OLED Xbox Ally X20 is so good, Asus will sell it alone

When I first told you about “The OLED Xbox Ally X of my dreams,” I had to slow down a bit. in bundles and expensive AR glasses! I am happy to say that all these things are no longer true.

Asus will also sell a standalone version of the OLED Ally, spokesman Anthony Spence confirms Seaside. “We are discussing the release date of the new Ally. Please stay tuned for upcoming announcements.”

And after spending two hours with OLED Ally at the California offices of California, I think it can offer new things. MSI Claw 8 EX AI Plus the speed of his money.

Today, $ 1,000 Asus Xbox Ally X suddenly best deal in town thanks to RAMMagedowhere MSI Claw 8 EX offers product jump for those with up to $1,800 to spend.

But OLED Ally can offer a third choice for deep-pocketed gamers: the most comfortable and refined handheld yet.

I already prefer Asus’ 7.4-inch OLED screen over the 8.8-inch that Lenovo chose Legion Go 2 – yes, what I previously called “the best money to buy in hand.” And I like it more than the MSI Claw 8 EX’s 8-inch IPS panel.

Although the Ally’s screen is smaller, shorter, and a bit lower – 1080p rather than 1200p – it clearly in front of you because of its anti-glare glass and a light panel on the bottom.

I brought the Legion Go 2 and Claw 8 EX to compare directly with the OLED Xbox Ally X20. In difficult indoor lighting, I had to look at my face on the glass screens of competitors, but the OLED Ally’s were brilliant. And even slightly brighter than the Legion Go 2, with 1,400-nit peaks instead of 1,000-nit peaks, it’s more brighter than the Claw EX’s 500-nit screen. I recently went on a trail ride with the Claw EX and had to look closely even in high light because of all the glare.

The 7.4-inch screen may not sound much bigger than the 7-inch screen on the previous Allys, but it makes a difference. The former felt a little claustrophobic when I tried 8-inch handhelds, but I didn’t feel that in my few hours with the Ally X20.

Last year’s Xbox Ally X showed me this handles are better with prongsand I have to give it to the MSI Claw EX for adding manta ray fins to even catch bees. But Asus now has a rubber grip, too, instead of just a plastic shell, for extra comfort.

The new ABXY face buttons are the most satisfying I’ve ever felt on the hand, with a solid, flexible feel and a wrist shell when you press them. The bumpers feel a little better, and the screen doesn’t get too hot thanks to the redesigned fans and air vents. I’m not sure about the triggers yet; I don’t like the hum of my Xbox Ally X built-in triggers, and this sounds exactly the same.

But me therefore happy to report that my old nemesis, the Xbox Ally X “Library” button, is well and truly dead. When I accidentally pressed the “Action” button it replaces (it’s the gold button on the right with the single horizontal bar icon), it just drew instead of taking me out of my game. I still think the home button should be the top button, though.

The D-pad trick really works

An adjustable D-pad that rotates from eight-way to four-way by lowering its four corners? I was ready to write it off as a gimmick – until I shot it Knight Hollow: Silksong. There was an instant difference between punching every hit of the Hornet, leaving him to float and sting again and again, or me sometimes missing a hook and seeing my fighter fall to the ground.

You change it by dragging the edge of the D-pad with your fingernails and making a quarter turn. We hope it will not be an additional point of mechanical failure; It felt strong and important to me. The dome switch on the bottom may not satisfy those who prefer membrane D-pads, but I like it.

Asus wasn’t ready to let me run real benchmarks, but I ran two games on Xbox Ally X20 and MSI Claw 8 EX for direct comparison, setting both processors to 25 watts and setting the same settings.

In Cyberpunk 2077The Claw EX delivered 61 frames per second where the Ally X20 delivered 44fps. In ReturningThe Claw EX delivered 62fps where the Ally X20 delivered 41. Both handsets drained their batteries at about the same rate of 36 watts, meaning their 80-watt-hour batteries should last about two hours per charge.

That means the Claw can have 40 or 50 percent more battery life without penalty — but that’s not the whole story. First, the OLED Ally has a 30-120Hz refresh rate (VRR) screen, meaning it should look better at much lower rates than the 48-120Hz panels in the Claw EX and the original Ally. It looked smooth in my preview.

Second, as I will discuss in my full Claw EX review, that Intel chip is having a lot of trouble with drivers. You can even see it in my circumstances Returning Image comparison in this article: There is less fog and less fog than you see with the AMD device in Ally.

I am also experiencing stuttering or inconsistent display in some games with Intel Claw, such as Chiaroscuro: Expedition 33 and Star Wars Jedi: Survivorwhere I get more than 50fps but it doesn’t feel good, either Indiana Jones and the Great Circle it completely freezes me. Intel tells me it’s working on things like this, though, and its latest drivers already fix a lot of it and The 33rd visit graphic glitches we saw on Intel.

Third, Ally’s fans were significantly slower than Claw’s in the two tests.

Because of RAMMageddonAny handheld game is very expensive these days, and the OLED Ally will be no exception. It’s sure to cost more than today’s $1,000 Xbox Ally X, so I wouldn’t wait for the new one if that’s how much you want to spend. But if you’re looking for the best handheld at any price, the OLED Ally might be worth the wait.

Photo by Sean Hollister/The Verge