The OLED Xbox Ally X20 is so good, Asus will sell it on its own

When I first told you about…The OLED Xbox Ally“I had to curb my enthusiasm a bit. Partly because I hadn’t tried the laptop myself yet, and partly because Asus was planning to sell it only Collected With a pair of expensive AR glasses! I’m happy to say that both are no longer true.

Asus will sell a standalone version of the OLED Ally as well, spokesperson Anthony Spence has confirmed Edge. “We are actively discussing the timeline for a standalone release of the new Ally. Please stay tuned for upcoming announcements.”

After spending a couple of hours with OLED Ally at the company’s offices in California, I think it might offer something new MSI Claw 8 EX AI Plus A run for her money.

Today, the Asus Xbox Ally Best deal in town because of RAMageddonWhile MSI Claw 8 EX A generational leap in performance For those who have a staggering $1,800 to spend.

But OLED Ally may offer a third option for affluent gamers: the most comfortable and accurate portable device yet.

I actually prefer the 7.4-inch OLED display from Asus over the 8.8-inch display that Lenovo chose Legion Go 2 – Yes, the one I previously called “the best portable monitor money can buy.” And I definitely prefer it to the 8-inch IPS panel of the MSI Claw 8 EX.

Although the Ally’s display is smaller, shorter, and has a slightly lower resolution — 1080p instead of 1200p — it Clearer Personally because of the anti-glare cover glass and the brighter panel underneath.

I brought along the Legion Go 2 and Claw 8 EX to compare directly with the OLED Xbox Ally X20. With harsh indoor lighting, I had to look through the reflection of my face in competitors’ glass screens, but the OLED Ally screen was crystal clear. And while it’s slightly brighter than the Legion Go 2, with a peak of 1,400 nits instead of 1,000 nits, a lot Brighter than the Claw EX’s 500 nits display. I recently took a road trip with the Claw EX and had to squint even at maximum brightness because of all the glare.

The 7.4-inch screen may not seem much larger than the 7-inch screen found on previous Allys, but it makes a difference. Those previous devices felt a little claustrophobic to me after testing the 8-inch laptops, but I didn’t feel that at all during the two hours I spent with the Ally X20.

Last year’s Xbox Ally Mobile devices are better with prongsAnd I have to hand it to the MSI Claw EX for adding the manta ray fins for a stronger grip. But Asus now has soft rubber grips too, rather than just a textured plastic casing, for added comfort.

The new ABXY face buttons are the most satisfying I’ve felt on a handheld device, and they’re quieter and flow with the handheld casing when pressed down. The bumpers look a little better, and the screen doesn’t get quite as hot during use due to the modified fans and airflow. I’m not sure what the triggers are yet; I don’t like the creaking of the triggers on my upgraded Xbox Ally X review unit, and these triggers sound pretty much the same.

But I am So I’m happy to say that my old nemesis, the Xbox Ally When I accidentally pressed the new “action” button that replaced it (the top-right gold button with an image of a single horizontal bar), it simply took a screenshot rather than taking me out of my game. I still think the Start button should be the top button.

The D-pad trick really works

A transforming D-pad that rotates to go from eight-way to four-way by lowering four of its corners? I was ready to write it off as a gimmick – until it caught fire Hollow Knight: Silk Song. This was instantly the difference between executing every one of the Hornet’s diagonal attacks, letting it float up and sting over and over, or sometimes missing diagonal inputs and watching my warrior fall to the ground.

You can turn it by pulling the horizontal edge of the D-pad with your fingernail and rotating it a quarter turn. Hopefully it will not become an additional point of mechanical failure; It felt cramped and privileged to me. The clicky dome switches underneath won’t satisfy those who prefer membrane D pads, but I like them.

Asus wasn’t willing to let me run real benchmarks, but I ran two games on an Xbox Ally X20 and an MSI Claw 8 EX for direct comparisons, with both processors set to 25W and loading the same exact saves.

in Cyberpunk 2077the Claw EX delivered 61 fps in the same spot where the Ally X20 delivered 44 fps. in Returningthe Claw EX offered 62 frames per second while the Ally X20 delivered 41 frames. Both laptops drained their batteries at roughly the same rate of 36 watts, meaning their 80 watt-hour batteries should last about two hours on a charge.

This means the Claw might have 40 or 50 percent better performance without any battery penalty — but that’s not the whole story. First, the OLED Ally has a variable refresh rate (VRR) of 30-120Hz, which means it should look smoother at lower frame rates than the 48-120Hz panels in the Claw EX and original Ally. It certainly looked smooth in my short demo.

Second, as I’ll discuss at the end in my full Claw EX review, the Intel chip has some increased difficulties with drivers. You may be able to see it in my account Returning Comparison image in this story: There’s less volumetric haze and less ground cover than you’d see with the AMD chip in Ally.

I also experience stuttering or erratic framerates in some games with Intel Claw, e.g Light and Darkness: Expedition 33 and Star Wars Jedi: Survivorwhere I’ll get over 50fps but it’s still not always smooth, and Indiana Jones and the Grand Circle It keeps freezing completely on me. Intel told me that it is working on issues like this, and that its latest drivers have already fixed most of them the Mission 33 Graphical glitches we saw On intel.

Third, Ally fans were significantly quieter than Claw fans during these two tests.

Because of RamageddonAll portable gaming devices are expensive today, and the OLED Ally is sure to be the same. It will almost certainly cost more than the $1,000 Xbox Ally But if you’re looking for the best portable device at any price, the OLED Ally might be worth the wait.

Photography by Sean Hollister/The Verge