ROG Ally 6 Months Later - Problems and How They Were Resolved

hello everyone digital Mouse here I purchased the Asus Rog Ally on pre-order and I was excited to get it as an alternative to the switch and steam deck I was looking forward to playing Windows games on a handheld device however my real world experience with it was less than optimal when you open the box you'll find a set of instructions telling you to plug it in turn it on then start it up underneath that you'll find the Asus Rog Ally the Asus Rog Ally comes with an AMD ryzen Z1 instu processor 16 GB of RAM and 512 GB of storage it was lighter than I thought it would be it weighs approximately 68 g a significant difference from the steam deck which weighs 669 G asus's packaging is very well organized underneath the rock Ally you'll find another box which contains proprietary paperwork I almost never read these things the final box contains the USB type-c 65w AC adapter there's also a cardboard stand it it would seem that Asus would be able to include something more than a cardboard stand considering that the steam deck came with an actual case and the Nintendo switch came with a dock now you can buy an official Asus rck Alli case but that'll cost you $40 it's a soft case with raw branding but I don't find it better than the hard case that came with the steam deck but okay when I first picked it up I immediately liked the ergonomics while holding the Ally I found it rested comfortably in the middle of my hand I was able to reach the joysticks buttons and d-pad without changing my grip it wasn't as comfortable to hold as a steamed it but it also wasn't as large it rested in a slightly better than mediocre middle ground when I initially turned it on I learned my first lesson about the rag Ally although its Hardware is designed for handheld gaming its software is really for a Windows PC or laptop upon startup you have to go through all the same install features as a standard Windows computer from the initial Windows startup screen to selecting your region to setting your Wi-Fi password Asus did arrange to have their logo appear during the startup but everything else was Windows you will even be given the option of selecting productivity apps I guess this is my first complaint about the Ally why would anyone want Windows productivity apps on what is supposed to be a primarily handheld gaming device it seems like instead of creating their own UI or operating system Asos merely use the same operating system found on their laptops I'm not saying that there's anything wrong with this you're going to need Windows if you want to play a game like valerin you can also use a Microsoft Edge to surf the Internet or watch your favorite YouTube videos and if for some reason you want to use a rck Ally for productivity task you'll have access to word PowerPoint and Excel but by not optimizing windows for a handheld gaming device I feel like both Asus and Microsoft were being kind of lazy compare the Rog allies operating system to that of the Nintendo switch and the steam deck the Nintendo switch's software goes by the code name Horizon it is proprietary software designed specifically for Nintendo by Nintendo the steam deck runs Steam OS it's a Linux Dro made specifically to run Steam although it does have built-in software called proton which will allow users to run Windows applications and games Horizon and Steam OS are optimized specifically for the switch and steam deck Hardware there doesn't need to be coordination or integration with another company software to make their Hardware run properly the Rog Ally does come with Armory crate which I really enjoyed using Asus put buttons on either side of the screen which makes it easy to access the rck Allies settings or get in and out of desktop mode but Armory crate feels like a secondary program that was installed on the Rock Ally after Windows was installed and this will have repercussions that I will explain later in the video but first if you like this video please hit the like button also consider subscribing and giving a super thanks any little bit helps after getting getting through all the window setup then you'll get to my Asus and eventually to Armory crate then to steam where you'll be able to finally download your games one of the first games I played was Call of Duty and it worked great at first I didn't make any adjustments to it I just started playing it out of the box the 1080p screen on the rck Ally was glorious the controls were all perfectly in reach and it even had good speakers this lasted for a good 2 months but then little problems started to appear for instance at some point I just stopped being able to open Call of Duty and I don't know why now I don't have any direct evidence that it was a result of the Windows updates but it did happen around the same time I started installing Windows updates pretty much every electronic device I've ever had will have some issue with battery life over time I think it's just due to the Natural degradation of the batteries but I don't think I've ever had anything quite like this here I am trying to turn turn on the Asus Rog Ally but it won't power on simple answer right the battery is dead well it's not quite that simple let me explain I plugged in the r Ally to give it a charge I don't wait for it to fully charge I turn it on while it's plugged in so I can see what the battery percentage is the battery is actually 100% but for some reason it just wouldn't turn on without being plugged in now I don't know if this is a problem with asus's Hardware or with Windows but somewhere between the two there is definitely a disconnect in case you are wondering after I unplugged the power cable I was able to continue playing on battery I'll go over what eventually fixed this problem later in the video then there was the time when my SD card just stopped working which apparently is a common problem with the rug Ally instead of purchasing a new SD card I decided to install the sabr rocket m.2 2230 SSD fortunately installing a new SSD into the Asus Rog Ally is really simple they even have instructions on their website first you'll need to remove all of the screws from the back plate then you'll need a pry tool in order to separate the back plate from the front plate you should disconnect the battery then remove the old SSD install your new SSD reconnect your battery then reinstall the back plate finally use asus's built-in Cloud recovery system system to reinstall Windows I know I spent most of this video talking about the problems with the rag Ally but I actually do like the device I've had a blast playing it in both handheld and desktop mode and most of the problems were able to be fixed for example the problem I had with turning it on was able to be fixed by disconnecting then reconnecting the battery and after downloading several updates Call of Duty Modern Warfare now works perfectly fine the Asus Rog Ally has all the hardware of a great gaming device the software needs a little more work

Channel: Digital Maus

Views: 15,894

Keywords: tech unboxing, unboxing, Asus rog ally, rog ally, problems with rog ally, rog ally issues, rog ally battery not charging, call of duty on rog ally, Asus rog ally sd card issues

Id: SmZ9OC2SnOM

Length: 7min 8sec (428 seconds)

Published: Wed Nov 08 2023