00:06So I would say out of all video game consoles of all time in my gaming career, the Xbox 360
00:11probably takes the cake in amount of hours spent. I'm a big Halo fan. I'm a big Modern Warfare,
00:17like the OG COD Modern Warfare. That one, Prestige 10, if you know, you know. I got this as an
00:23example of this Xbox. One of the last E3s, RIP to E3, 64 out of a thousand back in 2017.
00:30I have like my
00:31OG Xbox in the very back. So this has been a long time coming. Obviously this is a collab between
00:37Xbox and Asus ROG. The original like Ally and Ally X already exists. The Ally X like Xbox edition,
00:44I guess is the revamped version. So you can see right out of the box, we have both logos, ROG
00:49as
00:49well as Xbox. Unboxing experience was very nice. We're unboxing a new gaming console. Previous to
00:54this, we've only had the Switch 2. Now we have an updated, I guess like ROG Ally. So it comes
00:59in two
01:00different variants. The black one, which you see here, as well as the white one. So this is the
01:04Ally X, whereas the white one is just the regular like Xbox Ally. There's some pretty decent differences
01:09between them, which I'll get to in a second. But inside you also see the power brick, user manuals,
01:14warranty info, and this stand, which I almost forgot. And I wouldn't even call it that. It
01:19is a piece of cardboard to hold the console, which you see right here. If you do want anything
01:28separate, like a, you know, a travel case, we'll get to that at the end when we talk about the
01:32price
01:33because it is expensive. But I guess I will mention this costs $1,000. That's US, 1300 Canadian full
01:40thoughts on that at the end. But the differences between the ROG Xbox Ally X and the ROG Xbox
01:46Ally, like I said, the one in white, mostly around performance and battery life. So the more premium
01:50one has 24 gigs of RAM, one terabyte of storage and 80 watt hour battery versus 16 gigs of RAM,
01:55512 gigs of storage and only 60 watt hours. It also has the AMD Ryzen AI Z2A chip, whereas this
02:01has
02:01the new flagship chip, the AMD Ryzen AI Z2 Extreme. This one will have eight cores and 16 threads versus
02:08the
02:09cheaper ally, which pretty much has half of that. There's a couple of physical differences as well.
02:13So the first one on one of the USB-C ports, one of them is USB 4 versus 3.2
02:18and the micro SD card
02:19slot that's UHS 2 versus one once again on the cheaper ally. The last thing I guess like physical
02:25difference is pretty key is the actual triggers. These ones are impulse triggers versus the haul
02:30triggers on once again, the regular ally and the overall grip is inspired by holding an Xbox
02:36controller. So if you've ever held one of these, which is super comfy, once again, personal preference
02:40here, I prefer Xbox controllers over like PlayStation controllers. That's once again, just me. This feels
02:46really comfortable to hold in the hand. Whereas I say my Nintendo Switch 2 as an example, which I've been
02:50using since launch, your hand like cramps up. It is too thin. I get the form factor, but after a
02:56while, my
02:56hands literally start cramping up and so many people have said that. So the comfort for this is a lot
03:01better.
03:01So you'll be able to play this for prolonged use. So the screen is actually the same one found on
03:05the ROG
03:06Ally X. It's seven inches, 1080p. It's still LCD. I wish we had like an OLED panel on this. The
03:12screen
03:12brightness is still the same. So like 500 nits. Don't get me wrong. It's a decent panel. It's got AMD
03:16FreeSync Premium. So it's got a variable refresh rate can go all the way up to 120 hertz that you
03:21can get by
03:22playing outside. It might be a little bit dim under full sunlight and especially off angle. You can actually see
03:27that here like on camera. It doesn't get as bright as you want. And just like the Switch 2, people
03:32always give that flack for not having an OLED panel. I get it. It would be nice. I guess I
03:37will
03:37have to wait for V2 or sometime next year for an upgrade. So getting to the actual performance and
03:42usability of this day by day, this has really streamlined the ease of use of getting into a
03:47Windows gaming handheld. If you've used one like previously, it's really clunky going through the
03:51Windows UI, especially something that's meant to be like a gaming handheld with like a touchscreen.
03:55You don't have that many options. When you initially boot this up, it goes into the Xbox app,
04:00which is their full screen experience. And something as simple as entering in the pin
04:03before you'd have to, you know, manually enter that in on the touchscreen. Now it's all mapped to the
04:06buttons. And now it's essentially just like an easy app interface when you want to access your games,
04:11no matter what game library you have, if you are subscribed to Game Pass, or if you already have
04:15existing games on say like Steam, Epic Games or Battle.net, whatever it is, it's just a lot easier to
04:20navigate and to get to gaming, which is the important thing. But overall, the physical feel of the
04:25console is really good. Buttons are super solid. Like I said, it has those new triggers, the joysticks,
04:29their hall effect, they feel good. And if you've used any modern Xbox controller, you literally feel
04:34right at home. You've also got these mappable ones on the back. You've obviously got the dedicated
04:39Xbox button, you've got access to Armory Crate, or even the library button on the other side.
04:43And overall, it just improves on pretty much every aspect of the Ally X, which a lot of people already
04:48loved. Even something simple as going into Armory Crate, the UI has gotten a lot smoother, way more
04:54streamlined. Once again, I feel like that's the common theme with this. Everything is just easier
04:58to get to. It feels more like an actual gaming console versus say like running Windows on a gaming
05:04console. So getting to the actual performance, I've crunched a lot of games on this over the past
05:08week. So if you've played the original Ally X, you're looking at around like a 15 to 20% increase
05:13in
05:13performance, but also the efficiency, which helps a lot with battery. For AAA titles, you're getting
05:18over that console benchmark of 30 frames, which is great for a handheld. So anywhere around like that
05:2345 to 60, obviously, depending on what game. Cyberpunk, as an example, probably the most graphic
05:28intensive game was getting around like 45 frames. And that was with their handheld preset. But if you
05:32kind of tinker around in the settings, you can get, you know, obviously a bit better performance,
05:36better frames, sacrificing some of the battery life. And that's, I think, where the biggest thing
05:40where this lies, it really depends what mode you end up choosing. So as an example, in Armory Crate,
05:45you can kind of see the different presets. So all the way from like Windows, technically like 11,
05:48when you're just browsing the actual main UI to silent, that's around 13 watts performance and
05:54all the way up to turbo 25 watts. Obviously, if you're selecting turbo, the fans will ramp up,
05:59you can actually go a bit higher than that when you're plugged in and you can get up to 35
06:03watts of
06:04TDP. But say you're playing like a simple platformer like Silksong, you don't need to be in turbo
06:08mode, you can get by in say silent mode and still increase the overall like battery, the longevity
06:13of it really depends what game and how much you're going to push this. Another simple platformer,
06:18for example, that I was playing Hades 2, you can pretty much cap the frame rates. Obviously being,
06:22you know, a big Xbox fan, Halo is a huge part of my gaming career. So even playing the latest
06:27like
06:27Halo Infinite, super, super smooth, nice to actually play like on the console was playing,
06:32you know, some Forza, which is great. I'm pretty into cars, I cannot wait till the next Forza comes out
06:37like Forza 6 in Japan. Like all things are aligning like big Japan fan, big car fan and big
06:42gaming fan kind of all together. So super pumped about that. And on screen here, you can see the
06:47rest of the benchmarks that I got throughout all the games that I ended up playing. But for the
06:51actual battery life I mentioned really depends on what you do. But it technically has the same
06:55battery as the Ally X so that 80 watt hours, but thanks to like twofold the new Z2 Extreme chip
07:00and the
07:01Xbox app just being a lot more efficient and Windows isn't in the background running all the processing.
07:06So expect around like 10 to 15% better battery life. So in silent mode around four to five hours
07:11performance, I'd say like three, three and a half turbo around like two and a half. Once again,
07:15everything was just on screen. One thing I will say surprisingly good as I've used this more,
07:21this has the best speakers in any gaming console that I've used like, and stop. Listen to this.
07:28Here we go.
07:3475%
07:44It's a copyright strike. Copyright. Hopefully worth it for this video. But I think most of the time
07:51you'll be using this like on the go. So you might have headphones on. But if you are playing this
07:55at
07:56home, you can get by totally with just these speakers like really blown away with those better
08:00than most laptops, to be honest, which is impressive. But like I said, for portability,
08:04if this is the first time you're seeing this gaming console, if you haven't seen the Ally X super
08:08portable, like still easy enough to carry around, obviously not as thin as the switch. But like I said,
08:13that trade off, it's way more comfortable. I do wish we're gonna get back to price now. So 1000 USD
08:191300
08:20Canadian. Unfortunately, no extra accessories or goodies. So even like this case, because you're
08:26carrying around something expensive, you want to keep it protected. This will run you like 50 bucks,
08:30100 bucks Canadian. On top of that, you know, you still have to buy your games, which are expensive.
08:35Or if you are subscribed to Game Pass, that is obviously like a monthly or yearly fee. That is the
08:41new ROG Xbox Ally X. Xbox's first official foray into a handheld. Dope that they partnered with Asus
08:48for this. I think the ROG was the right choice. It is such a good piece of hardware. And for
08:52them
08:52to kind of stick the Xbox name on it, obviously, the Xbox UI just makes it that much better.
08:57If you're already coming from the Ally X, I think you can get by unless you're like a true Xbox
09:03like
09:03fanboy like me. If you're coming from something obviously like older than that, like the OG,
09:08ROG Ally. It's a great upgrade. And even looking at something like say like the MSI Claw, which is
09:13just so clunky now. So if you're on the fence between those, obviously, this is the one to grab.
09:18Let me know what game you'd rock on the go. Handheld gaming consoles have obviously gotten way more
09:22powerful. Crazy to think about. Like I wish I was a kid and could play something with this much power.
09:27Like in my hand, I was like literally tethered to my Xbox to a TV. The fact that you can
09:32get like
09:33better performance than a console in something handheld. We've come a long way in handheld gaming
09:37consoles. Anyways, hope you guys enjoyed my unboxing and review of this. Let me know your
09:41guys thoughts and I will catch the rest of you in one of my next vids. Peace.
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