THIS is the ASUS ROG Ally, the
best $700 handheld gaming console, and this is a $700 gaming
laptop, but which is better? These are the 7 biggest differences between them! First up is portability, and obviously the Ally is
better here, it’s just so much smaller and lighter compared to the smallest gaming laptops. Even its
power brick is tiny! The Ally is just much easier to take with you on the go, and it’s way easier to
pull out on a bus, train or plane than a laptop! Using the Ally in handheld mode feels much
more comfortable, especially if you want to lie down in bed or sit on the couch. A laptop
sitting on your legs gets uncomfortable fast, especially as that often blocks the air
vents underneath, making the laptop hotter. That leads us into the second difference
- heat. The Ally only felt a little warm after gaming on it for an hour, I never found it
uncomfortable. Gaming laptops on the other hand, well, it varies. Most of them don’t actually feel
too bad on the keyboard deck if you’re just using them at a desk, but like I said, if you block the
bottom vents by putting it on your legs or bed, it’s going to heat up. The best solution to
keep the gaming laptop cool is to run it on a desk with a stand or cooling pad, but those are
additional costs and the Ally is just more comfy. There’s also just less fan noise coming from
the Ally while gaming, here, have a listen. Gaming laptops tend to run hotter because
they usually perform better, more power equals more heat, it’s a tradeoff, bringing us to the
third important difference, gaming performance. Both the Ally and gaming laptop run Windows 11, so it’s pretty straightforward
to compare the same games. The Ally was very close to my $700 gaming
laptop with RTX 2050 graphics in Cyberpunk 2077, and a little ahead of a cheaper GTX 1650
gaming laptop, while the more expensive RTX 3050 laptop had a bigger lead. Testing
was done with FSR 2.1 upscaling enabled, a useful feature the Ally can use
to boost FPS in supported games. Just before the next game test,
although this laptop is $700 right now, you can definitely find a better
model if there’s a good sale, like this RTX 3050 laptop for $600 that we’ve
got listed on our gaminglaptop.deals website. But deals change daily, so check the link below
to get the best deal on your next gaming laptop! Interestingly in Fortnite, the cheaper 2050
was slightly ahead of the 3050 laptop, probably because my specific model has a higher GPU power
limit. Regardless, the Ally was still running well at close to 90 FPS on medium settings, and was 16%
faster than a cheaper, but bigger GTX 1650 laptop. Many games like this also have Nvidia’s
DLSS support, so it is possible for the RTX laptops to get a further FPS boost by
turning this on. Unfortunately this game does not have AMD’s version, FSR, so it
cannot be used to boost FPS on the Ally. And you’ll be watching those games on the screen, which is the fourth thing we need to
compare. Although the Ally is more portable, it’s got a smaller 7 inch screen. Some people say
size doesn’t matter, but most gaming laptops at this price point are bigger at 15 inches, and
I just found that much nicer to play games on. That said, the quality of the screen
really varies depending on the laptop. $700 gaming laptop screens usually have
washed out colors and aren’t very bright with a slower response time, which was
the case here, as these are all areas where the Ally was doing better compared
to my laptop, despite its smaller screen. Basically the Ally screen will look better
compared to most gaming laptop screens at this price. The Ally also has a touch screen,
something that no gaming laptop at this price point offers, which leads us nicely to
the fifth difference - the controls. With a gaming laptop, by default you’re
limited to the keyboard and touchpad, while the Ally already has a controller
built in with A B X Y buttons, a D-pad, left and right triggers, and analog sticks.
Now a keyboard with WASD definitely has its advantages in the PC world, but let’s
be real, no one is gaming on a touchpad, so if you want a mouse that’s going to be
an extra cost. You can use a controller with the laptop, but again, that’s another
cost that’s already built into the Ally. You can also connect a keyboard and mouse to
the Ally if you want, Bluetooth is easiest, but there’s a time and a place for
everything. Could you use your Ally for more than just gaming, like take it to
school or work instead of a laptop? Sure, but a laptop is probably easier,
as it’s got those built in. The Sixth biggest difference is battery
life, and performance while running on battery power - which are kind of
important things for portable devices. Again laptops are larger, so there’s more
room for a bigger battery, but the Ally is doing well considering its smaller 40Wh battery.
The Ally lasted for an hour and 5 minutes while running The Witcher 3 at 1080p medium settings 30
FPS, which was actually better compared to some laptops with larger batteries with a similar
price tag. AMD laptops with bigger batteries could almost last twice as long, but the Ally
was still doing quite well outside of gaming like when just streaming a video, again very
impressive considering that smaller battery size. The Ally’s CPU performance is also
impressive when running on battery power, especially compared to my other $700 laptop.
I’ve also included results from some other laptop processors that you can find around
this price point. AMD’s Ryzen processors generally do quite well here, but as
the Ally’s new Z1 Extreme chip is 4nm, it’s super power efficient and beats any other
8 core AMD gaming laptop I’ve tested so far. Some of these laptops can perform better
in multicore once we connect the charger, but the Ally is still significantly ahead
when it comes to single core performance, which is important in games. The main takeaway
is the Ally does not lose too much performance when we unplug its charger, but most laptops do. I mean the fact that the Ally’s processor
performs closely to AMD’s desktop Ryzen 7 5700X is kind of crazy considering it’s
a small handheld device. And that that desktop processor requires much more power
to run. This is desktop PC level performance, and we can actually use the
Ally to replace a PC completely! So let’s cover that in our next big difference,
upgrade options. With the Ally, apart from the MicroSD card slot, pretty much all you can upgrade
inside is the included 512GB SSD. That’s limited to the shorter 2230 size, which right now
maxes out at 2TB. My gaming laptop on the other hand can fit two longer 2280 sized drives,
which could technically max out at 8TB each, though right now just one drive costs more than
the whole laptop! Most gaming laptops also let you upgrade the RAM and the Wi-Fi, both of which
are soldered on the Ally and cannot be changed, but that said, some gaming laptops may also solder
those components, it really varies by machine. My gaming laptop only has one memory stick
installed, which is very common at this price point. Adding in another stick would
definitely help it perform better in games, but of course that costs more
money, it doesn’t come for free. What sets the Ally apart is ASUS’s XG Mobile. This
is more than just a dock, as it’s got a much more powerful laptop GPU inside. Mine has Nvidia’s
RTX 4090 mobile GPU, which turns the Ally into a 4K gaming beast, and lets you use Nvidia’s
latest features like DLSS and frame generation. With the XG Mobile attached, you can basically
dock the Ally and use it like a desktop PC. It gives you more connectivity too, like an ethernet
port for a more stable connection, HDMI and DisplayPort for hooking up a monitor or TV, and
USB ports for connecting a keyboard and mouse. Now my $700 laptop actually has Thunderbolt,
so I could use an external GPU dock to get more ports as well as add in a desktop graphics
card, but every time I’ve compared the XG Mobile with Thunderbolt, it’s not even close. ASUS’s XG
Mobile solution is way more stable and performs better in my experience, as Thunderbolt just
has less bandwidth between the GPU and CPU. Thunderbolt is also usually much less common with
cheaper gaming laptops, I was honestly surprised when I found out that mine had it, so in most
cases using an eGPU won’t be an upgrade option. The Ally and XG Mobile combination
is seriously crazy, check this video next to see how it compares against
gaming laptops and desktop graphics cards - the results are going to shock
you, so I’ll see you in that one next!
