Hey thanks for the comments and observations! Sucks that it didn’t work out with the Ally. I really was loving it until everything started crashing. Lot of people asking about the SD card I bought for the device-it’s a SanDisk Extreme 1TB that I bought at Best Buy. It still reads fine on other devices so the Ally didn’t fry it. I’m currently upgrading my Switch 256GB to the 1TB. Hopefully ASUS is all over the hiccups that people seem to be having with the Ally and it starts kicking ass the way it’s meant to. Can’t wait to see where this powerful handheld race takes us to next.
Sadly u ran into an issue with running your ally too hot. I’m betting you ran on turbo plugged. The burst tdp feature they put in pushed TDPs to 50tdp levels and generated crazy 90c or more and broke the card reader which caused you system stability issues. Honestly this was a crazy oversight by asus that can be easily fixed with a simple software update ( for people that have not yet broken the reader). Setting a manual tdp for plugged to max out at 25tdp or setting the fans to 70% or more would keep you pretty cool and still offer better performance than deck.
I listened for like 30 seconds to your issue and I can tell you what happened: you burned your reader. This is a high powered laptop in a tiny shell, it is not a Nintendo Switch, you cannot run intensive games off an SD card for sustained periods, it is just too much heat. Asus doesn't have to patch anything regarding this, I use my SD card for storage, roms and small games, that's it. I have had none of the issues that everyone has talked about because i used mine as intended. Games as large and intensive as the ones you talked about should be running off your ssd, not an sd card. I don't know how it isn't common sense to the rest of you but I'm convinced the vast majority of you damaged your own cards and readers.
I will agree the ally doesn’t fry the card, it fries the card reader which is why your card works fine elsewhere and why the ally was chugging with it plugged in.
As you probably know, it may have corrupted your card, did you try taking out the card and using it prior to reformatting? I had a few bad hard drives and believe me, it slowed my computer down a few times. Anyhoo, glad you saved your money, there's always going to be a new handheld. Happy Canada day!
@@WeeWeeJumbo the next apus are supposed to be amazing. Strix point is at least twice as powerful as the steam deck. Strix halo could be 3-4 times as powerful, maybe even more.
I own both devices and honestly i can agree with most of the things he comes up with apart from 1 main thing. Rog Ally is a Windows based laptop. Nothing more. All the limitations that it has is based on that. Steam Deck runs its own software much like an Iphone. You know that there are better/faster and capable devices out there but Iphone just works. Same as Steam Deck it just works.
This is exactly what I've been trying to put into words over the last few weeks while contemplating getting the Ally and letting go of my steamdeck. Valve is like the Apple of the handheld PC space right now. And that credibility goes a long way in my opinion. I'll stick with my steamdeck until the next revision comes out.
I'm a day one purchaser of the Asus ROG Ally. I think too many people try to pack everything into a device that was designed to be a portable. It's like going to an all you can eat buffet and thinking you're going to eat everything, but in reality, you can only eat 2 - 3 plates of food before you're stuffed. I have a Steam Deck and like it. I have the ROG Ally and really like it so far. On both devices, I keep them stock. I don't use SD cards and pack them with a library of games. I already have a library of games to last me a very long time on my consoles. These portables are an addition to my gaming and not a replacement. I have 4 - 5 games on each. I play each game on each device to completion, delete it, and install another to replace it. I utilize Xbox Game Pass and play titles from a few years back that i would otherwise not have played or didn't have time to when they came out. There are no issues with my Steam Deck or my ROG Ally, but I'm concerned about issues that you had with your experience. But all in all. this is typical of the PC world. They have a habit of going haywire and need a technician to fix them sometimes. So, I'm not surprised at the issues of the Ally. The Steam Deck is more of a dedicated gaming console, so I expect less of a problem.
He was on g4 or tech tv right. I remember co-hosted was with some really cute girls. I think Olivia Munn got her start there. Victor is ok, kinda seemed like we was paid to be the contrarian on the show 😅
I’ve owned both the steam deck and now the ally and I must say the ally has been a way better experience. I see all the horror stories and posts but I haven’t had any issues and I have many hours on it primarily in Diablo 4. The ally runs great, no crashes, no slow downs, updates are easily installed thanks to the my ASUS software. A new bios update released yesterday that aims to fix the SD card reader issue which I have personally never experienced. And also helped with overall performance and stability. ASUS is listening and actually working to fix the issues. As far as power goes, there is no comparison between the steam deck and the ally
I know this will sound crazy, but I skipped the current gen consoles altogether thanks to the Steam Deck simply because it could pretty much play everything the PS5/Series X could in a portable form and for someone who's busy like myself it's a Godsend. Even more crazy is that I've slowly sold off a lot of my retro game collection & dumped the roms myself onto the Deck. I realized after the pandemic that life is too darn short and I'm getting old so I didn't wanted to waste my time being obsessed with curating physical games but instead I find more joy just playing my Deck at the park without much fuss. I'm glad that Valve has been incredibly supportive of the system.
Nintendo, with the gameboy, all the way up to the switch, made people realize how much potential handheld has. What Steam deck is currently doing, Nintendo did it for me years ago. If it wasn't for the success of the switch, the deck and the other pc handhelds wouldn't be here today. Nintendo paved the way for handhelds. The Deck and the Rog are commercial failures, especially sales wise, so I doubt they may even continue with a handheld in the future. I know they are talks about a Deck 2, but if the first Deck flops, we don't know if they'll make a third iteration. The deck is nice, other than its terrible screen, i like the system, but I'm more so looking forward to the more appealing switch. 2. I guess Steam and Asus are seeing how hard it is trying to break into the handheld market. It's not as easy as they thought.
I also did the same thing and got rid of a huge tote bin with 100s of NES, SNES and N64 games and accessories. Now I have the roms on my steam deck. I also did this at the start of the pandemic, because I thought, I'm getting old and life is too short. A couple decades of collecting was thrown to the wind. I only wish I had given them to a friend instead of throwing them away! But steam deck is more than enough gaming hardware for me, for the time being😅
@donniedarko4497 yeah, for the time being. Until they come out with another and better platform that u want, then that cycle starts all over again. The day I stop collecting is the day I stop playing video games. Getting rid of all your games and settling down with the underpowered steam deck is not an alternative or scapegoat for getting too old for gaming. If you're too old to collect or playing video games, u shouldn't be playing it all. Once I decide I'm too old for gaming, everything go's!!! Steam deck, pc, xbox,Sony etc. Everything to do with gaming would be gone. You're just fooling yourself with that steam deck. Games are games, whether u download digitally, collect physical, playing on pc, console or a steam deck. One isn't necessarily better than the other.
Same here like I wouldn't blame you if you absolutely skipped on the current generation of consoles you don't wanna be tied down I get that I feel a similar way myself
I probably would have returned this thing shortly after getting it. I came from playing consoles my whole life. Finally decided I was done with them. Got a steam deck and spent days trying to figure out all its capabilities, how to use steam store, etc... It was worth it tho, but this thing seems like it would have overwhelmed me quick.
@@sharinglungs3226 it's just easier to use outside for me than fiddling around with my windows PC if an old game can't run on modern hardware because of compatability
I appreciate your commentary on this one, Mr. Lucas. A lot of the coverage and reviews I've seen for this product get really hung up on the power and specs of the device, and spend little to no time on the software experience. From my experience, it's the software that makes or breaks handheld devices for me, and what's kept me happy with the Steam Deck.
Same, too much time spent with the issues and setting up, very little time actually gaming. Got mine last week but I’m gonna return it today. Had to factory reset a few times as well
Before I got my ally 2 weeks ago, I knew nothing about windows or downloading roms. Now I'm playing triple A games and have a library of roms that I'll probably never complete in my lifetime 😊
The Deck's support from Valve and the community around it takes it to another level. I love how it just works for the most time, especially with verified/playable catagorized games. With non verified games, you have to tinker with things, but usually someone in the community has done the leg work for you.
@@strongerthanstone6216 I never tried to get Vortex to work on it. I'm playing Skyrim with the immersive and adult giant mod on PC, just glorious, but I'd like to bring that over to my Steam Deck. I'm not looking forward to trying to t it to work. I even had issues with emulation, I really don't like Linux, only because I don't know it well still.
Ally owner here at launch. Was a deck launch owner as well. Sold my deck here and have been enjoying my ally since I got it. Replaced the NVME with a 2tb unit and been loading a bunch of games on it and enjoying it. It is used most of the time with the home or around the home so I will always be near an outlet if needed (And then I can really push it if I want) - Wifi in it is great for cloud and in-home streaming (Can get it down to 6-7watts if doing that and still get 120fps if your network can handle it) and really its been great not having to do the proton hoops and things to get everything going. I do hope that asus does keep looking into this (It seems they are aware per their discord and working on it since the week after the launch they had a company holiday for about a week)
By this time next year, no one will be talking about the Ally and Asus will have essentially abandoned it. Meanwhile Valve will continue to add value to the Deck through continued improvements and growing its userbase.
@@Thrashman138The steam deck will be obsolete as far as playing new games go by the end of this year. Fun thing about windows is after you iron out the initial bugs shouldn’t need constant support like valve has to do with their system l. Most of the support down the line will come from Amd. If the chip is strong enough to run it gonna work on windows.
@@businesstronevery piece of tech is obsolete. The switch was 3 years obsolete when it came out and it's still selling like hotcakes. The ps5 was obsolete when it was announced. The Xbox one played at 900p when it launched. The steamdeck was obsolete when it came out, but it still plays games. If you want AAA titles at great frames, you get a PC. Not a handheld.
I returned mine as well. I played with my Asus Rog Ally for eight days and the screen started to have 5-6 small bubbles. It may be because of too much heat inside (70-90 C) when I got it plug in and hook to a monitor.
I had a problem with the graphic card today after a week of using it, it wouldn't let me change resolution and I had to turn off the drivers and turn them on again and it fixed, but this make me think it's unstable asf
When I saw your thumbnail I was somewhat triggered as I absolutely love my ROG Ally, new to your channel BTW, but then I actually watched your video and can attest to some of these issues. I think your video was very fair and made well, you've earned another sub good sir. 👍
This was exactly my experience at the 2 week mark, and I mean, exactly.. Soo many dramas.. all at once, with the SD card and system lockups and Soo much screwing around, just 2 weeks in. Took it back and got a full refund.. such a shame! When I handed it back into the store, they told me that they had sold 4 units in my town, and 3 had already been returned, due to various issues. Another disaster for ASUS.. I wonder which system engineer tought it would be a good idea to put the card reader right next to the power system chips, and right on top of the fan exhaust.. blazing heat! I mean.. that was a Death Star design level of stupidity.. what a waste :(
@robertsmith20022 yeah but why we gotta do all that. We're too old for that. This ain't red ring of death days. We have options. As a casual gamer I don't have time to dive into that stuff. With all that said I'm keeping my ally tho. I haven't put an SD card in it but if I do the fan curve adjuster better be there already 😤
@@66kaisersozathey said that, I don't believe it. The flaws of the design tells another different story. I am almost sure Asus start working in the ally in the year the steam deck was out. Not before.
I returned my ROG Ally back to Asus. Was fine at first, but within a few days of use, it became very slow, would overheat and many times would simply crash out of games, that others were running just fine.
My Steam Deck was defective out of the box, crashing 20 mins into any gameplay. I had to get an RMA and wait 7 days for a replacement. Glad, I didn't let that scare me off.
8:24 Thank you for an accidental cameo! At least it's during footage of my favourite Assassin's Creed game. Frankly, I've been using OBS to stream on my desktop and then capture my Deck. 😹
I return 2 of them because me and my husband were playing them after 2 days of use they both got burnt over heated and black death screen. Then after purchase onexplayer mini pro best device I own now!!!
This has been my experience for PC gaming in general; spending hours to fix whatever update damaged whatever was previously working perfectly. This is why I LOVE the SteamDeck. It's best of both worlds, PC gaming and Console gaming, AND it just works.
Except of course when it doesn't. I have a Deck and it's nice but the narrative that it "just works" all the time and has no issues is just that: a narrative. It's not based on reality.
@@robblack8754true but it’s been the easiest fixes since the community is so dedicated. Every issue I did have I fixed and once you learn the settings it’s so nice to tweak it to work. It’s crazy how much online resources to improve or fix issues I found. Nothing like trying to fix window issues which mostly consists of waiting for a update.
ROG certainly had a good idea but once again the price and the support of the Steam Deck just shows that we just want an easy and affordable way to play games anywhere.
literally, tons of people have had very few issues with it lol I guess if you are computer illiterate you are gonna have issues lol and again these are mini pc so its basically a mini laptop. windows will always be buggy you just have to be smart to use it
@@coryvallad7578t’s not just windows, it’s also the joysticks, sd card, dpad issues. This thing is a ticking timebomb. Too many devices have these issues and best buys are loaded with returns
I had steam deck and went to the same frustration after 3 weeks. I have to do factory reset but have to wait because it constantly freezed. Then I bought another steam deck again and the second one work fine. I have the Ally and do not have any issue people talking about every day. The only isdue is the auto mode of joystick do not work properly sometimes so I use gamepad mode. For the battery even some laptop bigger than ally do not last much. This is not a concern for me.
I just ordered the Steamdeck a couple days ago. Should get to me weds so I'm excited. I had to choose between that or the ROG Ally. But when I saw the name ASUS attached to it, it made my decision easy.
Yeah, smart choice. Asus has had serious problems with their hardware over the past couple of years and they've even screwed over customers by not honoring warranty repairs or replacements. I absolutely do not trust them to support the Ally long term. It just ain't happening.
Wow your face on the thumbnail brought back memories of watching you and Tommy debate games on versus, good times. I didn't know you had a TH-cam channel, nice to see you still doing gaming commentary.
I'm dual booting Windows 11 and Steam OS on my Steam Deck, and have been using it that way for several weeks now. It's been a far better experience than most of what I've heard about using the Ally. The Steam Deck controls operate exactly the same way as a Steam Controller does for a regular PC when you use Windows. The touch pads default to being a mouse when Steam isn't running. The touch screen works perfect. You can set Windows to automatically put up on screen keyboard every time you tap a text field. It's been really great. I boot into Steam OS for my Steam games, boot into Windows for Game Pass and GOG. There seems to be something really special that's gone into the Steam Deck, how well it works even when you do tinker with it.
Opposite experience. Love this thing over my Steam Deck. It does everything and better, especially with game pass. Good to have another opinion though. Much love for you and the channel. Big fan for a long time!
Actually the SD card issue defends on what kind, speed, brand and such. The community and some content creators are testing it now and the best bet are the 512gb like Samsung pro. Most 1tb SD card heats up too much on random reads. Steam deck has been out for more than a year, they went through the same headaches. The Ally has been out to the public in less than 3 weeks.....
@@darriusholt The community is divided as you can see. The people that hates the ally have steamdeck and the people that really enjoying the ally. No in between. Some people just want justification to hate and cannot embrace that 2 can co exist. Steamdeck has been out for more than a year. They went through their own headaches as well. The ally in the other hand has been out to the public for 3 weeks. It's just a matter of he said and she said at this point. For my experience, it's been smooth and just loving it. And so all of my friends and family that bought it.
No need too yet. Still tons of tweaks and improvements happening. And then when the next gen of handhelds hits it’ll be a great indie and older AAA system.
If I understand you correctly-some of your steam games were in your micro sd card. At the beginning, the alley was able to read the micro sd card and showed your steam games, but then, they suddenly did not show up . Did your reboot finally solved the issue-so was your alley able to read the games on the micro sd?
$1100 to have any problems that quickly is a no no...........$350 a year later and my SD works like i just took it out the box.........you did the right thing returning it.
I was very on the fence about the ROG Ally or the Steam Deck. I ended up selecting the Steam Deck simply because I am console gamer first and don't need the headache of Windows... which is a pro and a con of the Ally. I think it's an awesome first step, and I hope they iterate, but the Steam Deck has been my go-to device for the last month. Seriously, I haven't touched my Xbox or PS5 since I purchased it.
@@MithosDagon Oh, I'm sure I'll get back to it. I just had such a massive steam backlog... lol. I sit behind a computer for work, I don't want to sit behind a computer to game. The steamdeck helped free up that library.
The same exact thing happened to me. Huge waste of my time. The only solution was too not use an SD card at all since it kills them from heat. I swapped the ssd for a 2TB. Steamdeck works like a charm.
I use SD cards on the steam deck and switch without issue. Thought it’d be fine to do that on the Ally. I bought a SanDisk Extreme 1TB through Best Buy. I’m going to use this in my Switch and pop out the one that was in there.
@@EPN - I would be disappointed as well. I just upgraded the nvme to a 1tb as i'm not a fan of running an sd as a true storage device. Maybe that all has changed now. But I plan on using the Ally as a mini-pc with a side of gaming. Not that I need it for that, I have laptops and other things, but just as an interesting experiment. If they can get the Z1 Extreme into laptops that are upgradeable (ram and storage, at least), then they have something really cool. I've seen the Ryzen 7000 chips, which are basically the same, in some new laptops, but they are WAY expensive right now. Hopefully, all that will change. Very cool tech, and I'm happy to get to play with it. Cheers Rick
Why would I pay 700 dollars for a product with a faulty design and then use the "Workaround" of completely disassembling it to replace hardware components and spend $100+ on a new SSD? Lmao, there's a reason people are returning these pieces of junk in droves. This thing sucks and hasn't stopped sucking. At least valve got their shit together and fixed the steam deck.
Wow Victor, I think you are about two weeks ahead of my experience. I was loving the steam deck when I launched it, Spider-Man miles Morales was working flawlessly and then I was gonna spin up another game and I was getting a direct X 12 error turns out somehow windows overrode the driver. I spent hours getting this fixed and I thought to myself “here we go again another Windows PC set of issues when I just wanna game”. And then I watched your video and I realize I just don’t think I want to deal with the hassle. I just wanna play games I don’t have hours to deal with these issues as much as I love the hardware. Hopefully they can make an improved version next time around. Also thank you so much I’ve loved your content since I was a kid! And also, hello to a fellow Vancouverite!
I returned mine as well. The Ally is basically the GameGear and the Steam Deck is the GameBoy. Power isnt always everything. I am glad someone came in and created competition but this will fall unfortunately. Poor hardware choice (SD card frying) and other issues will be the downfall of this device. I have seen Reddit posts of people going to BB and employees saying there's a stack of Ally returns in the back.
Meh, buy a high endurance SD card if you have issues with heat cooking micro SD cards. High endurance cards are meant to be used in devices like dash cams where they are subjected to heat in a parked car in Florida or wherever.
@@saysbadman Or buy a device that doesn't fry the components it's advertised to use. This total victim mentality. Asus fucked this up bad and now you're defending them? Bro has Stockholm Syndrome.
Well said. I could not agree more. The Ally has far too many issues that mere GPU horsepower alone can fix. Your analogy of the Game Gear vs. the GameBoy is perfect. We've seen throughout the decades that you need more than powerful hardware to succeed at a high level in this niche market. The DS line versus every other handheld ever made during its entire run is all the precedent you need. Also, Windows is a fucking awful experience on a handheld, especially one without trackpads.
sandisk industrial sd cards seem to be holding up very well - they only get about 80MBps but thats better than 14 from a sandisk extreme pro (better faster card) that will last about 48 hours. this is nuts I dont understand why these faster cards are dying even when your not gaming, mine died and I was just downloading games to it on the low power settings too ...I dont think its the heat I think it might be a voltage/controller issue or something related.
To be fair, this is a Windows issue, which will b ironed out probably soon, I remember the first week of owning my Steam Deck, so many people were reporting system breaking bugs with Linux. I even needed to completely reset my system - It'll be ironed out. Someone who worked at bestbuy said the majority of returns was because people "didn't like it". Most people have buyers remorse if they spend over $700 (taxes) it's just an iffy time to come out with a device at that price. Especially when there's a direct competitor that's cheaper, most people just won't have the patience.Because I was an early adopter, I've dealt with far far worse than what you had to deal with with your Ally, it's a shame Asus won't get the positive support like Valve did, but only more time will tell. Windows gaming certainly isn't for everyone, knowing exactly which drivers to install and re-install may take more patience than most people have, especially if they can just pick up an alternative like the Steam Deck. The main reason I own an Ally is because I wanted a Steam Deck with Windows, but hearing all the issues - The Ally seemed like the logical choice, and luckily remains an incredible device, I hope Asus doesn't get discouraged by people just giving up on their handheld. Asus has a rich history besides the most recent customer service blunders, they were a company that introduced me to PC gaming. *Fingers crossed*
There are issues with the SD card slot on the Ally right now. I have been enjoying mine since launch as I took the SD card out since I don't really need it (I put a 2tb nvme in it). Taking out the card might have alleviated your problems.
You got farther than I did I bought the ROG Ally on 8/8/2023 and when I got it home to enter in my information on Keyboard it wouldn't Populate on the unit.. I tried the fix on TH-cam and it still didn't work so I returned it .. I think the unit has lot of bugs that needs to be fixed.. If ASUS fixes the bugs it should be a really cool machine ...
I had the EXACT same experience! Ran great for a few days and all hell broke lose... I was playing Diablo 4 most of the time. Maybe it had sthing to do with it? It will not go 10 minutes without freezing. I'm from Canada as well Greater Toronto Area.
@@Zurcleon88 I only ran from nvme ssd so I have no idea about sdcard. In general ally is much quieter when gaming, but I find steam deck is much cooler where your hands are holding, ally feels somewhat warm to me
If you’re hanging on to the Ally keep updating windows and all the built in software and maybe stay away from micro sd cards until you get the all clear. Keep reading message boards for helpful tips on how to keep it tuning well. Have fun with it! Diablo IV in portable mode is killer. :)
@@EPN I did Asus cloud recovery image 2 times, local os reset 2 times, updated bios, reversed bios, and hot fix, uninstall adrenaline software, every damn thing I could find online that may help the constant crashing but nope.... Not a difference at all. Weird thing is it never crashed on my steam deck (win11), at the end I just gave up and returned the damn thing. It was just impossible to do farm helltides and push tier 3 capstone you know? Infuriating stuff
i havea a buddy that got the ally, i have a SD and when it comes to PCSX2, my SD is running circles around the ALLY same bios/ISO/version all same but the SD just works better on ps2 emulation it shouldnt but it does
Nice deep dive into this handheld. It's well out of my price range anyhow but it's always interesting to see what kind of advances are in the pipeline.
@@Futura2500The Q lite? That thing is just gonna be a streaming device of a joke. I’m a diehard Playstation guy too. They should’ve just made a new dedicated handheld, but they’re afraid of the risk since hardly anybody supported the Vita.
I work at best buy Canada and the rog ally has had so many issues, Ive heard multiple people complain about the fan giving off high pitched buzz, the joysticks stop working, and what you had the SD card slot failing
After 10 days I returned mine as well. Windows 11/Armoury Crate freezes, crashes, buttons stop working during games and finally the SD Card reader stopped functioning was enough to send it back to Best Buy for a full refund. Will come back next year to see if they fix the hardware & software issues. Screen and speakers were amazing but battery life not so much. Do version 2 Asus and you might have a winner.
IMO you can tell how successful the market is becoming by how many imitators, successful or not, appear in the market at a given point, and it occurs to me that, even though the Ally may have some major issues with it, the fact the attempt was made and the product put out alongside the Switch and Steam Deck is itself saying something about the potential for hybrid game consoles. Seems to me like the future is looking bright for these types of devices. :)
I think the SD card problem is the combination of two factors. The temperature rising and the software instability kick in afterwards . I do noticed the problem immediately when running turbo temperature near 90 degree celsius . Knowing how much heat the SD card could take and I used manual turbo profile to crank up the fan curve higher to maintain the temperature below 80. Of course the noise will be louder but my SD card have no issues so far. It is a bad design to put SD card slot near the vent and asus should have notice that . The long term solution would be expanding SSD storage and avoid turbo gaming on SD card. Asus may come up with a software solution but we will see about that later on. Other than that ,I'm enjoying the device most of the time.
I used the 1 TB San Disk Extreme and had similar issues. I just returned that to Best Buy (no questions asked) and picked up a Samsung SD card and it was fine.
Nothing wrong with the card in my case at least. Ally started chugging, locked up. Rebooted and it wouldn't recognize the card even being in there. Put it in my Steam Deck, formatted it, worked fine. Put it back in the Ally, nothing.
I upgraded to Aokzoe A1 Pro and have no regrets. 8in screen, 2tb storage, 32gb ram and it comfy as. Ive had no issues so far and runs everything i play perfectly at 60fps. Still got the deck with windows instead of steam os and the only thing i miss is the trackpads but that will pass over time.
So far none of those issues with mine. The update rants, the SD also had go through that on release. So yes i guess you could complain about release patching and updates but if thats your arguement for not buying new technology, we would never buy any new consoles or devices, as they all go through that. I work in IT and not a casual gamer so I understand that this is just the way technology works nowadays, nothing is perfect on release and believe it or not updates though annoying are actually good thing, it shows that they are working to better the performance of the device. Battery efficiency can be a big issue for some. However i only really use it near an outlet, for shortish game times, pretty much for when i have an hour or two to waste, I also do have battery packs for flights but I got it because i wanted a mini gaming travel computer but did not want a laptop (May be too expensive for that usecase for some people). I will say Valve is having a 20% summer sale on the high end Deck, which if you don't have any it definitely can be a winning factor and would take advantage of it, specially if you just want something that only runs Steam Games.
You are probably one of the few that actually knows how to use windows. The problem is this is not a console like experience, which is a failure on Asus but not their fault since that's all they have to work with
I'm looking at your temps when you're playing and yep, it will surely toast your SD card tray. It's a design flaw of ROG Ally that the SD card tray is sitting on heat exhaust. If you are playing on 30w and above, you really have to tweak the fan curves. The default fan curves are not capable of dissipating heat.
I think the pricing would vary from region to region, for example Valve doesn't even ship the SteamDeck to South Africa so the only option is to get gray imports which works out to close to R13000 for the 64GB model! ASUS did a global launch for the ROG Ally, I got the Z1 Extreme from Makro for R12999.
Asus just need to fix some things & make parts easily available, if the SD takes 2weeks to get in Canada & if Valve also supplies the parts then waiting on parts is a nightmare compared to going into a bestbuy to buy parts for rog ally if asus started supplying best buy parts & fix ally through update & sd card issue it would have no problems beating SD
Went to my local best buy and asked about open box allys. The guy said they were flooded with them, and that even cutting the prices, they still couldnt sell them. im willing to bet the ROG armoury crate software is actually more bloatware than anything, and strangles the hardware to an utter stop.
My daughter suggested I get this device and sell my Deck, I told her Windows is too frustrating and for the money I'd do better to just get a laptop. Thanks for confirming my suspicions.
I returned mine. I think the issue you had is that the unit gets too hot or something and kills the SD card reader. It basically won’t work right if you have anything plugged into it, which sounds like what happened to you. I returned mine because I was nervous about that happening and also my joystick had a clicking issue around 12 o’clock. I think at this point I’ll wait for rev 2.
As an engineer, this is exactly why I stuck with the Steam Deck. The ROG Ally is amazing hardware, no question, but it's Windows that will drive you nuts! The thing that Valve has done am amazing job with the Deck on, is aftermarket software support. I call it the Raspberry Pi environment. There are much more powerful hardware out there, but it's the software and support and community that make or break products, especially in computers and electronics.
I'm still planning to buy a Deck as soon as funds will allow, as I don't need the extra horsepower of the latest and greatest handheld PC's. My main issues with the lot, is how good will long term support be? ASUS has been having some much publicized issues in the media lately, and based on things since the Ally released, it's still a huge "?" for me. Most of the issues I would have with the Ally for sure comes from being Windows based, and that is the devices main blessing and main curse all in one. It would take the Ally being priced at $400 for me to even consider using a Windows device, as that's how much I don't care to use it on a handheld. So it's great to see devices like this, as it's only good news for consumers long term, but the Ally for sure is a wait and see product for me.
i returned the device also, the SteamDeck does everything i need in a mobile gaming experience. Ally can definitely be unstable, hopefully they fix with patches
You can see my post in the Asus Forum. I had all these issues the moment I plugged in an SD card. Removing it fixed things. So there is an issue with the card reader for sure, potentially heat related. As to if that's a huge issue is down to the end user. I've been using it for a while and had little issue with the Ally since not using SD and you can upgrade the internal drive. The controls crap out now and again and it seems very tied to Asus Armoury Crate, but it is a good device with some design flaws. Bit of a shame, but I hope they iron this out.
Yeah the deck is more console like and if you're not a tech the ally can be tricky, and I get why people return it after seeing it's not like a switch or steam deck... I've loved mine, I had that issue as well, a downgrade to the 317 fixed it... But if you don't want to do this or this isn't your ballpark I get that... Give it a few generations and these devices will be awesome...
Had to return my first Ally because of the SD card issue. I exchanged for a new one. Got the new one, increased fan curve so the SD card issues shouldn't pop up again. This one though is having a problem with some of my games freezing and crashing. So I think I'm going to have to do a fresh install of windows again. At the end of the day I said you know what I give up for now and went back to my steamdeck which pulled up my game immediately right where I left off. Then I played my game with no fuss. I know the steam deck has issues and had issues but never like the Ally. I finally came to the conclusion that if I reinstall windows on the Ally and if it keeps up with these issues I too will be returning it and I'll probably wait for the second steam deck.
I had the exact same issues (including the SD card problem) with my ROG Ally that you had, but it took less than a week to show up for me. I think that the problems might be caused by the Armor Crate software that maybe could have used a few more months of development. I did return mine to Best Buy after a week and I as well had no issues with that at the store. It is too bad because I was really looking forward to this device. I also think that the experience on my Steam Deck has overall been much better so far.
Exactly! this needed more time to cook. They probably had so much marketing invested with Best Buy they couldn't delay it. Clearly they rushed this to market.
Been meaning to get a Steamdeck so from what I researched, the Ally, OneX, etc are basically handheld laptops while the Steamdeck is a handheld console similar to the Switch. And the support for the Steamdeck is similar to its console brethren.
The Ally's fan curve is too low for Turbo mode. Asus has addressed it. They are going to adjust in an update. I made a custom for now. I did get a defective unit first that I returned. It had bad RAM and the sd card slot. Fried a 1tb sd card (not readable in any drive) and was crashing a lot.
I sold my Steam Deck for the Ally that on the contrary to you gave me way less headaches then the Steam Deck … my gaming purpose was to have everything on one place (game pass, PS Plus, PC and all the launchers, multiplayer games etc). I also hated how bad the screen on the Steam deck was compared to a switch oled … the Ally is very close colorwise. I have had no issues so far and while I am a bit worried about the ad card issue, I would keep my Ally over a steam deck 1000x even without sdcard reader
Hey thanks for the comments and observations! Sucks that it didn’t work out with the Ally. I really was loving it until everything started crashing.
Lot of people asking about the SD card I bought for the device-it’s a SanDisk Extreme 1TB that I bought at Best Buy. It still reads fine on other devices so the Ally didn’t fry it. I’m currently upgrading my Switch 256GB to the 1TB.
Hopefully ASUS is all over the hiccups that people seem to be having with the Ally and it starts kicking ass the way it’s meant to. Can’t wait to see where this powerful handheld race takes us to next.
If you would have just taken the sd card out of the slot it would have fixed your issue
Sadly u ran into an issue with running your ally too hot. I’m betting you ran on turbo plugged. The burst tdp feature they put in pushed TDPs to 50tdp levels and generated crazy 90c or more and broke the card reader which caused you system stability issues. Honestly this was a crazy oversight by asus that can be easily fixed with a simple software update ( for people that have not yet broken the reader). Setting a manual tdp for plugged to max out at 25tdp or setting the fans to 70% or more would keep you pretty cool and still offer better performance than deck.
I listened for like 30 seconds to your issue and I can tell you what happened: you burned your reader. This is a high powered laptop in a tiny shell, it is not a Nintendo Switch, you cannot run intensive games off an SD card for sustained periods, it is just too much heat. Asus doesn't have to patch anything regarding this, I use my SD card for storage, roms and small games, that's it. I have had none of the issues that everyone has talked about because i used mine as intended. Games as large and intensive as the ones you talked about should be running off your ssd, not an sd card. I don't know how it isn't common sense to the rest of you but I'm convinced the vast majority of you damaged your own cards and readers.
I will agree the ally doesn’t fry the card, it fries the card reader which is why your card works fine elsewhere and why the ally was chugging with it plugged in.
As you probably know, it may have corrupted your card, did you try taking out the card and using it prior to reformatting? I had a few bad hard drives and believe me, it slowed my computer down a few times. Anyhoo, glad you saved your money, there's always going to be a new handheld.
Happy Canada day!
Victor Lucas, one of my favorite ogs back in the g4 days.
Handheld gaming in the next few years will be crazy
Yeah. Somebody’s gonna get the formula right, and soon
@@WeeWeeJumbo the next apus are supposed to be amazing.
Strix point is at least twice as powerful as the steam deck.
Strix halo could be 3-4 times as powerful, maybe even more.
yea, but we need better batteries as well
zzzzzz
@@WeeWeeJumbo Valve already has honestly
I own both devices and honestly i can agree with most of the things he comes up with apart from 1 main thing. Rog Ally is a Windows based laptop. Nothing more. All the limitations that it has is based on that. Steam Deck runs its own software much like an Iphone. You know that there are better/faster and capable devices out there but Iphone just works. Same as Steam Deck it just works.
This is exactly what I've been trying to put into words over the last few weeks while contemplating getting the Ally and letting go of my steamdeck. Valve is like the Apple of the handheld PC space right now. And that credibility goes a long way in my opinion. I'll stick with my steamdeck until the next revision comes out.
Please don't compare a great device like steam deck to a trashy device like iphone...
@@ChampagneOppa Oh brother....
@@ChampagneOppa I dont use myself but more than 1 billion people would disagree :)
@akinsoyleyen actually 67% of the world market uses Android, 31% uses iPhone...
I'm a day one purchaser of the Asus ROG Ally. I think too many people try to pack everything into a device that was designed to be a portable. It's like going to an all you can eat buffet and thinking you're going to eat everything, but in reality, you can only eat 2 - 3 plates of food before you're stuffed. I have a Steam Deck and like it. I have the ROG Ally and really like it so far. On both devices, I keep them stock. I don't use SD cards and pack them with a library of games. I already have a library of games to last me a very long time on my consoles. These portables are an addition to my gaming and not a replacement. I have 4 - 5 games on each. I play each game on each device to completion, delete it, and install another to replace it. I utilize Xbox Game Pass and play titles from a few years back that i would otherwise not have played or didn't have time to when they came out. There are no issues with my Steam Deck or my ROG Ally, but I'm concerned about issues that you had with your experience. But all in all. this is typical of the PC world. They have a habit of going haywire and need a technician to fix them sometimes. So, I'm not surprised at the issues of the Ally. The Steam Deck is more of a dedicated gaming console, so I expect less of a problem.
Victor!!!! You have been my favorite gamer to watch content from since I was 12 years old. That was 21 years ago 💯
Exact same for me
He was on g4 or tech tv right. I remember co-hosted was with some really cute girls. I think Olivia Munn got her start there. Victor is ok, kinda seemed like we was paid to be the contrarian on the show 😅
Oh man!! Thanks for this spectacularly kind comment. ❤️
💯 Victor has been awesome for ages 👏🏽
Yep, both Victor and Adam Sessler really sparked my passion for gaming. My life literally would not have been the same without them
I’ve owned both the steam deck and now the ally and I must say the ally has been a way better experience. I see all the horror stories and posts but I haven’t had any issues and I have many hours on it primarily in Diablo 4. The ally runs great, no crashes, no slow downs, updates are easily installed thanks to the my ASUS software. A new bios update released yesterday that aims to fix the SD card reader issue which I have personally never experienced. And also helped with overall performance and stability. ASUS is listening and actually working to fix the issues. As far as power goes, there is no comparison between the steam deck and the ally
Do you still have it?
@@Tegui4 I do. Working great. Nearly 120 hours into Diablo strictly on the Ally and I’m having a blast.
Exact opposite for me. I had to sell the ally
@@REXae86 that’s unfortunate. I still have mine and have had zero issues.
I know this will sound crazy, but I skipped the current gen consoles altogether thanks to the Steam Deck simply because it could pretty much play everything the PS5/Series X could in a portable form and for someone who's busy like myself it's a Godsend. Even more crazy is that I've slowly sold off a lot of my retro game collection & dumped the roms myself onto the Deck. I realized after the pandemic that life is too darn short and I'm getting old so I didn't wanted to waste my time being obsessed with curating physical games but instead I find more joy just playing my Deck at the park without much fuss. I'm glad that Valve has been incredibly supportive of the system.
i did the same. skipped the current gen consoles and went straight to pc. now i own a steamdeck and pc and dont ever see myself going back to console.
Nintendo, with the gameboy, all the way up to the switch, made people realize how much potential handheld has. What Steam deck is currently doing, Nintendo did it for me years ago. If it wasn't for the success of the switch, the deck and the other pc handhelds wouldn't be here today. Nintendo paved the way for handhelds.
The Deck and the Rog are commercial failures, especially sales wise, so I doubt they may even continue with a handheld in the future. I know they are talks about a Deck 2, but if the first Deck flops, we don't know if they'll make a third iteration. The deck is nice, other than its terrible screen, i like the system, but I'm more so looking forward to the more appealing switch. 2. I guess Steam and Asus are seeing how hard it is trying to break into the handheld market. It's not as easy as they thought.
I also did the same thing and got rid of a huge tote bin with 100s of NES, SNES and N64 games and accessories.
Now I have the roms on my steam deck. I also did this at the start of the pandemic, because I thought, I'm getting old and life is too short. A couple decades of collecting was thrown to the wind. I only wish I had given them to a friend instead of throwing them away!
But steam deck is more than enough gaming hardware for me, for the time being😅
@donniedarko4497 yeah, for the time being. Until they come out with another and better platform that u want, then that cycle starts all over again. The day I stop collecting is the day I stop playing video games. Getting rid of all your games and settling down with the underpowered steam deck is not an alternative or scapegoat for getting too old for gaming. If you're too old to collect or playing video games, u shouldn't be playing it all. Once I decide I'm too old for gaming, everything go's!!! Steam deck, pc, xbox,Sony etc. Everything to do with gaming would be gone. You're just fooling yourself with that steam deck. Games are games, whether u download digitally, collect physical, playing on pc, console or a steam deck. One isn't necessarily better than the other.
Same here like I wouldn't blame you if you absolutely skipped on the current generation of consoles you don't wanna be tied down I get that I feel a similar way myself
Been waiting on a review from you about this device. Glad you told your experience with it.
I probably would have returned this thing shortly after getting it. I came from playing consoles my whole life. Finally decided I was done with them. Got a steam deck and spent days trying to figure out all its capabilities, how to use steam store, etc...
It was worth it tho, but this thing seems like it would have overwhelmed me quick.
Steam deck was a mess at launch too. I think people forget that. Shame Asus has their own growing issues. It’ll get fixed in the coming months.
@@sharinglungs3226 it's just easier to use outside for me than fiddling around with my windows PC if an old game can't run on modern hardware because of compatability
I appreciate your commentary on this one, Mr. Lucas. A lot of the coverage and reviews I've seen for this product get really hung up on the power and specs of the device, and spend little to no time on the software experience. From my experience, it's the software that makes or breaks handheld devices for me, and what's kept me happy with the Steam Deck.
Same, too much time spent with the issues and setting up, very little time actually gaming. Got mine last week but I’m gonna return it today. Had to factory reset a few times as well
Before I got my ally 2 weeks ago, I knew nothing about windows or downloading roms. Now I'm playing triple A games and have a library of roms that I'll probably never complete in my lifetime 😊
I bought rog Ally I love it never had a problem . The setup was a little long but working fine !
The Deck's support from Valve and the community around it takes it to another level. I love how it just works for the most time, especially with verified/playable catagorized games. With non verified games, you have to tinker with things, but usually someone in the community has done the leg work for you.
deck had same issue in start. fried SD cards was really common.
Same with the switch as well and my Ally works great so far
@@strongerthanstone6216 I never tried to get Vortex to work on it. I'm playing Skyrim with the immersive and adult giant mod on PC, just glorious, but I'd like to bring that over to my Steam Deck. I'm not looking forward to trying to t it to work. I even had issues with emulation, I really don't like Linux, only because I don't know it well still.
This is false. Ally has community and support on another level. And no problems like mentioned here.
@@cybeherocodex2426Exactly Switch and Ally is what I use. The best way to go by far.
I love that you STILL make content. Since I was a kid I have enjoyed every minute, I'm 35 now lol.
Ally owner here at launch. Was a deck launch owner as well. Sold my deck here and have been enjoying my ally since I got it. Replaced the NVME with a 2tb unit and been loading a bunch of games on it and enjoying it. It is used most of the time with the home or around the home so I will always be near an outlet if needed (And then I can really push it if I want) - Wifi in it is great for cloud and in-home streaming (Can get it down to 6-7watts if doing that and still get 120fps if your network can handle it) and really its been great not having to do the proton hoops and things to get everything going. I do hope that asus does keep looking into this (It seems they are aware per their discord and working on it since the week after the launch they had a company holiday for about a week)
By this time next year, no one will be talking about the Ally and Asus will have essentially abandoned it. Meanwhile Valve will continue to add value to the Deck through continued improvements and growing its userbase.
@@Thrashman138The steam deck will be obsolete as far as playing new games go by the end of this year. Fun thing about windows is after you iron out the initial bugs shouldn’t need constant support like valve has to do with their system l. Most of the support down the line will come from Amd. If the chip is strong enough to run it gonna work on windows.
@@businesstron nah
@@businesstronevery piece of tech is obsolete. The switch was 3 years obsolete when it came out and it's still selling like hotcakes. The ps5 was obsolete when it was announced. The Xbox one played at 900p when it launched. The steamdeck was obsolete when it came out, but it still plays games. If you want AAA titles at great frames, you get a PC. Not a handheld.
@@Thrashman138 yah
I returned mine as well. I played with my Asus Rog Ally for eight days and the screen started to have 5-6 small bubbles. It may be because of too much heat inside (70-90 C) when I got it plug in and hook to a monitor.
I had a problem with the graphic card today after a week of using it, it wouldn't let me change resolution and I had to turn off the drivers and turn them on again and it fixed, but this make me think it's unstable asf
When I saw your thumbnail I was somewhat triggered as I absolutely love my ROG Ally, new to your channel BTW, but then I actually watched your video and can attest to some of these issues. I think your video was very fair and made well, you've earned another sub good sir. 👍
Thanks for taking the time to watch and for the support! 👊🏻
@@EPN My pleasure... Thank you for being a good, honest TH-camr
Windows will always hold these devices back. I found that out the hard way with the gpd win 3. The SD software is a dream
That's why I just can't get one. I already had the first Aya neo and it was buggy as hell. Loved it still, but the deck is more smoother
This was exactly my experience at the 2 week mark, and I mean, exactly.. Soo many dramas.. all at once, with the SD card and system lockups and Soo much screwing around, just 2 weeks in. Took it back and got a full refund.. such a shame! When I handed it back into the store, they told me that they had sold 4 units in my town, and 3 had already been returned, due to various issues. Another disaster for ASUS.. I wonder which system engineer tought it would be a good idea to put the card reader right next to the power system chips, and right on top of the fan exhaust.. blazing heat! I mean.. that was a Death Star design level of stupidity.. what a waste :(
ASUS spent 5 years designing it aswell
Smh, all you had to do was watch a video on how to adjust the fans 😂😂😂. I swear people nowadays would rather complain rather than just find a fix.
@robertsmith20022 yeah but why we gotta do all that. We're too old for that. This ain't red ring of death days. We have options. As a casual gamer I don't have time to dive into that stuff. With all that said I'm keeping my ally tho. I haven't put an SD card in it but if I do the fan curve adjuster better be there already 😤
@robertsmith20022 geez hard-core fanboy standing up for a scummy company lol go figure
@@66kaisersozathey said that, I don't believe it. The flaws of the design tells another different story. I am almost sure Asus start working in the ally in the year the steam deck was out. Not before.
Hello, great video! Thanks for sharing.
Just curious ; what type of Micro SD card did you use?
I returned my ROG Ally back to Asus. Was fine at first, but within a few days of use, it became very slow, would overheat and many times would simply crash out of games, that others were running just fine.
Hey sorry for the noob question but how do I return it back to Asus? Will they give a full refund? Just curios ! Thanks
My local Best Buy has two open box returned ROG Ally. I am happy with my Nintendo Switch OLED and my Steam Deck and passed on the Ally.
My Steam Deck was defective out of the box, crashing 20 mins into any gameplay. I had to get an RMA and wait 7 days for a replacement. Glad, I didn't let that scare me off.
I’m going to be a window shopper for a long time when it comes to these pc handhelds, but I appreciated listening to your experience with this device.
8:24 Thank you for an accidental cameo! At least it's during footage of my favourite Assassin's Creed game. Frankly, I've been using OBS to stream on my desktop and then capture my Deck. 😹
You have the perfect radio voice. Damn.
You know it’s bad when you’re giving BestBuy more praise than the product you’re reviewing
This is not bad at all
He gave the Ally a lot of praise. It just has one or two big issues- software (or hardware?) malfunction, and high price.
You know he hasn’t a clue what he’s talking about
I return 2 of them because me and my husband were playing them after 2 days of use they both got burnt over heated and black death screen. Then after purchase onexplayer mini pro best device I own now!!!
This has been my experience for PC gaming in general; spending hours to fix whatever update damaged whatever was previously working perfectly. This is why I LOVE the SteamDeck. It's best of both worlds, PC gaming and Console gaming, AND it just works.
Except of course when it doesn't. I have a Deck and it's nice but the narrative that it "just works" all the time and has no issues is just that: a narrative. It's not based on reality.
@@robblack8754true but it’s been the easiest fixes since the community is so dedicated. Every issue I did have I fixed and once you learn the settings it’s so nice to tweak it to work. It’s crazy how much online resources to improve or fix issues I found. Nothing like trying to fix window issues which mostly consists of waiting for a update.
I’m with you , I love my deck ❤
You are a real one for this video. Thank you
Thanks for watching!
You are not alone, I returned mine too .
ROG certainly had a good idea but once again the price and the support of the Steam Deck just shows that we just want an easy and affordable way to play games anywhere.
If only steam deck came to my country I'll buy it instantly. Manufacturer support is an absolute necessity for me.
literally, tons of people have had very few issues with it lol I guess if you are computer illiterate you are gonna have issues lol and again these are mini pc so its basically a mini laptop. windows will always be buggy you just have to be smart to use it
@@coryvallad7578You ally owners are turning out to be a terrible group of people.
@@coryvallad7578t’s not just windows, it’s also the joysticks, sd card, dpad issues. This thing is a ticking timebomb. Too many devices have these issues and best buys are loaded with returns
Is $757 really that expensive? Was chump change to me
I had steam deck and went to the same frustration after 3 weeks. I have to do factory reset but have to wait because it constantly freezed. Then I bought another steam deck again and the second one work fine. I have the Ally and do not have any issue people talking about every day. The only isdue is the auto mode of joystick do not work properly sometimes so I use gamepad mode. For the battery even some laptop bigger than ally do not last much. This is not a concern for me.
I just ordered the Steamdeck a couple days ago. Should get to me weds so I'm excited. I had to choose between that or the ROG Ally. But when I saw the name ASUS attached to it, it made my decision easy.
Yeah, smart choice. Asus has had serious problems with their hardware over the past couple of years and they've even screwed over customers by not honoring warranty repairs or replacements. I absolutely do not trust them to support the Ally long term. It just ain't happening.
You have chosen wisely.. I returned mine after 2 weeks of painful frustration and lockups...it was trash, sadly.
The microsd slot is fucked up, it’s on a heat vent. I gave up and put in a 2tb ssd instead and everything is beautiful now.
Wow your face on the thumbnail brought back memories of watching you and Tommy debate games on versus, good times. I didn't know you had a TH-cam channel, nice to see you still doing gaming commentary.
I sold my steam deck, had less issues then when the deck launched I love the ally
I'm dual booting Windows 11 and Steam OS on my Steam Deck, and have been using it that way for several weeks now. It's been a far better experience than most of what I've heard about using the Ally. The Steam Deck controls operate exactly the same way as a Steam Controller does for a regular PC when you use Windows. The touch pads default to being a mouse when Steam isn't running. The touch screen works perfect. You can set Windows to automatically put up on screen keyboard every time you tap a text field. It's been really great. I boot into Steam OS for my Steam games, boot into Windows for Game Pass and GOG. There seems to be something really special that's gone into the Steam Deck, how well it works even when you do tinker with it.
Good comment
Is it too heavy to hold up and play? Or do u place it on something
@@jessica49arrow I don't think is heavy but it is not Light either . U Will get use to it
Opposite experience. Love this thing over my Steam Deck. It does everything and better, especially with game pass. Good to have another opinion though. Much love for you and the channel. Big fan for a long time!
Actually the SD card issue defends on what kind, speed, brand and such. The community and some content creators are testing it now and the best bet are the 512gb like Samsung pro. Most 1tb SD card heats up too much on random reads. Steam deck has been out for more than a year, they went through the same headaches. The Ally has been out to the public in less than 3 weeks.....
@@TheMidnight74Some people were also saying they weren't gaming from their memory cards when the failure happened.
I wanted a console like handheld, so I chose the Steam deck, not a windows pc with all the problems that come with it
@@darriusholt The community is divided as you can see. The people that hates the ally have steamdeck and the people that really enjoying the ally. No in between. Some people just want justification to hate and cannot embrace that 2 can co exist. Steamdeck has been out for more than a year. They went through their own headaches as well. The ally in the other hand has been out to the public for 3 weeks. It's just a matter of he said and she said at this point. For my experience, it's been smooth and just loving it. And so all of my friends and family that bought it.
I play all of my games of the SD card on my steam deck. I hope that Asus works out these issues as we all benefit from competition.
I love my Steam Deck and everything I play works fine. I won't replace it anytime soon!
No need too yet. Still tons of tweaks and improvements happening. And then when the next gen of handhelds hits it’ll be a great indie and older AAA system.
If I understand you correctly-some of your steam games were in your micro sd card.
At the beginning, the alley was able to read the micro sd card and showed your steam games, but then,
they suddenly did not show up .
Did your reboot finally solved the issue-so was your alley able to read the games on the micro sd?
$1100 to have any problems that quickly is a no no...........$350 a year later and my SD works like i just took it out the box.........you did the right thing returning it.
Ah this video is quite a treat to wake up to just what I wanted to see😁
I was very on the fence about the ROG Ally or the Steam Deck. I ended up selecting the Steam Deck simply because I am console gamer first and don't need the headache of Windows... which is a pro and a con of the Ally. I think it's an awesome first step, and I hope they iterate, but the Steam Deck has been my go-to device for the last month. Seriously, I haven't touched my Xbox or PS5 since I purchased it.
It was the same for me for like 3 months then I went back to my consoles and PC.
@@MithosDagon Oh, I'm sure I'll get back to it. I just had such a massive steam backlog... lol. I sit behind a computer for work, I don't want to sit behind a computer to game. The steamdeck helped free up that library.
The same exact thing happened to me. Huge waste of my time. The only solution was too not use an SD card at all since it kills them from heat. I swapped the ssd for a 2TB. Steamdeck works like a charm.
Hey there. What brand SD card did you get? Why not drop in a 1TB nvme? Just curious?
Cheers
Rick
I use SD cards on the steam deck and switch without issue. Thought it’d be fine to do that on the Ally. I bought a SanDisk Extreme 1TB through Best Buy. I’m going to use this in my Switch and pop out the one that was in there.
@@EPN - I would be disappointed as well. I just upgraded the nvme to a 1tb as i'm not a fan of running an sd as a true storage device. Maybe that all has changed now. But I plan on using the Ally as a mini-pc with a side of gaming. Not that I need it for that, I have laptops and other things, but just as an interesting experiment. If they can get the Z1 Extreme into laptops that are upgradeable (ram and storage, at least), then they have something really cool. I've seen the Ryzen 7000 chips, which are basically the same, in some new laptops, but they are WAY expensive right now. Hopefully, all that will change. Very cool tech, and I'm happy to get to play with it.
Cheers
Rick
Why would I pay 700 dollars for a product with a faulty design and then use the "Workaround" of completely disassembling it to replace hardware components and spend $100+ on a new SSD?
Lmao, there's a reason people are returning these pieces of junk in droves. This thing sucks and hasn't stopped sucking. At least valve got their shit together and fixed the steam deck.
Wow Victor, I think you are about two weeks ahead of my experience. I was loving the steam deck when I launched it, Spider-Man miles Morales was working flawlessly and then I was gonna spin up another game and I was getting a direct X 12 error turns out somehow windows overrode the driver. I spent hours getting this fixed and I thought to myself “here we go again another Windows PC set of issues when I just wanna game”. And then I watched your video and I realize I just don’t think I want to deal with the hassle. I just wanna play games I don’t have hours to deal with these issues as much as I love the hardware. Hopefully they can make an improved version next time around.
Also thank you so much I’ve loved your content since I was a kid! And also, hello to a fellow Vancouverite!
Same here, I returned my ally. Windows is not what I was expecting for a handheld device.
wait this Victor from G4!! Yo how you been?
I returned my ally today aswell. Finger print sensor never worked and the best buy guy said there was a ton of people returning them lol.
I returned mine as well. The Ally is basically the GameGear and the Steam Deck is the GameBoy. Power isnt always everything. I am glad someone came in and created competition but this will fall unfortunately. Poor hardware choice (SD card frying) and other issues will be the downfall of this device. I have seen Reddit posts of people going to BB and employees saying there's a stack of Ally returns in the back.
Meh, buy a high endurance SD card if you have issues with heat cooking micro SD cards. High endurance cards are meant to be used in devices like dash cams where they are subjected to heat in a parked car in Florida or wherever.
@@saysbadman Or buy a device that doesn't fry the components it's advertised to use. This total victim mentality. Asus fucked this up bad and now you're defending them? Bro has Stockholm Syndrome.
Well said. I could not agree more. The Ally has far too many issues that mere GPU horsepower alone can fix. Your analogy of the Game Gear vs. the GameBoy is perfect. We've seen throughout the decades that you need more than powerful hardware to succeed at a high level in this niche market. The DS line versus every other handheld ever made during its entire run is all the precedent you need.
Also, Windows is a fucking awful experience on a handheld, especially one without trackpads.
sandisk industrial sd cards seem to be holding up very well - they only get about 80MBps but thats better than 14 from a sandisk extreme pro (better faster card) that will last about 48 hours. this is nuts I dont understand why these faster cards are dying even when your not gaming, mine died and I was just downloading games to it on the low power settings too ...I dont think its the heat I think it might be a voltage/controller issue or something related.
@@saysbadmanand there goes another 200 thanks to a bad design choice
This guy's voice is silky smooth, makes for easy listening!
Hey thanks for the compliment and thanks for watching! :)
To be fair, this is a Windows issue, which will b ironed out probably soon, I remember the first week of owning my Steam Deck, so many people were reporting system breaking bugs with Linux. I even needed to completely reset my system - It'll be ironed out. Someone who worked at bestbuy said the majority of returns was because people "didn't like it". Most people have buyers remorse if they spend over $700 (taxes) it's just an iffy time to come out with a device at that price. Especially when there's a direct competitor that's cheaper, most people just won't have the patience.Because I was an early adopter, I've dealt with far far worse than what you had to deal with with your Ally, it's a shame Asus won't get the positive support like Valve did,
but only more time will tell.
Windows gaming certainly isn't for everyone, knowing exactly which drivers to install and re-install may take more patience than most people have, especially if they can just pick up an alternative like the Steam Deck. The main reason I own an Ally is because I wanted a Steam Deck with Windows, but hearing all the issues - The Ally seemed like the logical choice, and luckily remains an incredible device, I hope Asus doesn't get discouraged by people just giving up on their handheld. Asus has a rich history besides the most recent customer service blunders, they were a company that introduced me to PC gaming. *Fingers crossed*
There are issues with the SD card slot on the Ally right now. I have been enjoying mine since launch as I took the SD card out since I don't really need it (I put a 2tb nvme in it). Taking out the card might have alleviated your problems.
Conformist consumer. You are the reason corpos don't give a deamnd
You got farther than I did I bought the ROG Ally on 8/8/2023 and when I got it home to enter in my information on Keyboard it wouldn't Populate on the unit.. I tried the fix on TH-cam and it still didn't work so I returned it .. I think the unit has lot of bugs that needs to be fixed.. If ASUS fixes the bugs it should be a really cool machine ...
I heard you can put steam os on it.. maybe it’ll be better?
I had the EXACT same experience! Ran great for a few days and all hell broke lose... I was playing Diablo 4 most of the time. Maybe it had sthing to do with it? It will not go 10 minutes without freezing. I'm from Canada as well Greater Toronto Area.
Do you use an SD card as well? What was the temperature when gaming?
@@Zurcleon88 I only ran from nvme ssd so I have no idea about sdcard. In general ally is much quieter when gaming, but I find steam deck is much cooler where your hands are holding, ally feels somewhat warm to me
If you’re hanging on to the Ally keep updating windows and all the built in software and maybe stay away from micro sd cards until you get the all clear. Keep reading message boards for helpful tips on how to keep it tuning well. Have fun with it! Diablo IV in portable mode is killer. :)
@@EPN I did Asus cloud recovery image 2 times, local os reset 2 times, updated bios, reversed bios, and hot fix, uninstall adrenaline software, every damn thing I could find online that may help the constant crashing but nope.... Not a difference at all. Weird thing is it never crashed on my steam deck (win11), at the end I just gave up and returned the damn thing. It was just impossible to do farm helltides and push tier 3 capstone you know? Infuriating stuff
i havea a buddy that got the ally, i have a SD and when it comes to PCSX2, my SD is running circles around the ALLY
same bios/ISO/version all same but the SD just works better on ps2 emulation it shouldnt but it does
Nice deep dive into this handheld. It's well out of my price range anyhow but it's always interesting to see what kind of advances are in the pipeline.
cant wait for sonys new handheld
@@Futura2500The Q lite? That thing is just gonna be a streaming device of a joke. I’m a diehard Playstation guy too. They should’ve just made a new dedicated handheld, but they’re afraid of the risk since hardly anybody supported the Vita.
Loving my ally. Been playing for a month. Great for steam rpgs on the go
I work at best buy Canada and the rog ally has had so many issues, Ive heard multiple people complain about the fan giving off high pitched buzz, the joysticks stop working, and what you had the SD card slot failing
After 10 days I returned mine as well. Windows 11/Armoury Crate freezes, crashes, buttons stop working during games and finally the SD Card reader stopped functioning was enough to send it back to Best Buy for a full refund. Will come back next year to see if they fix the hardware & software issues. Screen and speakers were amazing but battery life not so much. Do version 2 Asus and you might have a winner.
Returned mine the second day and kept my steam deck. Its amazing.
IMO you can tell how successful the market is becoming by how many imitators, successful or not, appear in the market at a given point, and it occurs to me that, even though the Ally may have some major issues with it, the fact the attempt was made and the product put out alongside the Switch and Steam Deck is itself saying something about the potential for hybrid game consoles. Seems to me like the future is looking bright for these types of devices. :)
Great review very informative. This helped me. Thanks Vic!
I think the SD card problem is the combination of two factors. The temperature rising and the software instability kick in afterwards . I do noticed the problem immediately when running turbo temperature near 90 degree celsius .
Knowing how much heat the SD card could take and I used manual turbo profile to crank up the fan curve higher to maintain the temperature below 80. Of course the noise will be louder but my SD card have no issues so far. It is a bad design to put SD card slot near the vent and asus should have notice that .
The long term solution would be expanding SSD storage and avoid turbo gaming on SD card. Asus may come up with a software solution but we will see about that later on. Other than that ,I'm enjoying the device most of the time.
I miss Saturday morning livestreams of epn
I used the 1 TB San Disk Extreme and had similar issues. I just returned that to Best Buy (no questions asked) and picked up a Samsung SD card and it was fine.
I would have been interested to know if was a bad SD card. The symptoms described sound very much like defective drive media or bad SD card reader.
Nothing wrong with the card in my case at least. Ally started chugging, locked up. Rebooted and it wouldn't recognize the card even being in there. Put it in my Steam Deck, formatted it, worked fine. Put it back in the Ally, nothing.
Same exact thing happened to me, it seemed like my SD card reader failed completely. Ended up returning it as well.
Havent watched a lucas video in 10 years. This guy has not aged
Play forever, until your game doesn't load correctly. Thanks for another great video, Vic!
I upgraded to Aokzoe A1 Pro and have no regrets. 8in screen, 2tb storage, 32gb ram and it comfy as. Ive had no issues so far and runs everything i play perfectly at 60fps. Still got the deck with windows instead of steam os and the only thing i miss is the trackpads but that will pass over time.
That is also like 500 more dollars so yeah, it should be better
So far none of those issues with mine. The update rants, the SD also had go through that on release. So yes i guess you could complain about release patching and updates but if thats your arguement for not buying new technology, we would never buy any new consoles or devices, as they all go through that. I work in IT and not a casual gamer so I understand that this is just the way technology works nowadays, nothing is perfect on release and believe it or not updates though annoying are actually good thing, it shows that they are working to better the performance of the device.
Battery efficiency can be a big issue for some. However i only really use it near an outlet, for shortish game times, pretty much for when i have an hour or two to waste, I also do have battery packs for flights but I got it because i wanted a mini gaming travel computer but did not want a laptop (May be too expensive for that usecase for some people).
I will say Valve is having a 20% summer sale on the high end Deck, which if you don't have any it definitely can be a winning factor and would take advantage of it, specially if you just want something that only runs Steam Games.
I have mine, upgraded it to 1 TB and I haven't had any real issues with it. Maybe I'm one of the few with no issues.
You are probably one of the few that actually knows how to use windows. The problem is this is not a console like experience, which is a failure on Asus but not their fault since that's all they have to work with
Same here. Aside from minor irritants that come with Windows itself, I’m in love with this thing
@@hidden_name7469 yeah, Valve just said fuck it and made their own damn linux-based operating system lol
lazy asus can't compete
What software ? Windows ? :)
I'm looking at your temps when you're playing and yep, it will surely toast your SD card tray. It's a design flaw of ROG Ally that the SD card tray is sitting on heat exhaust. If you are playing on 30w and above, you really have to tweak the fan curves. The default fan curves are not capable of dissipating heat.
what is the maximum amount of displays you can connect to the ally using a doc?
Thanks for the update, Victor. Because of this video, I'll be sticking with my Atari Lynx.
Lynx got the shout out in the vid! Can’t go wrong with that classic system. :)
I think the pricing would vary from region to region, for example Valve doesn't even ship the SteamDeck to South Africa so the only option is to get gray imports which works out to close to R13000 for the 64GB model!
ASUS did a global launch for the ROG Ally, I got the Z1 Extreme from Makro for R12999.
Asus just need to fix some things & make parts easily available, if the SD takes 2weeks to get in Canada & if Valve also supplies the parts then waiting on parts is a nightmare compared to going into a bestbuy to buy parts for rog ally if asus started supplying best buy parts & fix ally through update & sd card issue it would have no problems beating SD
Went to my local best buy and asked about open box allys. The guy said they were flooded with them, and that even cutting the prices, they still couldnt sell them. im willing to bet the ROG armoury crate software is actually more bloatware than anything, and strangles the hardware to an utter stop.
It's also Best Buy return policy makes it easy for people to try the Ally out and find out it's not for them and/ or worth $700.
My daughter suggested I get this device and sell my Deck, I told her Windows is too frustrating and for the money I'd do better to just get a laptop. Thanks for confirming my suspicions.
I returned mine. I think the issue you had is that the unit gets too hot or something and kills the SD card reader. It basically won’t work right if you have anything plugged into it, which sounds like what happened to you. I returned mine because I was nervous about that happening and also my joystick had a clicking issue around 12 o’clock. I think at this point I’ll wait for rev 2.
As an engineer, this is exactly why I stuck with the Steam Deck. The ROG Ally is amazing hardware, no question, but it's Windows that will drive you nuts! The thing that Valve has done am amazing job with the Deck on, is aftermarket software support. I call it the Raspberry Pi environment. There are much more powerful hardware out there, but it's the software and support and community that make or break products, especially in computers and electronics.
Very true
agree, brother
I'm still planning to buy a Deck as soon as funds will allow, as I don't need the extra horsepower of the latest and greatest handheld PC's. My main issues with the lot, is how good will long term support be? ASUS has been having some much publicized issues in the media lately, and based on things since the Ally released, it's still a huge "?" for me.
Most of the issues I would have with the Ally for sure comes from being Windows based, and that is the devices main blessing and main curse all in one. It would take the Ally being priced at $400 for me to even consider using a Windows device, as that's how much I don't care to use it on a handheld. So it's great to see devices like this, as it's only good news for consumers long term, but the Ally for sure is a wait and see product for me.
Valve is going all in on the Deck
Best handheld i've ever used, but the sd card issues with VRMs to close to the reader are a no go for me, returned mine also.
i returned the device also, the SteamDeck does everything i need in a mobile gaming experience. Ally can definitely be unstable, hopefully they fix with patches
You can see my post in the Asus Forum. I had all these issues the moment I plugged in an SD card. Removing it fixed things.
So there is an issue with the card reader for sure, potentially heat related. As to if that's a huge issue is down to the end user. I've been using it for a while and had little issue with the Ally since not using SD and you can upgrade the internal drive. The controls crap out now and again and it seems very tied to Asus Armoury Crate, but it is a good device with some design flaws. Bit of a shame, but I hope they iron this out.
Yeah the deck is more console like and if you're not a tech the ally can be tricky, and I get why people return it after seeing it's not like a switch or steam deck... I've loved mine, I had that issue as well, a downgrade to the 317 fixed it... But if you don't want to do this or this isn't your ballpark I get that... Give it a few generations and these devices will be awesome...
Had to return my first Ally because of the SD card issue. I exchanged for a new one. Got the new one, increased fan curve so the SD card issues shouldn't pop up again. This one though is having a problem with some of my games freezing and crashing. So I think I'm going to have to do a fresh install of windows again. At the end of the day I said you know what I give up for now and went back to my steamdeck which pulled up my game immediately right where I left off. Then I played my game with no fuss. I know the steam deck has issues and had issues but never like the Ally. I finally came to the conclusion that if I reinstall windows on the Ally and if it keeps up with these issues I too will be returning it and I'll probably wait for the second steam deck.
I dont even use the SD slot on my steamdeck. But I did purchase the cheap one, and upgrade the internal storage.
Great adult way to put it. Exactly my experience, determination and final result. Well said.
I had the exact same issues (including the SD card problem) with my ROG Ally that you had, but it took less than a week to show up for me. I think that the problems might be caused by the Armor Crate software that maybe could have used a few more months of development. I did return mine to Best Buy after a week and I as well had no issues with that at the store. It is too bad because I was really looking forward to this device. I also think that the experience on my Steam Deck has overall been much better so far.
Exactly! this needed more time to cook. They probably had so much marketing invested with Best Buy they couldn't delay it. Clearly they rushed this to market.
Been meaning to get a Steamdeck so from what I researched, the Ally, OneX, etc are basically handheld laptops while the Steamdeck is a handheld console similar to the Switch.
And the support for the Steamdeck is similar to its console brethren.
The Ally's fan curve is too low for Turbo mode. Asus has addressed it. They are going to adjust in an update. I made a custom for now. I did get a defective unit first that I returned. It had bad RAM and the sd card slot. Fried a 1tb sd card (not readable in any drive) and was crashing a lot.
Is this the rog ally z1 extreme or Just the regular z1 I was looking at buying one of these but the z1extreme version.
I sold my Steam Deck for the Ally that on the contrary to you gave me way less headaches then the Steam Deck … my gaming purpose was to have everything on one place (game pass, PS Plus, PC and all the launchers, multiplayer games etc). I also hated how bad the screen on the Steam deck was compared to a switch oled … the Ally is very close colorwise.
I have had no issues so far and while I am a bit worried about the ad card issue, I would keep my Ally over a steam deck 1000x even without sdcard reader