.
@@Gamekod3 the z1 extreme is just a 7840u but AI cores disabled.
@@Jaxv3r hence custom but yes it’s not a major change I meant the entire board is custom
@@Gamekod3 I see, thank for the clarification
It runs on windows. That alone is a no go.
That’s pretty much the biggest reason to get it because of its flexibility
lol comments like these talk way more about ppl than the "problem" itself. Love the ally as well.. linux and apple fanboys are crying instead of coming up wit awesome drivers for it.
@@Gamekod3the issue is if you are prepared to have a laptop/desktop OS missing it's primary input devices of keyboard and mouse. Then sure if you're prepared to work around that. Personally I want a handheld pick up and play console. That's not the Ally. Today Windows literally shit the bed twice with a complete bsod on my work machine. Multiple decades and it's still as unstable as it ever was🤦. On a desktop ok you can live with it, on a portable handheld console there is no way I want to deal with that shit.
@@eagle_rb_mmoomin_418 i have not had a BSOD on my pc in the last 6 years, legit hand on heart not had one, in that time ive changed components many times, went from a 2080ti to 3080ti to now a 4090, went from a 9900k to a 5800x 3d, went from 16gb ram to 32gb ram, added nvme storage and eliminated any HDD in the system... not once had a BSOD.
As for the ally, i currently own a steam deck and ally... other handhelds aswell like a miyoo mini etc but for the sake of this point a steam deck and ally, starting both systems up i would say the ally takes 10-15 seconds longer to get into a game than steam deck, as soon as i boot the ally up i have to do literally nothing more than steam deck to get a game running, start the steam deck and you a presented with your game list right... start the ally and it immediately opens armory crate and presents you with your game list, click on the game you want to play and it boots just like steam deck. What people do not seem to understand about the Ally is you only have to interact with windows when you do not want to play a game or if wish to install a game... thats it, 9 times out of 10 i do not even see the windows desktop, it loads into the crate and i launch a game. The only difference being that 10 or 15 seconds you wait for the crate to actually load.
When actually interacting with windows itself its pretty much seemless, the screen is far more responsive than steam deck thankfully because if it wasn't then yes windows would be tragic to use on handheld but its really not, tap what you want and it works, there are shortcuts to bring keyboard up and there you go, the one single issue ive had is if you need to click a small box next to other small boxes you might fat finger it and tap on the box above or below, not exactly the end of the world.
I think a lot of people imagine how bad it could be or listen way to closely to other people who also have never used the device and just parrot what they say.
I had a few Problems with Windows (Not a big Deal ) but once its done you just can,t stop playing and iam comming from console never touched Windows before