expired Posted by qspr • Nov 22, 2023
Nov 22, 2023 1:35 AM
Item 1 of 3
Item 1 of 3
expired Posted by qspr • Nov 22, 2023
Nov 22, 2023 1:35 AM
ASUS - ROG Ally 7" 120Hz FHD 1080p AMD Ryzen Z1 Processor $449.99
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tldr he doesn't hate it at the end. it's worth noting that they reviewed it at the msrp price. at $450 it could easily be worth it more than a steam deck.
tldr he doesn't hate it at the end. it's worth noting that they reviewed it at the msrp price. at $450 it could easily be worth it more than a steam deck.
i wouldn't say worth more than the SD unless you want to emulate PS3 games, performance will be near identical for games but with a worse Windows setup (with it's advantages too)
it's now in a really weird limbo of being the best entry level just because of black friday but the STEAM OLED also got announced so prices after that will not be good
And 'the Ally runs Windows' isn't exactly the flex it is supposed to be
Most unboxing videos you can tell the creator has no functional clue about the product they are unpacking. Many times the channel is not even devoted to any particular topic, just taking random objects out of retail packaging. Others seem heavily scripted, like they are reading bullet points, again which they do not seem to understand to the point of completely misspeaking.
Like you hinted at Windows also has its own problems. Driver issues, older games not working well on modern versions of Windows (which Steam seems to have solved 99.9% of the time), incompatibility problems that can be hard to chase down due to a relatively smaller user base vetting the game for you, etc.
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- Most of the content is shotgun style, and is almost there to just meet a daily quota, despite seemingly being a one-man operation. There's daily videos, but at what cost if every video is superficial to most degree and you can't really walk away with a clear idea of "how much did this cost, exactly what kind of performance can I expect, and is this device better or worse than the competition at that price, and if so, in what areas?"
- Even more of the content is broken out into several videos, ex: "Let me know if you think I should install Linux on this miniPC to see how it fares with ProtonDB gaming", and then 2 weeks later, that happens and the content for this one device is split up into 2 or 3 videos over the course of several weeks, and each individual video doesn't give a full picture about what the device is about and what it can do. Example, Raspberry Pi 5 coverage. Or Steamdeck coverage.
- While he does do emulation performance as a metric for a lot of these devices (which I like) none of the games or testing he does is standardized at all. A lot of it could be improved because as a shopper for micro form factor PCs and emulation single-board computers, I actually want to know "what's the best for my money?" How much performance am I really getting, and what does it cost to, for example, get 1080p 60fps no-frame-drop GameCube emulation? Do I have to spend $100? $200? Performance vs Pricing is never adequately discussed to any good metric on any of the videos.
- I can't recall a single negative review. Every device is ultimately concluded with a "This is great little mini PC that's got great value, etc" This will tie into my next point.
- He "reviews" a lot of different stuff which is sent by companies for free. Ultimately, these are mostly just unboxings and advertisement for the product rather than information or educated opinions you can look at to discern how you should approach your buying. It genuinely does feel that he just does promotional "spotlighting" rather than reviewing, just to be able to maintain good business ties with companies. Back when Minisforum was getting roasted by reviewers for advertising "liquid metal" in their cooling solution or "carbon fiber" in their device enclosures, he was the only one I could recall that never really mentioned anything about the false advertising.
I'm not requesting a Gamer's Nexus level of "we'll spend 80% of our content time giving scathing opinions on some device that functionally would actually be fine for most people". Like, yes, the RTX 4070 Ti isn't a good value proposition, but I can't imagine someone without a GPU or just getting into PC gaming would have a frown on their face with what the RTX 4070 Ti can do performance wise, but yes, obviously people should consider other options in that price bracket, like a used RTX 3080 instead, which would get them better overall performance and at a better pricing model. Gamer's Nexus could improve just in terms of being more level headed in that half the products on the market will be underperforming and the other half are overperforming compared to average. It's fine if a product exists that is underwhelming, just represent the product and state in what ways is it underwhelming compared to the competition at that price, and move on.Sign up for a Slickdeals account to remove this ad.
And 'the Ally runs Windows' isn't exactly the flex it is supposed to be