ROG Ally: The ULTIMATE Windows Handheld?

today we're going to take a look at the Rogue Ally let's get to it [Music] the Rogue Ally extreme is a Windows based handheld gaming device it has a 7-inch screen a custom AMD Apu the ryzen Z1 extreme CPU and a Radeon GPU for Ram and storage we're looking at 16 gigs of LP ddr5 Ram along with a 512 gig SSD a couple of items worth calling out the 7-inch HD LCD touchscreen runs at a resolution of 1920x1080 at 120 hertz it has dual front-facing speakers supports Bluetooth has a headphone jack uses Wi-Fi 6 and has a Micro SD card slot first off let's talk about the Ubi for folks who are unfamiliar with what an Ubi is it's the out of box experience you have from the time you take the device out of its packaging up to the point where you can actually use the device for its core purpose or for what it was advertised as the out-of-box experience for the Rogue Ally is very similar to setting up a new windows based laptop or tablet and while it wasn't as easy as interacting with a proper laptop or tablet I was able to get through the entire setup with just the built-in Gamepad and touch screen having said that there were some sections of setup that were a bit problematic on the Ally most having to do with UI elements not consistently responding to Gamepad controls and having to jump between the controller and touch screen quite a bit during setup it's about right in the middle of it just works and too much hoop jumping there were definitely some fidgety behaviors along the way I wasn't planning on showing the OS setup parts of the Ubi in this video but decided to condense the experience as much as I could because I think it's worth showing just how much there is there are a lot of prompts to interact with most of which feel laptop or PC Centric some update downloading and installing which resulted in multiple reboots I didn't time it but based on the uncut versions of these videos getting to the desktop took about 15 minutes from the time I first powered it on feels like a properly designed handheld SKU of Windows could streamline everything shown here into just one or two screens if you're not comfortable with setting up a new laptop and are coming out the Ally from the perspective of someone who's just used to buying a new gaming device and being up and playing in a few minutes then the initial setup here might feel pretty convoluted because as far as Windows is concerned you're setting up any old Windows device once you're at the desktop you're working with a standard Windows setup I highly recommend getting a USB hub so that you can plug in a mouse and keyboard to make everything from here on out easier I'll leave a link in the description below to all the hardware that I have connected here in my setup just because we're finally at the desktop doesn't mean that we're good to go yet there are multiple places that you're going to want to hit to check for updates drivers multiple launchers and stores to install and check and a handful of other tasks that you're going to want to make sure you do this process here is likely going to take anywhere from 30 to 60 Minutes in total the first thing that you should do is hop into settings select Windows update and click the check for updates button you'll likely have to reboot your ally a few times during this part and after each reboot head back into Windows update and repeat this process until it tells you that you're all up to date after Windows updates are all good you're going to want to open the Microsoft store app click on the library button in the lower left and walk through the updates that are waiting there in my experience the store app can be a little fidgety about updates so you may need to close the store app and reopen it a few times during this process to get all the updates to reflect the correct status if it seems like nothing's happening after that you're going to want to open the AMD software app and click on the check for updates button and apply any updates that may be there and finally you want to go into the content section of the Armory crate app select the update Center and apply any updates that you find there it should be noted that as of this review there was some potential performance issues with firmware 319 and if you're watching this while that particular update is still being offered then you might want to hold off until Asus resolves the issue anyhow once all this is done we can finally say that we're done with the full out of box experience and all of this speaks to The Curious Case of a windows-based handheld gaming device in 2023 running Windows is simultaneously their greatest strength and their greatest weakness the main issue here and post setup is that several aspects of Windows aren't well suited for small form factor handheld gaming devices like the Ally this results in a lot of scenarios being better suited for a mouse and keyboard unless you're willing to put in a decent amount of manual work dealing with these scenarios may or may not be part of the lifetime experience of the device depending on how you plan to use it but chances are they'll never be entirely avoidable if I were rating this on a scale of 1 to 10 I'd give the ubia 4. if it were a laptop proper then the Ubi score would be a little bit higher but it's not and from a pure out of box experience standpoint for a handheld gaming device it's just not as slick as setting up a retroid or a switch or even a steam deck [Music] from here you can install anything you like but the main attraction for most folks is going to be asus's Armory crate at first glance Armory crate looks like a game launcher but it's actually more of a system hub sure you can launch games from here you can also do things like set the operating mode adjust the RGB lighting tune your audio settings and check for and apply Ally specific updates it's a Well Done app and it's a good foundation for Asus to build on but when it comes to managing your game Library it's just okay and this might be good enough for most folks but enthusiasts are probably going to find the game launcher portion of Armory create a bit too simplistic however since this is a Windows device we're not locked into Armory crate as our only option for launching games you can actually use armor crate to install Steam and I can see some people using Steam Big Picture Mode as their primary experience on the Ally steam's custom shortcuts are much more versatile than what you have access to an Armory crate and there's a whole host of options to incorporate things like emulated games and games from other stores directly into the Big Picture Mode UI itself I suspect that most enthusiasts are going to go this route but even Big Picture Mode has its limitations getting games from the Xbox app or PC game pass into the UI is very doable but this takes a few extra steps your mileage may also vary with games from PC storefronts here as well this is where something like Play Night comes in play night is a super versatile launcher that scales incredibly well it can handle libraries of just a handful of emulated games all the way up to diverse libraries consisting of thousands of games that are spread across multiple stores and install methods it supports plugins that let you do things like track achievements across various platforms or incorporate data from services like how long to be right into the game Library there's a ton of per game options available and it's this DIY nature of play night that I really appreciate with a little work you can get every game that's installed on your ally into one easy to navigate UI set play night to run in full screen mode and then set it to run when your ally starts and you have a solution to the windows problem of needing to manually interact with the various launchers on a per game basis I plan on doing a bit more of a play night deep dive in an upcoming video so all of that is fine but how well the games actually run on the Ally well pretty good for the most part your mileage may vary but I found that most games were highly playable with a few tweaks to The in-game Graphic settings in general for modern games I found that setting Graphics to medium and mixing in Tech like FSR made for the best experience I tinkered until I found the spot where the frame rates were acceptable and the game still look good and as far as frame rates are concerned I'm going with how games felt here as a measure I tend to not get too hung up on FPS number Min maxing once a game feels smooth if the game feels smooth to the point where I'm not even thinking about the performance numbers then I'm good plus there are already plenty of great videos out there that go over perf numbers and depth it's also worth mentioning that just because you can play something on the Ally doesn't mean that you should things like real-time strategy games and MMOs that weren't designed for gamepads are going to be a challenge this also goes for the UI and it turned the ux in some games while a 7-inch screen is great for handheld it's still only a 7-inch screen in some PC games just aren't visually optimized to be played on a small screen like this steam has done a great job of making developers consider the experience of their game on a small screen but your mileage is definitely going to vary here so just keep this in mind when you're choosing games to play on the Ally since the Ally is capable of playing Modern games it should come as no surprise that it can emulate everything up through things like the Nintendo switch and PS3 by way of Yuzu and rpcs3 I definitely wasn't able to crank the scaling on those up as high as I do on my main PC but everything I tried was very playable once I found the right settings that felt good to me it's also worth noting that the display looks great it's easily on par with the steam deck and while not as crisp as a switch OLED I prefer the Ally to the non-o-led switch display it fits nicely into the third party docks that I have here including the steam deck docking station when using third-party docks to power the Ally you might get a pop-up message telling you that you're not connected to an optimal power source even when using the power supply that came with the Ally depending on the game I was able to get anywhere from one to three hours out of the battery and to be fair this is almost identical to my experience with battery life on the steam deck you're definitely going to want to be near a wall charger or have a good sized portable battery charger available if you plan on gaming on the go with the Ally I mentioned feel earlier and I'm pretty impressed with how the hardware itself felt as I held it and gained for long sessions it's easily on par with the steam deck in this department and for me personally it's more comfortable than long gaming sessions with the switch the main button layout is pretty good but for my personal taste it's not as good as an Xbox controller which is the gold standard in my book it's a bit better than the button layout on the steam deck though to be honest it's kind of the inverse issue that I have with the steam deck layout the thumb travel from the right stick to the a b x y button still requires a slightly awkward Palm adjustment from time to time the d-pad is just okay it might feel a tad squishy to some people and I don't know how that translates to something like a fighting game but for me it's fine it doesn't feel quite as good as the d-pad on the steam deck and definitely not as good as the one on the Xbox controller but for me it was fine the start and back buttons are both easy to reach but for my taste they're way too close to the other two system buttons and they should definitely be further away from them maybe as close to the screen as they currently are but lower like below the d-pad and right thumbstick I've accidentally hit both of them a few times already and it just adds an X layer of having to think about your thumb placement while gaming then there's a volume button while it works and the buttons feel good the placement is weird it's on top of the device slightly to the right of Center and interacting with it is interesting there is just no good way to change the volume without awkwardly adjusting how you're holding the Ally thankfully the volume button isn't something that you're always messing with but still you're definitely going to notice this awkwardness every time you reach for it The Ally also has two buttons on the back that they call macro buttons and pressing these in combination with the d-pad or other buttons lets you do things like show or hide the virtual keyboard take a screenshot bring up task manager and a handful of other presets you can even set up your own macros and Armory crate I have one that acts as alt f4 so that I can easily close games if needed this is especially handy in things like emulation I mentioned the system buttons earlier and when I wasn't accidentally pressing them I actually found them pretty handy the one on the left brings up a flyout menu called the command center that lets you do things like set the operating mode show a performance overlay and you can add and remove or rearrange the items that you have access to here over an Armory crane thank you the one on the right is the Armory crate button and pressing it takes you back to the Armory crate from wherever you are and this is super handy except when you thought you were hitting the start button in a game and instead end up in an entirely different program so what are my overall thoughts on the Rogue Ally I really like it to be honest I find myself choosing it over the steam deck more and more these days since I'm pretty well versed in all things windows it's almost trivial for me to do something like manually install a standalone emulator or locate and edit an ini file for a game that needs an extra level of tweaking the ubiquity of Windows means that you're almost always going to have multiple options for any hurdle you face along with the community support to help you over it and these examples here Circle back to Windows being the Ally's greatest strength and greatest weakness while the overall experience might not be as seamless as other handheld gaming devices since it's Windows you can DIY it to make it seamless it just doesn't come that way out of the box if you're not comfortable with tinkering with software to get things working just so then the Rogue Ally might not be for you but on the flip side if you're interested in handheld PC gaming then there's almost no better place to start the price is competitive with the steam deck and at the time of this video you can pick one up for 6.99 and Asus has said that they're committed to supporting the Ally which means that things are probably only going to get better from here on out considering everything we've on over here who is the Ally for I'd say people who are interested in the steam deck but maybe held off because they felt that Linux had too much of a learning curve or people who were looking for a gaming laptop so that they can easily game in multiple locations and don't mind some tinkering here there to get each game running just right I use these two examples because I know people in both camps and the Ally is firmly on their radar hopefully this review and others like it will help them with their final decision if you find the right games and are willing to put in the time and lock in your launcher then would you factor in the price and versatility the Rogue Ally is one of the best overall handheld PC gaming experiences available right now and that about wraps things up please like this video if you found it useful and subscribe to our Channel if you want more content like this I appreciate you taking the time to watch this and we'll chat again soon

Channel: The Digital Overload

Views: 2,077

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Id: RQFJSU47ATQ

Length: 13min 8sec (788 seconds)

Published: Thu Jul 27 2023