I was so excited about the original ROG Ally. Heck, I sold so much of my collection to be able to afford it and I preordered it. Luckily, I even got it a few days early before release (unlike a lot of these handhelds)! My excitement was unmatched until I finished setting it up.
The Original Ally Experience for Me
I have never had a PC and I am not proficient in Windows. I already had a Steam Deck, but that extra power was enticing. Using PC Game Pass sounded great as well. I would finally play the ReVamped Mod to NCAA 14 on the PS3! It felt pretty good in hand, the screen was nice, and the speakers were great, but the battery stressed me out.
Watching the battery tick down gave me such anxiety and also regret. All I could think of was the regret of spending so much money on something and not being happy. Also hearing the rumblings about how ASUS customer service is horrible was making me sweat. I returned it to Best Buy within 2 days and a few weeks later the SD card news was released so I instantly felt relieved.
The ROG Ally X announcement intrigued me. Twice the battery, more memory, better ergonomics, more RAM, and so much more. I felt that excitement from the first release rise in me again and I still had that money from the return the summer before. Also, I decided this would not just be a handheld experience, but also, I am going to dock this thing and use it as a computer as well. Time to go all in.
Arriving
The day of release was so exciting for me. Best Buy is pretty good with getting things to you the day of release or maybe even a day or two earlier. I was checking my order page constantly and my phone battery was whining from the constant refreshing. 7 am, noon, 3 pm, and so on and no movement. Just the dreaded words “will ship before the end of the day”.
Best Buy has a way of chatting with customer service, so being the impatient person I am, I decided to ask them what the status of the Ally was. They checked and assured me it would not just ship on release, but would also arrive! I was so excited. Long story short, it didn’t ship until 11:57 pm (still technically shipped that same day) and I didn’t get it until the next day.
When it came, I instantly opened it up and applied a screen protector. I was in it for the long haul this time. I went through all the updates of windows and armory crate while I rocked a fussy baby realizing I was becoming the fussy baby myself. After the long updating process, I bravely put in my 1.5 TB SD card to start downloading some games.
Battery
Sadly I never got to play any games that first day with all the downloading and updates I was doing, but I would be ready in the morning. The first game I played was the English patch of Dragon Quest X. I played for an hour and the battery went down 17%! That is it. I could totally get some longer playtime out of this. For this game, I was playing on the Silent mode (13 Watts)
I also fired up the new Call of Duty and turned it onto Turbo mode. After playing a full round (what is that, 15-20 minutes?) the battery dropped about 9%. I was thinking this was great and my horrors of playing my original Ally while watching the battery tick down were gone!
The Screen and Controls
The number one complaint from this refresh was the same as it is with all device news, “why not OLED?!”. I love my Steam Deck OLED, but the OLED fan club can be a bit too loud sometimes. The Ally has a great screen and honestly, I am not going to nitpick it for this. If you like the screen on the original Ally, you are lucky because it is the same one here.
The Ally X is a little heavier, but just like the Vita 1000, I am a fan of a little heft in my handhelds. The device is also not so angular and sharp, it feels like it has a better natural grip too. The sticks have a nice texture to them and do not have as loose a feeling as the original.
I don’t remember the triggers from the original Ally, but the X has some pretty great feeling hall triggers. The L1 and R1 have a little clickiness to them, but it isn’t too bad. The face buttons feel pretty similar to the original as well in my opinion. Lastly, the D-Pad of the X is improved. It feels much better and is a joy to use on the few D-Pad instances I need on a device this powerful.
Final Thoughts
Overall I am very happy with the ROG Ally X. After 2 weeks, my SD card is still working as well. The larger battery and other improvements are a welcome addition and I finally get the hype of the Ally. I was going to mention my experience docking it and using it as a computer (I am currently writing this article on the Ally X), but that is going to be saved for a later article.
Check out Zu’s first impressions of the Ally X above, or Andrew’s first impressions here. Finally, order your own Ally X at the link below!
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