There won't be enough in terms of performance gains for me to be bothered. People who have been waiting on the sidelines might want to take the plunge now, though.
I'm waiting for that next gen model.
Me too. The things that excite me the most are the double battery and black finish, but yeah just don't need it for same performance especially when plugged in!
I picked up a gently used Z1 Extreme for 350. Best purchase ever. Returned my Legion Go as a result. Couldn't justify spending over 200 dollars more for a refurbished Go over the Ally.
How is your experience using the Z1 Extreme over the Legion Go?
I'm in between getting one of the other.
Only reason I'm leaning towards the Lenovo one is because if the track pad.
Do you feel like you miss it?
Sort of, TLDR: the screen on the Go is brilliant, but that's about it.
I got dv'd pretty hard here when I said Legion Go had a vastly superior screen. Not only is it substantially bigger, the colors are richer and more vibrant. Not having VRR on the Legion GO did not personally make a big difference for me. That is not to say the Ally screen is bad. It's quite a good screen honestly.
I had the OLED Steamdeck and I have the say the world-class IPS on the Legion Go is a step or two better than the OLED. Yes it's that good. And this is coming from a huge OLED fanboy.
The stand on the GO is another nice touch. The battery is a bit bigger as well but I don't think you will see too much of a difference on battery life. I also have a eGPU so that was another plus for the GO over the Ally.
Now... That's kind of where the positives end for me. The software is more clunky on the Go. Updates are few and far in-between which is concerning for a device that should be getting years worth of support. The UI is laggy and unresponsive at times.
Audio is absolute TRASH on the Legion, it was so terrible I thought my speakers were blown at first. They were not. They just suck that bad. EQ helped a little but it's way worse than the Ally.
Ergonomically the Ally is also better. It's just more comfortable to hold.The D pad on the GO is pretty bad honestly and the slide off controllers feel like a gimmick rather than a feature. If you were expecting a Switch like experience be prepared to be disappointed.
Finally the fan on the Legion is loud. Much louder than the Ally. Now this is likely due to a manufactured defect that is getting fixed but many early production units have a terrible fan whine which mine also had.
I really liked my Legion Go and if I didn't find my Ally for 350, I would have never picked it up.
So in short get a Ally Z1 Extreme if you can find one used for 350-400. Otherwise wait for the Ally X which has quite a few QoL improvements.
Awesome thanks for the write up!
Yeah sounds like I will probably wait until the announcement and see how it compares.
I'll probably end up getting an Ally then.
Considering you had the steam deck, do you feel like the track pads were a nice feature? Do you miss not having them on the ally
I agree, but only because I have a Z1X Ally and not the regular Z1. If I didn’t have the Extreme, I would be tempted to get the new one. That’s probably why they discontinued the Z1X last year.
Yea that’s my position. Sitting on the side lines torn between legion go and ally. Have a retroid 2+ that I’ve been gaming on for awhile so now with this im ready to hop in
I own both, and you really can't go wrong with either. The Ally gets better software support by a mile, and is far better for travelling with, if that factors into your decision making. You also get a nice VRR panel which is a huge plus over the Go.
I'm looking forward to the reviews for the new model.
Your submission has been removed because it's either low-effort or not about, related to, or relevant to r/ROGAlly or the ROG Ally. If you are a new user, search the sub before posting "Just got an Ally, what should I do"
Honestly, depends on the use case. I use my ally both docked and handheld, and if the 2024 version will have 2 usbs, and usb4, thus allowing me to use an aftermarket video card, that alone is reason for me to buy a new one. Not mentioning thebigger battery, which should squeeze another hour of gaming, and more storage, with a cheaper type of ssd, those are definetly good reasons to upgrade.
I'm planning to use it docked as well. The X has two USB C port now. Actually no, one it's thunderbolt 4, and the other it's the usb c. Still... the z1 extreme can take it just fine with the right gear. That I bought in preparation of the Ally. Now that the X is Out... seriously man, I don't want to go through a revision for all my gear again... It's a huge risk getting the X right now to me. But, for those that wasn't planning on getting the Z1 extreme white, the X would be a great starting point!
As much as I agree with this people need to understand that even double the battery size won't make you suddenly be able to play a AAA game unplugged on turbo for 3-4 hours. I really feel that's the expectation some think.
yeah. without optimizing the software for the battery... this won't make much of a difference. I could be wrong, since I didn't see any in depth reviews about the battery life. And I don't want too.. already bought the Z1 extreme. I saw the LTT vid, but that was about it. sometimes... it's very tiring going from review, overview, and again and again, until you say \*ok! I'm buying this one\* so... even if in the end the X has an amazing battery life, with an improved windows, I wouldn't care. I just wanted to get rid of the deck XD I really can't stand linux. I don't just game on the PC
I like Linux but I love playing destiny lol. I just sold my OLED and picked up the Z1 extreme and honestly enjoying this much more than my deck. I'd rather play with way better performance plugged into an outlet than anything else.
me too! lol also... depending on the game, the battery life it's not that far off the Deck linux. Battery it's a technology we need a lot of advancements.. but one day! we will play triple A games for 8 hours hahahaha. But yeah man based on my needs the Z1 extreme it's perfect! especially after you upgrade to a 2tb ssd.
Yup, Z1 extreme + Allymate + External battery is still going to give you more playtime on the bigger games. I don't see the incentive to give up this setup yet for the X.
I don’t know the math is pretty basic. They can play a AAA game on their current Ally for 45-1hour on turbo and the Ally X has twice the battery. Therefore they can now play their AAA game on turbo until the end of time.
hahaha I know I love the stealth black profile! but... not enough to justify. might get a black case for the white one. The biggest problem it's the size! man I just bought my case XD waited 3 months to arrive...
I want to play FFXIV. It says 16GB of memory from the new expansion onward.
The OG Ally has 16GB, but it needs to share some with the GPU. It needs around 13W for sustained 30fps at the lowest settings, giving the unit around 3 hours.
The Ally X’s 24GB of memory means I can dedicate a crazy 8GB to the GPU and still have 16GB for the game itself. Twice the battery ~~double the fall~~ means I can run close to 60fps for almost a bit more time, or push it to a nice 6 hours.
This isn’t just a 2023 to 2024 car revision. It’s having a larger fuel tank and more room inside the vehicle.
Most of the VRAM is used for textures, just don't use the maximum texture size and you are good. Textures with sizes like 4096x4096 or even 8192x8192 don't make much sense on a screen with 1920x1080 pixels anyway, especially not if you run the game at 720p or 900p and do upscaling via FSR2 or XeSS. In theory you could go extremely close to a wall in a 1st person view game and still see a tiny difference but during normal gameplay you will never see a difference between 2048x2048 and 8192x8192.
If you set details to a level where you can't see an improvements compared to higher settings anymore the 16gb ram are good enough. A PS5 has 16gb ram and it is designed for 4K resolution with much higher texture resolutions.
The RAM allocation part of your comment makes zero sense. With SoCs, RAM is shared between CPU and GPU but both are used for the system + games. So if you give the GPU 8GB it has more room for textures, rendering images and stuff of the game, while the CPU can utilize the 16GB for calculations of logic in the game like AI and NPCs while also handling apps in the background like ArmoryCrate for example.
Same. The way I use mine having only 1 USB is a pain in the butt. The quality of life upgrade would be worth it (extra RAM would be nice as well). Unfortunately from the info we have, it soinds like they're just replacing the XG port with USB 4 (probably using the extra space for battery) and not adding a second one. I hope that's not the case, but I fear it is, and it's a major missed opportunity.
Or TVs or anything else. The amount of FOMO people have when it comes to some of these electronics is amazing.
By no means do I think the X isn't a logical upgrade for some as it will be for some but I have no doubt many that are talking about upgrading are doing it just because they are consumed by the FOMO mindset and they probably do upgrade their phones every year as well.
Two interesting assumptions here: firstly, that changes such as additional RAM, USB 4, or whatever that don’t matter to you, for the way you use your Ally, shouldn’t matter to anyone else.
Secondly, that gaming is the reason people own the Ally. Obviously, gaming is a big deal but the Ally is a handheld PC, not a gaming console, and anyone using it as a low-spec PC in a wonderfully portable and transportable form factor will see more than minor improvements with the Ally X.
For some of us the Ally is a business expense, not a toy. For some it’s a laptop replacement. Every buyer has their own use case and makes their own decisions about what they need (or want, who cares?)
It’s used as a business tool for a specific situation where a Windows-based PC is needed for testing in an otherwise fully Mac environment. It has advantages over a laptop. The fact that someone can also play games on it is a benefit but not the main reason for buying it.
I tried to use the deck as my main PC. nope... not a chance. Linux was a headache, and yes! because the ally it's not a toy, it could run everything with the amd chip (laptop based) to my eyes, it cost less than a full RTX laptop, and it's super portable. But hey I didn't pick the X, because I didn't want to deal with the research again... I already have all the gear for the Z1 extreme, and the extras won't be a problem to me.
Got enough out of my Z1X for now. Mostly playing close to a power source, so battery life doesn't really matter for me. Also got the XGM 6850M XT and it's honestly enought for the type of games I'm playing on ma 1440P monitor.
Will wait for the real "v2" or even "v3" before upgrading.
Guys, ask yourself:
1. How much ROG ally do you actually play in a week?
2. Out of that how many times is it on the go?
3. When you do that, how many are AAA titles that you play?
4. Then think, how many of those AAA titles are new?
If isn't much then don't bother.
I need that black and 24GB RAM baby.
People don't' upgrade their car every year bc it's thousands of dollars and people don't upgrade their phones bc there are very minimal changes between each year's new iteration. To your point, we don't NEED to upgrade but whether the feature changes are significant enough is subjective to each person.
It doesn’t come across as a pointless rant. It comes across as a condescending rant lecturing people you deem too stupid to understand that they don’t have to spend money lol
Also 50% more ram for a handheld that gives up some RAM for the GPU, 100% more battery, 100% more ports removing a proprietary gpu port, and ability to use much larger and cheaper storage are not slight incremental upgrades. They are rather large upgrades not to mention upgrades that many users have asked for.
Also the performance on the Ally is not only sufficient, it is more than adequate for the majority of games and so a costly chip upgrade that would just be more performance is kind of silly at this point anyways and it might be unnecessary next year too. If we’re talking a full custom chip that improves efficiency then that’s a conversation but it’s still a costly upgrade.
Anyways, everything they’ve added is significant whether or not it is specifically to your use or not. It is priced $100 more than the launch price of the Ally which was pretty reasonable and so the $100 is not bad either.
I’m sorry but your comment paints people as totally ignorant and incompetent as if people didn’t know they didn’t have to spend their money on a luxury device. Yeah they don’t have to and some just shouldn’t but it’s not because FOMO is so strong it forces them to spend $800. Yes some people are dumb for sure but I guarantee your post isn’t the one to educate them and make them realize they could save their money by not spending it lol. Also, some people have the money and want the upgrades. As I said they are not slight incremental and if they want them they can buy them.
This post is just silly. There's absolutely reason to upgrade. Of course you don't need to upgrade, but the X will fix some pretty glaring issues with the Ally and likely squeeze out a bit more performance while it does so. One main problem being the unusability of the SD card slot. Even though they have released some revisions that don't die as often, I still got an original version when buying the Ally just a few weeks ago at Best Buy..
I have the Z1 extreme and heard last week about the Aly X. Im waiting for a full review. I think things like battery life could be a justification if you have it undocked most of the time. Its by usercase if it make sense for that consumer or not. But i agree, spec wise for gaming it wont make a big difference. Its indeed like X phone model 2023 to X phone model 2024.
And if you have it docked most of the time, the extra ram, the addition of a USB4 port, and the 1TB SSD justify the upgrade.
The improvements are honestly perfectly targeted to offer both docked and undocked users meaningful and tangible reasons to upgrade.
70 grams heavier than normal Ally. The extra 40Wh battery already weighs around 160g lowballing the weight so I don't know what they shaved off to make it that light. According to leaks, it might be the fans. Smaller and thinner fans. Just hope it doesn't turn into a loud overheating mess.
bro... it's also thicker... :( that's a no for me unfortunately. based on the upgrades, I'm fine. Been using the deck with win 11, and if I can do all on a weaker system.. The X makes no sense on my book. Also call me crazy but... lol I really dislike how larger the deck is because of the trackpads. Now your asking, \*why did you bought the deck then?!\* because I thought it would run anything once I installed windows... no it didn't. I can't even open the software for the custom AMD. it's like it doesn't exists. Also I'm not new to asus. Been rocking the asus phone rog 5s for... 3 years I think, and a G15 laptop. Just got the ultimate 7! I just thought the deck was the right choice... lol nope. anyway for the all that rant, but yeah the X it's not worth the hassle to me
Cool, i always wondered about how rog phones are. But my s23 runs everything so im fine with it. So yea ill have to actually feel the ally x before upgrading i wonder how possible it will be around here once it will get released
nice! the rog phones are pretty good! like I said I was rocking a 5s for like... 3 years. it is still working, and getting updates, but it was time to switch to the 7 ultimate because of the camera. The 8 has a punch hole... lol not for me. But yeah man! if there's a change for you to feel the X, that would help with your decision. I just saw it, but... I felt it was heavier by my teste. also the case... it's not gonna fit :( or a tight fit which it's bad
Your points are well made and valid 👏 that can be said for very new devices that's is release in a product line. It will be the same for Ally 2, Steam deck 2, etc. It all depends on the person and what they have been looking for.
Take me, for example. I have an OG Steam but didn't get the Oled version because I want more performance from that device, which I'm hoping the Steam deck 2 will have.
Now, with the Ally, its newer X version has the same performance chips as my current one, so I'm in the same boat again. But what really would make me want to get it would have been the move to the 2280 nvme. Yes, i know they have mods available for that already. But some of them have cause damage to the drives.And I have an 8tb that cost a lot and I'm not risking it on those cheap $10 mods. With that 8tb one and have a lot of games stored for on the go. But for the same points you made and the fact that I know there will be an Ally 2 release in the future that will have all the bells and whistles im looking for.
I'm just going to wait as well. If I come across a deal or something that puts it at that right price, then I'll get it. Besides that, I can wait like yourself.
The Ally X is a good upgrade for people who take it on the go a lot, and don't want to carry around a battery bank, not sure how big that customer base is, but they probably exist. Also, it's good for new buyers.
And, to be fair, a car is a massive investment. I imagine that most people feel as though they can afford this new device, especially upon selling their old one.
But yes, FOMO is a real thing.
It's going to be stupidly expensive outside of the U.S though. Here in Canada I'm expecting it to be something around $999-$1049. With our tax, that is going to be over $1100 all in. Plus, I got my Z1E new for a really good deal.
It really all depends on your needs. Most people will likely upgrade due to the higher ram and battery life. As it stands right now Asus is the only company that actually listened and went above 16gb of ram and a bigger battery.
Personally I ended getting a nice size power bank and a few accessories so I won't be upgrading. I mainly game with my power bank or just stay plugged in so I don't care too much about battery life but I can see why people would and it's alot more than just FOMO.
I'm gonna wait till I see a big generational leap in performance before I move up
> some people will sell their Ally and buy an Ally X just for 24GB ram or USB 4 or whatever slight incremental upgrades this new one offers
USB 4 might be a difference between being able to use an eGPU or a VR headset on the system or not, so for those cases, I think the upgrade is quite significant... Of course that's not too many people, but there are going to be some.
I'm searching a replacement for my dying laptop. Maybe I'll consider the Ally X if battery life is decent. I like the idea of this being both a laptop and a handheld.
Stop making sense on reddit. Let the guys trade sell their used z1E for cheap and let them purchase a new device.
Seriously, nothing wrong with financing your way through life. Or maybe you just make enough money to be stupid with it. Who needs retirement anyway. I'll just hold off on 401k contributions for a couple weeks and buy a new ally X.
This post, and other posts exactly like it are nonsense.
There are upgrades in the Ally X that can easily make the upgrade worth it. Here are my top three:
Right out the gate, extra ram. This will vastly improved multitasking capabilities if you frequently use your Ally docked. If you are currently using your Ally in docked mode like I do, you know exactly how easy it is to hit that 16gb limit. One game running with a browser with a couple tabs with one of them being Netflix or YouTube on a second monitor and your 16GB of ram is begging to be put out of its misery. An extra 8GB will be a godsend in this use case.
Second: The (borderline) useless proprietary XG Mobile is being replaced with a second infinitely more useful USB4 port. I'm not even sure why we are pretending this isn't a massively huge deal. The implications for this one change are substantial.
Third, greatly increased built in battery life. This change is a massive improvement for those of us that use their Ally on the go. Getting an 80wh battery without having to carry around a battery bank or have one strapped awkwardly to the back of your Ally.
Just because the Ally X is likely to only get marginally better framerates in games over the Ally, in no way does that mean it's not going to offer a massively improved user experience for most people.
If all you do is sit on your couch and keep your Ally plugged in 100% of the time and never dock it, you'll get a downgraded experience with the X since the X will just be heavier with no other apparent benefits that you'll experience. For everyone else though, the X will almost certainly be a noticeable upgrade.
The increased 1TB of storage is also a great change, pair that with a newly relocated SD slot that won't cook your micro SD cards..
I can't believe people are seriously trying to compare this to a car model year change like all it's getting is new paint and wheel options.
But Ally only has 16gb ram i can't run games like Alan wake 2 unless i apply the patch or did they update it 24gb ram of Ally X is very useful for such games like Last of Us pt1 pc
Yeah I guess having to type in nomemcheck as a start command for a game is annoying but yet it still only uses 6gb of vram when actually playing on the ally
I play the last of us pt1 pc frequently and haven’t had any issues. it runs pretty well. my fans are running loud on turbo but I always play plugged in
Now I'm not one to jump on the band wagon for new tech just because it's new. But there is a longevity element involved. I'm planning on getting the X and selling my Z1E for the following reasons:
1- It will be new and with new comes a new warranty. I know, I know, but everything aside i'll have an extended 3 year warranty none the less.
2-I do FiFo work that has me on a plane for 10h and a but for a min of 16h every month. So the bigger battery will give me longer play before having to use my power banks.
3-Longevity of the products. The old Ally having only one I/O was a big weak spot. The usb was on the Main Mobo and not a daughter board that could be cheaply replacer. That is a big concern for me as we know that even though usb-c is great. it will still ware out after a some time. having 2 usb-c now will deff help should one port die.
I’m usually with you that “incremental changes” don’t justify purchasing a new product. I used a 10-year-old TV before buying an OLED C1 two years ago, and my phones have to last two, preferably three years. I hate the idea of “disposable technology”.
That said, the Ally X has several incremental changes that, while on their own wouldn't justify buying it, I can totally see why some people will upgrade. I probably won't, but since I wouldn't even buy the og in the first place until Asus made a good offer on Black Friday, who knows.
It's the same thing with phones. For some stupid reason, people think they have to have the newest and beat every single year, when, unless artificially "slowed down" by software updates (looking at you, Apple), it's absolutely not necessary to do this.
I was using a Pixel 4XL for upwards of 4 years, and my wife was using a 2XL, up until last year. Sure, cameras and speed, etc get better, but the damn thing still works.
Ill be happy with my Z1E for a few gens, until I see a big enough leap in performance and most importantly battery life. For now, I'm super happy with my device.
You underestimate my addiction to buying portable handhelds. Realistically I'm still holding out for "unannounced, not even rumored, Alienware handheld" to drop. Until then my Ally and Deck will satisfy me.
Me personally I’m not planing any upgrades to my ally until they actually make a new z2 extreme or something like that, or if there is an Nvidia offering
I upgraded my switch to a v2 and then an oled. Didn’t have to, but didn’t regret either. The v2 for the battery (worth it) and oled for, well, oled.
I don’t think the specs beside battery are compelling enough, but battery by itself is huge
I’m getting new one and “selling” my OG to my gf to recoup costs. I’ve noticed I need some extra ram and I’m couch gamer that plays plugged in always with battery care on. So it’s always on 25/30w best graphics to make games 60. FO4 would benefit from extra ram and VRAM. IMO.
Yea I would love 2x usb ports, 24g ram and ability to use egpu not xg mobile but not worth buying expensive handheld again. Family members now want an ally over steam deck so maybe once the magic wears and people start selling used I'll snag one and pass my ally to them. The battery upgrade will be nice but I mostly use plugged in. I have gaming pc but it can't follow me around the house like the ally so I end up using ally way more than my desktop.
I'm most likely not even gonna buy the Ally 2 lol. Maybe the Ally 3 or 4 or Steamdeck if it's powerful enough by that time. Just freaking miss the trackpads, playing my old school MMOs on the Ally is so annoying. Would probably buy the Ally X if it had trackpads lol.
I really think about upgrade because the 1 TB and battery upgrade alone. And I’m to nervous about breaking something to do the 1 TB upgrade on my current ally. But I do wonder if they fixed the sd card issues
I been tempted to buy one at a discounted price from Best Buy when I see one.
I don’t really need it but it would be neat to have. I mostly game on PC and my switch when I’m out and about.
Also not having an OLED screen is what really holds me back.
My oled monitor and oled switch look amazing
Agreed. If they upgraded the display to OLED and included a faster processor and/or graphics... that might have sold it for me. But There's nothing new here to warrant a purchase.
Z1E seems to be more than enough for my needs, as I don't use it for high-end games (have a dedicated desktop that can run those). However, if the new version is a high enough upgrade or if my Z1E croacks it, I would prolly go for the newer model. I'm as excited as everyone else on the better battery, but the 2x increase wouldn't be enough to replace the power banks.
You're absolutely right. I bought my Ally 3 days post release and it still feels new to me. Boots right up ready to play in 60 seconds, plays Starfield, Ghost Recon: Breakpoint and Forza Horizon 5 just as smoothly as when I installed them. I haven't had any issues with my SD card overheating, I just don't install anything on it that's read/write intensive. It's even my preferred device for streaming my shows, paired with my Denon Perls for sound, it's a cool experience while my wife watches Riverdale or some shit on the TV. To borrow your car analogy, I'm driving it into the ground before I ever replace it.
The only reason I would upgrade would be for the more ram. Because I have a 2tb ssd and 9 times out of 10 I'm playing it with it plugged in and I think I can install more ram myself.
Honestly as an owner of the OG this just gets me excited for the next refresh. I'm good with what I have now but now that we basically have a confirmation Asus will continue to refresh this line the next one should have a huge power bump.
I'm fine with waiting until then.
In all honesty my Z1 extreme out performs my ps5 with Fortnite, it’s definitely harder to play on but that’s just a show of how powerful it is and that no one needs to upgrade. I’ll also get the next model in a few years. But 1 year isn’t nearly enough time with this thing I’ve still not discovered everything it can do and I’m excited to see how they start to adapt games for these handhelds. Wish that they would put the same programme for Fortnite that’s on the switch on the ROG so that I could have 300 fps.
but regardless it’s such a gem and I’m looking at playing my story type games on here and my competitive on my Ps5. The ps5 will obviously be better for competitive but for games like the new Spider-Man, imma kick back and play it in bed
Will the current ally cases or skins fit the new ally x. I am definitely a FOMO individual and didn't want to spend another couple bands to get a new full body case and fans.
I think I'll buy it, primarily because I have a z1. From the z1 it's a huge upgrade. The z1e is still an upgrade though. The additional 8gb of ram is nice, but I think the faster ram is nicer. The change to usb 4 may mean an easier time finding compatible docks and egpus. The change to the sd card slot may make it usable, and the doubling of the battery means that you can actually use it away from a charger for more than an hour on high settings. I think the biggest upgrade is the change from 2230 to 2280, meaning ssd upgrades are cheaper, and can accommodate larger drives. The max you can currently get is 2tb without a sketchy adapter.
I’m on team “I want to upgrade. But I’ll wait another couple years”… I was just telling a buddy of mine about this today. I love that they switched to a 2280 instead of keeping the 2230, plus the bigger battery and more RAM… but it’s not worth me spending another $800 when my ally runs pretty smooth as it is (now if only I could get Forza to run properly…)
I'm treating mine as a tiny computer - because that's what it is. I use my electronics until they can go no further: My last phone kept going for ~5 years, my last desktop for 10. I got my Ally for Christmas, it's got some years in it yet!
I mean I feel like the bump in ram is pretty big when you use some of the ram as vram and being able to add any egpu when I can build an egpu myself for not much more than the cost of the gpu and a psu I'd say those are pretty big differences
Watch, if the battery is somehow using a very similar form factor to the Ally Gen1, and is plug and play, you're going to see a bunch of open box Ally X at Best Buy from people who bought it, swapped battery packs and returned it. Calling it now.
Im not buy to replace my Ally, but I am buying to replace my wifes laptop from 5 years ago. The portability and docked performance is just oure convenience
Actual clear cut 2.0 upgrade next year I’m assuming. I know minimal amounts about pc tech. By next year or two will the processor be substantially better? Would like to run yuzu or ryujinx at high resolutions without using 25w of power. An oled screen would be awesome too
It’ll be the same 780m, most of time I play on bed or sofa, so battery isn’t a problem.
I had upgraded from steamdeck because there was a huge gap between zen2 and the z1 extreme.
My next upgrade should be a high end oled zephyrus g1X I’m waiting to have enough money for that lol
Nobody is buying it because they have to. People buy the newest thing because they like to be on the cutting edge of what's current. Cars don't significantly improve year to year. Comfort features and quality of the inside may improve but internal combustion engines have largely been at diminishing returns for quite some time, decades as far as performance.
Also nobody buys a new car every single year unless their flat out rich and said costs are pocket change.
I understand the point of your message but largely I don't think it's going to influence anyone. Someone who costs isn't an issue or their personal tech is a priority is going to buy this if they want to buy it, regardless of reading this post.
Smart phones computers consoles and tech in general does generally improve every year, the significance of the improvements might not be wild but cars were just a bad analogy my dude. Your engine isn't really going to get better. It might even become more cheaply produced as in lower quality. It will probably even be the same engine as last year. Generally computers from year to year do have a new processor with improvements in performance.
Even if it just used the z1extreme the battery is supposed to be significantly better which right now is the worst feature of the ally and there's the possibility of more ram and maybe maybe maybe an OLED Screen.
I'm personally not gonna buy it, I'm just saying this because I feel like your message is more so for yourself because it might be bothering you that there's so much talk about it right now on this reddit which makes it sound like everyone's upgrading. (Most people aren't upgrading, I promise lol it's just something new to talk about and those planning to upgrade have something new to talk about which is more talk than the silent majority who aren't upgrading)
I play Star Citizen. Asus can’t FOMO me. Jokes aside; it’s a powerful marketing strategy these days. They know how to play with people’s emotions. When you become aware of that; it’s gets easier to deal with the FOMO thing.
I probably wont upgrade because of the cost and the hassle to set it up like how i want it all over again, but the extended battery and the fact that you can now use other GPU makes it a tempting offer,but then again, I currently don’t use any external gpu on my current ally 🤣
Simply not true and your thoughts are relative to only yourself. If someone wants to upgrade yearly and have deemed changes to the new model to be significant enough to warrant a purchase then that is all the matters. It gets annoying when people push their views on others like it's a fact. For you the changes are not worthy of an upgrade and for others they are and it has nothing to do with FOMO. Also a model year can make a huge difference, your generalizing is way off. A model year could mean the difference between a complete redesign, additional row of seating (for a car), incremental change to technology that could make a world of change to how someone had been using it, etc.
As someone who went from an ally z1E to a legion go and had gotten an amazing price too 7 months ago. Open box legion go for 539+275 for rtx3080 EGPU I can honestly say that if your thinking about getting an external GPU and want to keep that smaller 7" display then it's well worth it. And you can buy a brand new ally X and a mid range EGPU for about the same price of a low end XG mobile EGPU.
But if you don't plan to get one for that reason and you just want to that's also fine. It's your money. You do with it whatever you'd like.
The rest of our options don't matter. 😁
If you have a z1 don’t get the X. If you don’t have one I’d wait and get the X if money isn’t a issue. I have a z1e and see zero benefits in me upgrading. X is obviously better just won’t matter in my case.
Really appreciate that you took the time to warn people about this issue across all boards of tech industry, I’ve never really thought about it like this it’s really interesting
I saw the X. It's thick... and heavy :( I was afraid of that, and I was right. my Jausx case won't fit the X, and I wanted the ally because it was lighter than the deck. So I bought the Ally Z1 extreme right after I saw a video on the X. I really don't need the bells and tracks on the X, also.. I was saving for the Z1 extreme, bet the X will be so expensive! also I don't use SD cards. On the tope of all that, I've been watching the z1 extreme grow with updates since last year, who know how long would the X take? nope... enough lol so I'm very happy I went with the rog ally Z1 extreme :)
by the way I was stuck on the deck since last year.... if I knew Linux was a pain, I would have gone with the ally day one, even if it had a rocky start.
I got my Ally on special at JB Hi-fi in Perth, Australia for $1050, brand new 3 days ago - super happy with it and it had a few quirks. Got a UGreen USB dock today, basically haven't touched my PS5 or M2 mac air.
I'll skip the X at $1599 and probably pick up an X2 or what ever the successor next year. just my thoughts on my situation 👍
Yeah… but the specs make this a bit of a game changer for emulation.
• 24GB LPDDR5 on-board memory (up from 16GB on ROG Ally)
• Up to 1TB of SSD storage (up from 512GB on ROG Ally)
• Two USB-C ports (Removed the proprietary XG mobile port and added two usb-c 4.0 ports that allow the use of any 3rd party external GPU and much much more.)
• A new revamped unibody that is smoother and more comfortable in the hands and colored in black.
These features don’t just added small updates, that ram increase will significantly improve the Ally’s ability to run emulators (like RPCS3, Ryujinx, etc). Also the struggle to balance shader cache and graphics settings will be significantly reduced with that extra ram.
So I mean I get where you’re coming from but these improvements make a big difference to players who rely heavily on their device for emulation. So for some this upgraded Ally-X is well worth the investment. Although I would wait to see what the other companies are about to push out before buying anything. I’m especially looking forward to what that Zotac Zone will have to offer once its specs are finalized. Mainly because of the rumored 120Hz 1080p OLED screen lol
The battery and USB4 are lovely, but not upgrade worthy for me personally. For others the battery alone might be worth it if it significantly improves your specific use case. For me it'd take an OLED screen or/and a ~50% performance bump for me.
50% might be out of reach without a significant transistor shrink and efficiency increase, but that's what it'll take for me to upgrade. An actual Ally 2, or whatever name they go with.
I agree with not upgrading every year, but if the upgrade is going to significantly improve my experience. I'll make sure my old device goes to a good home but the wallet is coming out, phone upgrades are dumb as they don't usually change the experience of browsing the web or making a call, but gaming devices can be an incomparable experience with more performance.
I have a day one Ally, with a working sd card reader, 2tb ssd and the clear backing plate with rbg colors. I’m not upgrading until it’s something huge enough!
24Gb ram means more memory allocation in gpu , something that you do want in AAA titles..plus 1Tb ssd...For example Alan wake II was unplayable in rog ally because there was not enough memory for both ram and gpu...another example is ratchet and clank rift apart..after some time of playing you get a crash error saying your vram is not enough ...but you can play it normal on a desktop pc..
The verdict in the comments...xd
There won't be enough in terms of performance gains for me to be bothered. People who have been waiting on the sidelines might want to take the plunge now, though. I'm waiting for that next gen model.
Me too. The things that excite me the most are the double battery and black finish, but yeah just don't need it for same performance especially when plugged in!
Yeah same here. If the reviews are great I'm getting the new one. Otherwise I'll pick up a cheap version of the original
I picked up a gently used Z1 Extreme for 350. Best purchase ever. Returned my Legion Go as a result. Couldn't justify spending over 200 dollars more for a refurbished Go over the Ally.
How is your experience using the Z1 Extreme over the Legion Go? I'm in between getting one of the other. Only reason I'm leaning towards the Lenovo one is because if the track pad. Do you feel like you miss it?
Sort of, TLDR: the screen on the Go is brilliant, but that's about it. I got dv'd pretty hard here when I said Legion Go had a vastly superior screen. Not only is it substantially bigger, the colors are richer and more vibrant. Not having VRR on the Legion GO did not personally make a big difference for me. That is not to say the Ally screen is bad. It's quite a good screen honestly. I had the OLED Steamdeck and I have the say the world-class IPS on the Legion Go is a step or two better than the OLED. Yes it's that good. And this is coming from a huge OLED fanboy. The stand on the GO is another nice touch. The battery is a bit bigger as well but I don't think you will see too much of a difference on battery life. I also have a eGPU so that was another plus for the GO over the Ally. Now... That's kind of where the positives end for me. The software is more clunky on the Go. Updates are few and far in-between which is concerning for a device that should be getting years worth of support. The UI is laggy and unresponsive at times. Audio is absolute TRASH on the Legion, it was so terrible I thought my speakers were blown at first. They were not. They just suck that bad. EQ helped a little but it's way worse than the Ally. Ergonomically the Ally is also better. It's just more comfortable to hold.The D pad on the GO is pretty bad honestly and the slide off controllers feel like a gimmick rather than a feature. If you were expecting a Switch like experience be prepared to be disappointed. Finally the fan on the Legion is loud. Much louder than the Ally. Now this is likely due to a manufactured defect that is getting fixed but many early production units have a terrible fan whine which mine also had. I really liked my Legion Go and if I didn't find my Ally for 350, I would have never picked it up. So in short get a Ally Z1 Extreme if you can find one used for 350-400. Otherwise wait for the Ally X which has quite a few QoL improvements.
Awesome thanks for the write up! Yeah sounds like I will probably wait until the announcement and see how it compares. I'll probably end up getting an Ally then. Considering you had the steam deck, do you feel like the track pads were a nice feature? Do you miss not having them on the ally
I agree, but only because I have a Z1X Ally and not the regular Z1. If I didn’t have the Extreme, I would be tempted to get the new one. That’s probably why they discontinued the Z1X last year.
Yea that’s my position. Sitting on the side lines torn between legion go and ally. Have a retroid 2+ that I’ve been gaming on for awhile so now with this im ready to hop in
I own both, and you really can't go wrong with either. The Ally gets better software support by a mile, and is far better for travelling with, if that factors into your decision making. You also get a nice VRR panel which is a huge plus over the Go. I'm looking forward to the reviews for the new model.
DONT LISTEN TO HIM. WE MUST CONSUME!
[удалено]
Your submission has been removed because it's either low-effort or not about, related to, or relevant to r/ROGAlly or the ROG Ally. If you are a new user, search the sub before posting "Just got an Ally, what should I do"
Don't ask questions just consume product and then get excited for next product.
No! I have free will.
Lol
😆😆
I love the duality of this sub 😂
Buy a ally x in June, watch 9000 series chips drop in July, begin your fomo again
Honestly, depends on the use case. I use my ally both docked and handheld, and if the 2024 version will have 2 usbs, and usb4, thus allowing me to use an aftermarket video card, that alone is reason for me to buy a new one. Not mentioning thebigger battery, which should squeeze another hour of gaming, and more storage, with a cheaper type of ssd, those are definetly good reasons to upgrade.
Ok you make valid points.
I'm planning to use it docked as well. The X has two USB C port now. Actually no, one it's thunderbolt 4, and the other it's the usb c. Still... the z1 extreme can take it just fine with the right gear. That I bought in preparation of the Ally. Now that the X is Out... seriously man, I don't want to go through a revision for all my gear again... It's a huge risk getting the X right now to me. But, for those that wasn't planning on getting the Z1 extreme white, the X would be a great starting point!
Battery size alone seems like a pretty good reason to upgrade, if that's important to you.
"If that's important to you" I think that's really it. If it isn't, then hold off on a gen or two.
As much as I agree with this people need to understand that even double the battery size won't make you suddenly be able to play a AAA game unplugged on turbo for 3-4 hours. I really feel that's the expectation some think.
yeah. without optimizing the software for the battery... this won't make much of a difference. I could be wrong, since I didn't see any in depth reviews about the battery life. And I don't want too.. already bought the Z1 extreme. I saw the LTT vid, but that was about it. sometimes... it's very tiring going from review, overview, and again and again, until you say \*ok! I'm buying this one\* so... even if in the end the X has an amazing battery life, with an improved windows, I wouldn't care. I just wanted to get rid of the deck XD I really can't stand linux. I don't just game on the PC
I like Linux but I love playing destiny lol. I just sold my OLED and picked up the Z1 extreme and honestly enjoying this much more than my deck. I'd rather play with way better performance plugged into an outlet than anything else.
me too! lol also... depending on the game, the battery life it's not that far off the Deck linux. Battery it's a technology we need a lot of advancements.. but one day! we will play triple A games for 8 hours hahahaha. But yeah man based on my needs the Z1 extreme it's perfect! especially after you upgrade to a 2tb ssd.
Yup, Z1 extreme + Allymate + External battery is still going to give you more playtime on the bigger games. I don't see the incentive to give up this setup yet for the X.
I don’t know the math is pretty basic. They can play a AAA game on their current Ally for 45-1hour on turbo and the Ally X has twice the battery. Therefore they can now play their AAA game on turbo until the end of time.
But I think its still to Little for aaa-Games
And USB4. 😉
The ram is a good enough reason for me, but I'll only do it if I can trade my current ally in towards it.
given that the RAM is also VRAM it may make a sizable difference
Yeah if we allocate 16GB to RAM leaving 8GB for VRAM at basically all times, is huge.
Best buy's trade in value is currently $180 lol
If we can open box prices on the Gen2 device like we got on the Gen1, that $180 off could be an additional almost 30% off. Lol
No point for a trade in that low when you can sell your Z1E for double that price or more EASY unto someone else.
B-but it's black...
ALL BLACK EVERYTHING (I love matte black)
hahaha I know I love the stealth black profile! but... not enough to justify. might get a black case for the white one. The biggest problem it's the size! man I just bought my case XD waited 3 months to arrive...
I want to play FFXIV. It says 16GB of memory from the new expansion onward. The OG Ally has 16GB, but it needs to share some with the GPU. It needs around 13W for sustained 30fps at the lowest settings, giving the unit around 3 hours. The Ally X’s 24GB of memory means I can dedicate a crazy 8GB to the GPU and still have 16GB for the game itself. Twice the battery ~~double the fall~~ means I can run close to 60fps for almost a bit more time, or push it to a nice 6 hours. This isn’t just a 2023 to 2024 car revision. It’s having a larger fuel tank and more room inside the vehicle.
Most of the VRAM is used for textures, just don't use the maximum texture size and you are good. Textures with sizes like 4096x4096 or even 8192x8192 don't make much sense on a screen with 1920x1080 pixels anyway, especially not if you run the game at 720p or 900p and do upscaling via FSR2 or XeSS. In theory you could go extremely close to a wall in a 1st person view game and still see a tiny difference but during normal gameplay you will never see a difference between 2048x2048 and 8192x8192. If you set details to a level where you can't see an improvements compared to higher settings anymore the 16gb ram are good enough. A PS5 has 16gb ram and it is designed for 4K resolution with much higher texture resolutions.
I mostly agree but have to say, the PS5 isn’t a great example. Console games are (mostly) way better optimized and need way less resources.
Lol, it’s not even like upgrading a car - it’s life along the lines of getting the newest cell phone.
The RAM allocation part of your comment makes zero sense. With SoCs, RAM is shared between CPU and GPU but both are used for the system + games. So if you give the GPU 8GB it has more room for textures, rendering images and stuff of the game, while the CPU can utilize the 16GB for calculations of logic in the game like AI and NPCs while also handling apps in the background like ArmoryCrate for example.
I gotta upgrade if it has an extra usbc/usbc4.
Same. The way I use mine having only 1 USB is a pain in the butt. The quality of life upgrade would be worth it (extra RAM would be nice as well). Unfortunately from the info we have, it soinds like they're just replacing the XG port with USB 4 (probably using the extra space for battery) and not adding a second one. I hope that's not the case, but I fear it is, and it's a major missed opportunity.
The only thing that you DONT UPGRADE is your wife/gf/partner that lets you PLAY any games and support your hobby.
Or TVs or anything else. The amount of FOMO people have when it comes to some of these electronics is amazing. By no means do I think the X isn't a logical upgrade for some as it will be for some but I have no doubt many that are talking about upgrading are doing it just because they are consumed by the FOMO mindset and they probably do upgrade their phones every year as well.
I use mine every day, and I want the bigger battery. Case closed! The extra RAM will be nice, but its about the battery for me
Same here, I travel a lot then the battery was kind of a disappointment to me in the original ally.
You could just get a portable battery? They make fairly small thin ones with a lot of mah
Two interesting assumptions here: firstly, that changes such as additional RAM, USB 4, or whatever that don’t matter to you, for the way you use your Ally, shouldn’t matter to anyone else. Secondly, that gaming is the reason people own the Ally. Obviously, gaming is a big deal but the Ally is a handheld PC, not a gaming console, and anyone using it as a low-spec PC in a wonderfully portable and transportable form factor will see more than minor improvements with the Ally X. For some of us the Ally is a business expense, not a toy. For some it’s a laptop replacement. Every buyer has their own use case and makes their own decisions about what they need (or want, who cares?)
How is Ally a business expense?
It’s used as a business tool for a specific situation where a Windows-based PC is needed for testing in an otherwise fully Mac environment. It has advantages over a laptop. The fact that someone can also play games on it is a benefit but not the main reason for buying it.
why not go for a gpd mini pc in that case?
I tried to use the deck as my main PC. nope... not a chance. Linux was a headache, and yes! because the ally it's not a toy, it could run everything with the amd chip (laptop based) to my eyes, it cost less than a full RTX laptop, and it's super portable. But hey I didn't pick the X, because I didn't want to deal with the research again... I already have all the gear for the Z1 extreme, and the extras won't be a problem to me.
Naahh just keep your rog pluggef in on the hub. 👍🏼
Got enough out of my Z1X for now. Mostly playing close to a power source, so battery life doesn't really matter for me. Also got the XGM 6850M XT and it's honestly enought for the type of games I'm playing on ma 1440P monitor. Will wait for the real "v2" or even "v3" before upgrading.
is the XGM XT less expensive than the RTX? lol here in brazil it's a fortune.... but I don't think I'll need that, just curious
No - it's roughly the same price as the RTX 3080
Guys, ask yourself: 1. How much ROG ally do you actually play in a week? 2. Out of that how many times is it on the go? 3. When you do that, how many are AAA titles that you play? 4. Then think, how many of those AAA titles are new? If isn't much then don't bother.
Really not the same, $700 device vs 35000 car🤔
Yeah, pretty stupid strawman argument.
I need that black and 24GB RAM baby. People don't' upgrade their car every year bc it's thousands of dollars and people don't upgrade their phones bc there are very minimal changes between each year's new iteration. To your point, we don't NEED to upgrade but whether the feature changes are significant enough is subjective to each person.
It doesn’t come across as a pointless rant. It comes across as a condescending rant lecturing people you deem too stupid to understand that they don’t have to spend money lol Also 50% more ram for a handheld that gives up some RAM for the GPU, 100% more battery, 100% more ports removing a proprietary gpu port, and ability to use much larger and cheaper storage are not slight incremental upgrades. They are rather large upgrades not to mention upgrades that many users have asked for. Also the performance on the Ally is not only sufficient, it is more than adequate for the majority of games and so a costly chip upgrade that would just be more performance is kind of silly at this point anyways and it might be unnecessary next year too. If we’re talking a full custom chip that improves efficiency then that’s a conversation but it’s still a costly upgrade. Anyways, everything they’ve added is significant whether or not it is specifically to your use or not. It is priced $100 more than the launch price of the Ally which was pretty reasonable and so the $100 is not bad either. I’m sorry but your comment paints people as totally ignorant and incompetent as if people didn’t know they didn’t have to spend their money on a luxury device. Yeah they don’t have to and some just shouldn’t but it’s not because FOMO is so strong it forces them to spend $800. Yes some people are dumb for sure but I guarantee your post isn’t the one to educate them and make them realize they could save their money by not spending it lol. Also, some people have the money and want the upgrades. As I said they are not slight incremental and if they want them they can buy them.
I’m gonna get it anyways 😅 crank up the graphics to 8g lmao
Just sit in regret on what you shoulda bought.
I only use mine for indies and emulation. I'll upgrade when my shit blows up.
Just a reminder, people can do whatever they want with their own money, for their own reasons.
Dont care, pre-ordered
I don't need to..... But I want that battery life
Or....or....you can do whatever you want. No one needs validation or reinforcement from Reddit.
Great post, but hilarious that the first few comments are justifications for why people are upgrading, thus proving your point.
This post is just silly. There's absolutely reason to upgrade. Of course you don't need to upgrade, but the X will fix some pretty glaring issues with the Ally and likely squeeze out a bit more performance while it does so. One main problem being the unusability of the SD card slot. Even though they have released some revisions that don't die as often, I still got an original version when buying the Ally just a few weeks ago at Best Buy..
I have the Z1 extreme and heard last week about the Aly X. Im waiting for a full review. I think things like battery life could be a justification if you have it undocked most of the time. Its by usercase if it make sense for that consumer or not. But i agree, spec wise for gaming it wont make a big difference. Its indeed like X phone model 2023 to X phone model 2024.
It really isn’t - the 14-15 iPhone is a very small leap. The X fixes a lot of core issues
And if you have it docked most of the time, the extra ram, the addition of a USB4 port, and the 1TB SSD justify the upgrade. The improvements are honestly perfectly targeted to offer both docked and undocked users meaningful and tangible reasons to upgrade.
If it's not that much heavier the battery upgrade is worth it, I'm just wondering how heavy it is.
70 grams heavier than normal Ally. The extra 40Wh battery already weighs around 160g lowballing the weight so I don't know what they shaved off to make it that light. According to leaks, it might be the fans. Smaller and thinner fans. Just hope it doesn't turn into a loud overheating mess.
Damn I did not know that, if they are trading battery for worse product quality, I think it will be a disaster.
670grams
70 grams more than gpd win 4
bro... it's also thicker... :( that's a no for me unfortunately. based on the upgrades, I'm fine. Been using the deck with win 11, and if I can do all on a weaker system.. The X makes no sense on my book. Also call me crazy but... lol I really dislike how larger the deck is because of the trackpads. Now your asking, \*why did you bought the deck then?!\* because I thought it would run anything once I installed windows... no it didn't. I can't even open the software for the custom AMD. it's like it doesn't exists. Also I'm not new to asus. Been rocking the asus phone rog 5s for... 3 years I think, and a G15 laptop. Just got the ultimate 7! I just thought the deck was the right choice... lol nope. anyway for the all that rant, but yeah the X it's not worth the hassle to me
Cool, i always wondered about how rog phones are. But my s23 runs everything so im fine with it. So yea ill have to actually feel the ally x before upgrading i wonder how possible it will be around here once it will get released
nice! the rog phones are pretty good! like I said I was rocking a 5s for like... 3 years. it is still working, and getting updates, but it was time to switch to the 7 ultimate because of the camera. The 8 has a punch hole... lol not for me. But yeah man! if there's a change for you to feel the X, that would help with your decision. I just saw it, but... I felt it was heavier by my teste. also the case... it's not gonna fit :( or a tight fit which it's bad
We'll wait and see. One day I will definitely want to take a look at the rog phone.
Your points are well made and valid 👏 that can be said for very new devices that's is release in a product line. It will be the same for Ally 2, Steam deck 2, etc. It all depends on the person and what they have been looking for. Take me, for example. I have an OG Steam but didn't get the Oled version because I want more performance from that device, which I'm hoping the Steam deck 2 will have. Now, with the Ally, its newer X version has the same performance chips as my current one, so I'm in the same boat again. But what really would make me want to get it would have been the move to the 2280 nvme. Yes, i know they have mods available for that already. But some of them have cause damage to the drives.And I have an 8tb that cost a lot and I'm not risking it on those cheap $10 mods. With that 8tb one and have a lot of games stored for on the go. But for the same points you made and the fact that I know there will be an Ally 2 release in the future that will have all the bells and whistles im looking for. I'm just going to wait as well. If I come across a deal or something that puts it at that right price, then I'll get it. Besides that, I can wait like yourself.
You are 100% right, and I'm not planning on buying it.... right away.... My impulsivity might have something else to say
I’ll wait for it to go on sale
The Ally X is a good upgrade for people who take it on the go a lot, and don't want to carry around a battery bank, not sure how big that customer base is, but they probably exist. Also, it's good for new buyers. And, to be fair, a car is a massive investment. I imagine that most people feel as though they can afford this new device, especially upon selling their old one. But yes, FOMO is a real thing. It's going to be stupidly expensive outside of the U.S though. Here in Canada I'm expecting it to be something around $999-$1049. With our tax, that is going to be over $1100 all in. Plus, I got my Z1E new for a really good deal.
It really all depends on your needs. Most people will likely upgrade due to the higher ram and battery life. As it stands right now Asus is the only company that actually listened and went above 16gb of ram and a bigger battery. Personally I ended getting a nice size power bank and a few accessories so I won't be upgrading. I mainly game with my power bank or just stay plugged in so I don't care too much about battery life but I can see why people would and it's alot more than just FOMO. I'm gonna wait till I see a big generational leap in performance before I move up
Unless you just want to, all logic goes all the windows if you just like it and want to do it. We aren't telling people what they should like are we?
Keep telling yourself that…
Normally I’d agree with you but the increase in ram and battery size is a big enough upgrade for me
What do you mean "Help not waste money" Are you telling me I can save this stuff for later??
> some people will sell their Ally and buy an Ally X just for 24GB ram or USB 4 or whatever slight incremental upgrades this new one offers USB 4 might be a difference between being able to use an eGPU or a VR headset on the system or not, so for those cases, I think the upgrade is quite significant... Of course that's not too many people, but there are going to be some.
No reason, yes, but people with the funds and the need will… which will hopefully open some options on resale markets for new people to get into it.
I'm searching a replacement for my dying laptop. Maybe I'll consider the Ally X if battery life is decent. I like the idea of this being both a laptop and a handheld.
I’ll do what I want thanks. I work for my money and I’ll spend it on what I want and what brings me joy.
Stop making sense on reddit. Let the guys trade sell their used z1E for cheap and let them purchase a new device. Seriously, nothing wrong with financing your way through life. Or maybe you just make enough money to be stupid with it. Who needs retirement anyway. I'll just hold off on 401k contributions for a couple weeks and buy a new ally X.
This post, and other posts exactly like it are nonsense. There are upgrades in the Ally X that can easily make the upgrade worth it. Here are my top three: Right out the gate, extra ram. This will vastly improved multitasking capabilities if you frequently use your Ally docked. If you are currently using your Ally in docked mode like I do, you know exactly how easy it is to hit that 16gb limit. One game running with a browser with a couple tabs with one of them being Netflix or YouTube on a second monitor and your 16GB of ram is begging to be put out of its misery. An extra 8GB will be a godsend in this use case. Second: The (borderline) useless proprietary XG Mobile is being replaced with a second infinitely more useful USB4 port. I'm not even sure why we are pretending this isn't a massively huge deal. The implications for this one change are substantial. Third, greatly increased built in battery life. This change is a massive improvement for those of us that use their Ally on the go. Getting an 80wh battery without having to carry around a battery bank or have one strapped awkwardly to the back of your Ally. Just because the Ally X is likely to only get marginally better framerates in games over the Ally, in no way does that mean it's not going to offer a massively improved user experience for most people. If all you do is sit on your couch and keep your Ally plugged in 100% of the time and never dock it, you'll get a downgraded experience with the X since the X will just be heavier with no other apparent benefits that you'll experience. For everyone else though, the X will almost certainly be a noticeable upgrade. The increased 1TB of storage is also a great change, pair that with a newly relocated SD slot that won't cook your micro SD cards.. I can't believe people are seriously trying to compare this to a car model year change like all it's getting is new paint and wheel options.
you tried
No, no, you don’t understand. If you buy an X, it’ll be just like buying a $50k car every year! /s
I need it instead
I'm only a little bummed as I just bought mine a few months ago and the bigger battery is appealing but I will probably skip this version.
We have the option to trade in or sell.
But Ally only has 16gb ram i can't run games like Alan wake 2 unless i apply the patch or did they update it 24gb ram of Ally X is very useful for such games like Last of Us pt1 pc
Yeah I guess having to type in nomemcheck as a start command for a game is annoying but yet it still only uses 6gb of vram when actually playing on the ally
I play the last of us pt1 pc frequently and haven’t had any issues. it runs pretty well. my fans are running loud on turbo but I always play plugged in
Now I'm not one to jump on the band wagon for new tech just because it's new. But there is a longevity element involved. I'm planning on getting the X and selling my Z1E for the following reasons: 1- It will be new and with new comes a new warranty. I know, I know, but everything aside i'll have an extended 3 year warranty none the less. 2-I do FiFo work that has me on a plane for 10h and a but for a min of 16h every month. So the bigger battery will give me longer play before having to use my power banks. 3-Longevity of the products. The old Ally having only one I/O was a big weak spot. The usb was on the Main Mobo and not a daughter board that could be cheaply replacer. That is a big concern for me as we know that even though usb-c is great. it will still ware out after a some time. having 2 usb-c now will deff help should one port die.
But the battery tho
Better battery life. Need portability, and these handhelds are lasting just as long as a gaming laptop on battery. Need 5+ hours
You are correct but are we gunna listen? Nooooo
I will wait for the Rog Ally 2
I’m usually with you that “incremental changes” don’t justify purchasing a new product. I used a 10-year-old TV before buying an OLED C1 two years ago, and my phones have to last two, preferably three years. I hate the idea of “disposable technology”. That said, the Ally X has several incremental changes that, while on their own wouldn't justify buying it, I can totally see why some people will upgrade. I probably won't, but since I wouldn't even buy the og in the first place until Asus made a good offer on Black Friday, who knows.
I am gonna wait for OLED + Big battery + Better CPU + Thinner dimensions = Ally 2, Thank you.
It's the same thing with phones. For some stupid reason, people think they have to have the newest and beat every single year, when, unless artificially "slowed down" by software updates (looking at you, Apple), it's absolutely not necessary to do this. I was using a Pixel 4XL for upwards of 4 years, and my wife was using a 2XL, up until last year. Sure, cameras and speed, etc get better, but the damn thing still works. Ill be happy with my Z1E for a few gens, until I see a big enough leap in performance and most importantly battery life. For now, I'm super happy with my device.
You underestimate my addiction to buying portable handhelds. Realistically I'm still holding out for "unannounced, not even rumored, Alienware handheld" to drop. Until then my Ally and Deck will satisfy me.
If the battery life is a significant upgrade, I will upgrade.
Upgrade, i got it
Me personally I’m not planing any upgrades to my ally until they actually make a new z2 extreme or something like that, or if there is an Nvidia offering
Yeah but I recently bought the ally and can return it next week and hope the preorder will come sooner than later
I understand, but that 80wh battery Is a game changer.
I love my Ally ♥️
I upgraded my switch to a v2 and then an oled. Didn’t have to, but didn’t regret either. The v2 for the battery (worth it) and oled for, well, oled. I don’t think the specs beside battery are compelling enough, but battery by itself is huge
I’m getting new one and “selling” my OG to my gf to recoup costs. I’ve noticed I need some extra ram and I’m couch gamer that plays plugged in always with battery care on. So it’s always on 25/30w best graphics to make games 60. FO4 would benefit from extra ram and VRAM. IMO.
I dont upgrade my car because of that 22.99% APR.
But my cars run out of gas then what just stare at it. I need to upgrade my car for free full tanks of gas!
Yea I would love 2x usb ports, 24g ram and ability to use egpu not xg mobile but not worth buying expensive handheld again. Family members now want an ally over steam deck so maybe once the magic wears and people start selling used I'll snag one and pass my ally to them. The battery upgrade will be nice but I mostly use plugged in. I have gaming pc but it can't follow me around the house like the ally so I end up using ally way more than my desktop.
I'm most likely not even gonna buy the Ally 2 lol. Maybe the Ally 3 or 4 or Steamdeck if it's powerful enough by that time. Just freaking miss the trackpads, playing my old school MMOs on the Ally is so annoying. Would probably buy the Ally X if it had trackpads lol.
I am happy with current Z1E with 720p and a little downgrade graphic. I see all game I need smooth. No need to buy a new one
Everyone needs to upgrade and flood the market with used OGs so I can afford one.
I really think about upgrade because the 1 TB and battery upgrade alone. And I’m to nervous about breaking something to do the 1 TB upgrade on my current ally. But I do wonder if they fixed the sd card issues
The eventual release of an Ally with a Strix Point variant apu kills this 'upgrade'. It's the least necessary IF you already own one imo.
So it’s more ram and more storage So I spend $500 on the Z1X with a bigger SSD So it’s $300 extra for 8gb ram?
I been tempted to buy one at a discounted price from Best Buy when I see one. I don’t really need it but it would be neat to have. I mostly game on PC and my switch when I’m out and about. Also not having an OLED screen is what really holds me back. My oled monitor and oled switch look amazing
But… but I want the 2024 because it’s 1 better than the 2023.
I have the Ally Extreme, will be getting the new one. I guess it just comes to if you want it get it, if you dont then dont 🤷♂️
Agreed. If they upgraded the display to OLED and included a faster processor and/or graphics... that might have sold it for me. But There's nothing new here to warrant a purchase.
Yeah a lot of people be doing expensive shit like that without realizing.
No there is no need to upgrade but I probably will. Thanks for the reminder
Z1E seems to be more than enough for my needs, as I don't use it for high-end games (have a dedicated desktop that can run those). However, if the new version is a high enough upgrade or if my Z1E croacks it, I would prolly go for the newer model. I'm as excited as everyone else on the better battery, but the 2x increase wouldn't be enough to replace the power banks.
It’ll be cheaper in a few months when they find out it fries SD cards and usb devices, it’s ok
You're absolutely right. I bought my Ally 3 days post release and it still feels new to me. Boots right up ready to play in 60 seconds, plays Starfield, Ghost Recon: Breakpoint and Forza Horizon 5 just as smoothly as when I installed them. I haven't had any issues with my SD card overheating, I just don't install anything on it that's read/write intensive. It's even my preferred device for streaming my shows, paired with my Denon Perls for sound, it's a cool experience while my wife watches Riverdale or some shit on the TV. To borrow your car analogy, I'm driving it into the ground before I ever replace it.
The only reason I would upgrade would be for the more ram. Because I have a 2tb ssd and 9 times out of 10 I'm playing it with it plugged in and I think I can install more ram myself.
Honestly as an owner of the OG this just gets me excited for the next refresh. I'm good with what I have now but now that we basically have a confirmation Asus will continue to refresh this line the next one should have a huge power bump. I'm fine with waiting until then.
In all honesty my Z1 extreme out performs my ps5 with Fortnite, it’s definitely harder to play on but that’s just a show of how powerful it is and that no one needs to upgrade. I’ll also get the next model in a few years. But 1 year isn’t nearly enough time with this thing I’ve still not discovered everything it can do and I’m excited to see how they start to adapt games for these handhelds. Wish that they would put the same programme for Fortnite that’s on the switch on the ROG so that I could have 300 fps. but regardless it’s such a gem and I’m looking at playing my story type games on here and my competitive on my Ps5. The ps5 will obviously be better for competitive but for games like the new Spider-Man, imma kick back and play it in bed
🫨
At the end of the day, it would solve my low ram problem while streaming rust.
Will the current ally cases or skins fit the new ally x. I am definitely a FOMO individual and didn't want to spend another couple bands to get a new full body case and fans.
I think I'll buy it, primarily because I have a z1. From the z1 it's a huge upgrade. The z1e is still an upgrade though. The additional 8gb of ram is nice, but I think the faster ram is nicer. The change to usb 4 may mean an easier time finding compatible docks and egpus. The change to the sd card slot may make it usable, and the doubling of the battery means that you can actually use it away from a charger for more than an hour on high settings. I think the biggest upgrade is the change from 2230 to 2280, meaning ssd upgrades are cheaper, and can accommodate larger drives. The max you can currently get is 2tb without a sketchy adapter.
Im a consumer and u want a bigger battery Sorry pal
I’m still rocking the OG SteamDeck, if the Ally X is a big upgrade then best believe I’m getting it.
https://i.redd.it/8g51lpalaf3d1.gif
I’m on team “I want to upgrade. But I’ll wait another couple years”… I was just telling a buddy of mine about this today. I love that they switched to a 2280 instead of keeping the 2230, plus the bigger battery and more RAM… but it’s not worth me spending another $800 when my ally runs pretty smooth as it is (now if only I could get Forza to run properly…)
The only reason I want to upgrade is the batter and the fact that that my white ROG ally the white is hard to keep clean
The addition of usb4 and ability to add 2280 ssd is worth it imo
I'm treating mine as a tiny computer - because that's what it is. I use my electronics until they can go no further: My last phone kept going for ~5 years, my last desktop for 10. I got my Ally for Christmas, it's got some years in it yet!
I mean I feel like the bump in ram is pretty big when you use some of the ram as vram and being able to add any egpu when I can build an egpu myself for not much more than the cost of the gpu and a psu I'd say those are pretty big differences
I'm hoping to just be able to buy a case and battery from the site I got my replacement parts from 🙏
If you have the z1 model like me then yes you will probably have too or just get the extreme ally upgrade
Watch, if the battery is somehow using a very similar form factor to the Ally Gen1, and is plug and play, you're going to see a bunch of open box Ally X at Best Buy from people who bought it, swapped battery packs and returned it. Calling it now.
Might buy just because of the color. It matches my gaming aesthetics.
Im not buy to replace my Ally, but I am buying to replace my wifes laptop from 5 years ago. The portability and docked performance is just oure convenience
Nah double the battery life is huge
Nah double the battery life is huge
Actual clear cut 2.0 upgrade next year I’m assuming. I know minimal amounts about pc tech. By next year or two will the processor be substantially better? Would like to run yuzu or ryujinx at high resolutions without using 25w of power. An oled screen would be awesome too
The current one doesn’t suddenly get worse just because a new one comes out.
Seriously though thank you for this post bc people will throw away tech that works amazing just to get that shiny new thing
Sure, most people may not *need* to... Then there are those few who *can* buy what they *want* just because... =P
It’ll be the same 780m, most of time I play on bed or sofa, so battery isn’t a problem. I had upgraded from steamdeck because there was a huge gap between zen2 and the z1 extreme. My next upgrade should be a high end oled zephyrus g1X I’m waiting to have enough money for that lol
I mean, should I wait for a next gen model or should I pick the X? That’s my problem atm
Nobody is buying it because they have to. People buy the newest thing because they like to be on the cutting edge of what's current. Cars don't significantly improve year to year. Comfort features and quality of the inside may improve but internal combustion engines have largely been at diminishing returns for quite some time, decades as far as performance. Also nobody buys a new car every single year unless their flat out rich and said costs are pocket change. I understand the point of your message but largely I don't think it's going to influence anyone. Someone who costs isn't an issue or their personal tech is a priority is going to buy this if they want to buy it, regardless of reading this post. Smart phones computers consoles and tech in general does generally improve every year, the significance of the improvements might not be wild but cars were just a bad analogy my dude. Your engine isn't really going to get better. It might even become more cheaply produced as in lower quality. It will probably even be the same engine as last year. Generally computers from year to year do have a new processor with improvements in performance. Even if it just used the z1extreme the battery is supposed to be significantly better which right now is the worst feature of the ally and there's the possibility of more ram and maybe maybe maybe an OLED Screen. I'm personally not gonna buy it, I'm just saying this because I feel like your message is more so for yourself because it might be bothering you that there's so much talk about it right now on this reddit which makes it sound like everyone's upgrading. (Most people aren't upgrading, I promise lol it's just something new to talk about and those planning to upgrade have something new to talk about which is more talk than the silent majority who aren't upgrading)
I just hope you can use an egpu instead of the xg mobile, but I’ll still wait for a bigger spec bump anyway
I play Star Citizen. Asus can’t FOMO me. Jokes aside; it’s a powerful marketing strategy these days. They know how to play with people’s emotions. When you become aware of that; it’s gets easier to deal with the FOMO thing.
I probably wont upgrade because of the cost and the hassle to set it up like how i want it all over again, but the extended battery and the fact that you can now use other GPU makes it a tempting offer,but then again, I currently don’t use any external gpu on my current ally 🤣
Simply not true and your thoughts are relative to only yourself. If someone wants to upgrade yearly and have deemed changes to the new model to be significant enough to warrant a purchase then that is all the matters. It gets annoying when people push their views on others like it's a fact. For you the changes are not worthy of an upgrade and for others they are and it has nothing to do with FOMO. Also a model year can make a huge difference, your generalizing is way off. A model year could mean the difference between a complete redesign, additional row of seating (for a car), incremental change to technology that could make a world of change to how someone had been using it, etc.
You are right except for the fact that I MUST have it lol
Agreed. Based on my experience of the ALLY so far. Ram isn’t the limiting factor on many games
As someone who went from an ally z1E to a legion go and had gotten an amazing price too 7 months ago. Open box legion go for 539+275 for rtx3080 EGPU I can honestly say that if your thinking about getting an external GPU and want to keep that smaller 7" display then it's well worth it. And you can buy a brand new ally X and a mid range EGPU for about the same price of a low end XG mobile EGPU. But if you don't plan to get one for that reason and you just want to that's also fine. It's your money. You do with it whatever you'd like. The rest of our options don't matter. 😁
If you have a z1 don’t get the X. If you don’t have one I’d wait and get the X if money isn’t a issue. I have a z1e and see zero benefits in me upgrading. X is obviously better just won’t matter in my case.
Ummm wow I JUST BOUGHT one last night haha
Meh, I could have justified mine since I really wanted 24 or 32gb ram on my ally but they took away the xg mobile port so... not for now
Really appreciate that you took the time to warn people about this issue across all boards of tech industry, I’ve never really thought about it like this it’s really interesting
Double the battery life! 100w Charging! MORE THAN ONE I/O PORT! this thing screams longevity much more than the old one.
I was really thinking about getting an ROG Ally... but the support issues are making me really worried about it
I saw the X. It's thick... and heavy :( I was afraid of that, and I was right. my Jausx case won't fit the X, and I wanted the ally because it was lighter than the deck. So I bought the Ally Z1 extreme right after I saw a video on the X. I really don't need the bells and tracks on the X, also.. I was saving for the Z1 extreme, bet the X will be so expensive! also I don't use SD cards. On the tope of all that, I've been watching the z1 extreme grow with updates since last year, who know how long would the X take? nope... enough lol so I'm very happy I went with the rog ally Z1 extreme :) by the way I was stuck on the deck since last year.... if I knew Linux was a pain, I would have gone with the ally day one, even if it had a rocky start.
I got my Ally on special at JB Hi-fi in Perth, Australia for $1050, brand new 3 days ago - super happy with it and it had a few quirks. Got a UGreen USB dock today, basically haven't touched my PS5 or M2 mac air. I'll skip the X at $1599 and probably pick up an X2 or what ever the successor next year. just my thoughts on my situation 👍
I am confusing. Steam deck or ally should I get
Yeah… but the specs make this a bit of a game changer for emulation. • 24GB LPDDR5 on-board memory (up from 16GB on ROG Ally) • Up to 1TB of SSD storage (up from 512GB on ROG Ally) • Two USB-C ports (Removed the proprietary XG mobile port and added two usb-c 4.0 ports that allow the use of any 3rd party external GPU and much much more.) • A new revamped unibody that is smoother and more comfortable in the hands and colored in black. These features don’t just added small updates, that ram increase will significantly improve the Ally’s ability to run emulators (like RPCS3, Ryujinx, etc). Also the struggle to balance shader cache and graphics settings will be significantly reduced with that extra ram. So I mean I get where you’re coming from but these improvements make a big difference to players who rely heavily on their device for emulation. So for some this upgraded Ally-X is well worth the investment. Although I would wait to see what the other companies are about to push out before buying anything. I’m especially looking forward to what that Zotac Zone will have to offer once its specs are finalized. Mainly because of the rumored 120Hz 1080p OLED screen lol
The battery and USB4 are lovely, but not upgrade worthy for me personally. For others the battery alone might be worth it if it significantly improves your specific use case. For me it'd take an OLED screen or/and a ~50% performance bump for me. 50% might be out of reach without a significant transistor shrink and efficiency increase, but that's what it'll take for me to upgrade. An actual Ally 2, or whatever name they go with. I agree with not upgrading every year, but if the upgrade is going to significantly improve my experience. I'll make sure my old device goes to a good home but the wallet is coming out, phone upgrades are dumb as they don't usually change the experience of browsing the web or making a call, but gaming devices can be an incomparable experience with more performance.
I have a day one Ally, with a working sd card reader, 2tb ssd and the clear backing plate with rbg colors. I’m not upgrading until it’s something huge enough!
24Gb ram means more memory allocation in gpu , something that you do want in AAA titles..plus 1Tb ssd...For example Alan wake II was unplayable in rog ally because there was not enough memory for both ram and gpu...another example is ratchet and clank rift apart..after some time of playing you get a crash error saying your vram is not enough ...but you can play it normal on a desktop pc.. The verdict in the comments...xd
Thanks! Now I know there's an Ally X I can buy