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Looking to level up from your Switch...? Ben has just the thing.

This is Asus’ new portable gaming device, the ROG Ally X. Watch as we review all things battery life, screen quality, game play and more… Would this be something you’d go for?

#gaming #handheldgaming #review @asusau

Disclosure: Man of Many was sent this product for editorial review… And boy was it fun!
Transcript
00:00Do you miss the PlayStation PSP as much as I do?
00:04Do you have a Nintendo Switch,
00:05but you wish this thing could run more than just Animal Crossing?
00:09Then check this out.
00:10This is the Asus ROG Ali X.
00:12It's a mouthful of a name,
00:14but this is basically a gaming PC in your hand.
00:21So I've been using this thing for about a month now.
00:23I actually used the previous generation device, the white one.
00:26They've doubled the battery life,
00:27and they've doubled the storage size in this new ROG Ali X model.
00:32It's 300 bucks more expensive.
00:33So you're looking at $1599 in Australia.
00:36So what they've kept the same,
00:38the screen's the same and the process is the same.
00:40So I still got the AMD Ryzen Z1 Extreme.
00:43It still has a 1080p, 120 hertz refresh rate,
00:45FreeSync Premium display.
00:47You don't ever have to really run games at 120 hertz on a screen like this,
00:51but if you want to, you can do that too.
00:52So basically it's a Windows 11 PC.
00:54There is a little bit of annoyance with touching these tiny little icons,
00:59but most of the time you're just going to press this button here
01:02and go into Asus's special armory crate,
01:06and in here it pulls all your games.
01:08So if you have this, as you can see here, there's little Steam icons.
01:11So these are all from Steam,
01:12but if I had Xbox Game Pass, they would pull those in here too.
01:15So I've been playing Forza for a few weeks now
01:17and you can get up to two hours of battery life on the optimized settings.
01:21So Forza will automatically optimize the game.
01:23You get sort of two to two and a half hours if you're stretching it,
01:26depending on what you're doing,
01:27depending if you're playing online or not out of this device,
01:29which is pretty good.
01:30We also have to talk about storage because it has twice the storage size.
01:33The SSD now is one terabyte, so it's literally double the amount.
01:36Looking at the device itself, they've changed some things.
01:39So they've changed the joysticks.
01:41The joysticks are new.
01:42They're better.
01:43They've had like,
01:44they said something like five million times
01:46they've been tested or flicked or something,
01:48but basically they're smoother.
01:49One of my main complaints as well about the previous generation device
01:53was that the fans would start blowing air so loud
01:56that it was almost like you had to play with headphones on
01:58because you'd just be holding on to what felt like
02:00some sort of explosive device.
02:02It would also get really hot.
02:03Like if you're putting it in there, you'd be like,
02:04I can't even put it down on a table
02:06because it felt like putting down an iron or something.
02:08But they've fixed a lot of that.
02:10It has that new vent
02:11and there's a slightly different design in the back.
02:14The fan blades are also a little bit thinner,
02:16so they're more efficient.
02:18And in most games with optimized settings,
02:21you're only going to be sitting around
02:22at like 65 to 80 degree GPU temperature,
02:25which is actually pretty good.
02:26It doesn't climb up much higher than that
02:28and it stays pretty consistent.
02:29So how does this device compare to other ones,
02:33especially in screen?
02:34So there's just one distinction
02:35that something like a Lenovo Legion Go has.
02:38That's an 8.8 inch device with a QHD display.
02:42It also weighs a lot more, as I've mentioned,
02:44but it's a bigger display.
02:46There is also the Steam Deck,
02:48which has a similarly sized display,
02:50but it's OLED.
02:50So the display on this necessarily isn't up to par
02:54or it doesn't combine the best of both worlds.
02:56It doesn't have an OLED
02:56and it's not a little bit bigger,
02:58but I think it's fine.
03:00It's in a good sweet spot.
03:01I was happy
03:01and I don't really mind it at all.
03:04So would I recommend you spend $1,599 on the Ally X?
03:10Yes.
03:10I think it's enjoyable.
03:11If you don't have a gaming PC,
03:13so I don't have a gaming PC.
03:15I don't have a gaming laptop.
03:16I use Mac, literally everything.
03:18I already loved the previous generation device,
03:20but it was quite hard to recommend it
03:21because of that smaller battery life.
03:23It had half the amount of battery life.
03:24You can only play a game for like an hour.
03:25But this one has pretty much addressed all those things.
03:28It's added storage,
03:29it's added comfort in hand
03:30with these new analog sticks with the D-pad,
03:32everything's a little bit improved.
03:34And if you got one of these things,
03:35you'd be pretty happy.
03:36I'm not sure you'd be happy
03:37if you had one of the previous generation devices,
03:39but probably the best handheld gaming device
03:42that I've used.
03:42So if you're like me and you miss the PSP,
03:45but you now want to play all your PC games in your hand,
03:49I think that ROG AliEx is a great option.
03:52And would you cop this thing at $1,599 in Australia?
03:55Let me know.
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