Great product, but...

[NunoBessa]

Hi, everyone!

First of all, I'd like to express how satisfied I am with some features the ROG Ally has to offer, mainly, the hardware and the design of the console.

With that out of the way, here are my complaints:

• Bloated Windows 11: why on Earth would you include Office 365 and other stuff like it on the Ally's OS??
  Makes no sense. The ROG Ally is a playing machine, I'm not gonna do work on this, I don't need Office and other stuff included. I bought the Ally to play games, not to work spreadsheets.
  Every ROG Ally user has a major mission after buying this console: de-bloat Windows of all the useless software and doing all the MyAsus/Armoury Crate/Windows updates. Clients don't like that.
  Please, include a minimal custom WIndows 11 installation, without stuff that doesn't matter.
  How about this: A minimal Windows 11 that uses the least resources possible and uses less battery, without useless services running. Genius!
• Armoury Crate: I'm sorry, but as a developer, I have to say this. Armoury Crate needs a lot of work and it feels amateurish. With all due respect for the AC developer's, it's just a bunch of services and programs running!
  It needs games sub-categories. It needs more customization, like image and video scrapping. It needs much more.
  Give me means to access the device and in 2 months I'll present a much more capable software, for free.
  I have 20+ years of experience, I'm sure I could do it, just to prove the point.
  Sometimes AC stops working. The Command Center buttons stop responding and I have to restart the console.
  Being a Steam Deck user also, I say this: Asus needs to dedicate more time and effort on the software.
  It is great to have a Windows handheld with such wonderful hardware (it was my dream), but it needs more work on the software level.
  Someone more dedicated in front of the software department would do it, because currently, it clearly isn't demanding enough and Asus suffers from it. Just watch all the Youtube reviews.
• On Hibernate mode, the joystick's RGB flashes intermittently (did you know this??).
  Why does this happen? It only spends more battery, the most important thing on any ROG Ally.
• Updates sometimes don't work.
  I've been stuck in a loop with an update that starts when I turn on the console, it starts installing it then it says it's not possible to install it and reverts everything. By the time this ends, I lost 10% of the battery, before I even started playing. This is terrible for an user, not only the wait, but the fact that before even starting, the user lost 10% of the battery.
• Finally, the white elefant in the room: the battery.
  Having such a powerful device with such a meager battery makes little sense in my opinion.
  I wouldn't mind paying more 50EUR for the console just to get 30 minutes more on each charge.
  I know space is a precious commodity with this kind of device, but at least, try to offer some alternative, like an offmarket upgrade battery for ROG Ally, with more capacity. I bet you'll sell tons of it.
  I have solved this by buying a power bank. Just think about how many power banks you could sell, if you offered something to solve this.

There you go, I said everything I had to say.

I still love my ROG Ally and I don't have buyer's regret. I love to play all my games without limits, anywhere I go.
I just feel that the ROG Ally could be so much better, if only a little effort could be done from ASUS.

Please, redirect this post to anyone who can make something of it. I know it won't happen, but at least I tried.

Consider this some constructive criticism and please take it into consideration when you release the Ally II.

I'll surely buy it.

All the best,

Nuno

[Ebone710]

Half of these complaints seem like a "you" problem and if your have 20+ years experience in software development you should be able to fix them. The window distro is super easy to debloat. They didn't put any adware on it. 

I do agree it needs a battery upgrade. There is a mod out there that doubles the battery. You have to 3d print a new backplate tho

[NunoBessa]

Well, I did said those were my complaints. I never said they were everyone's complaints.
But, to my defense, everyone complaints about it, especially about AC.
Just google "Armoury Crate problem". You'll have a lot to read.

I am developing an app for myself in my free time, because I keep finding unacceptable problems with the Armoury Crate, especially for a product with this price tag. Things stop working after a while, especially the side overlay menus. The RGB also has bugs, very often they light up even when the RGB is set to 0%.
This of course uses more battery.
Implementing the Aura SDK is my next step, but the library part and scrapping are already implemented. 
And yes, I have more than 20 years experience as a freelancer developer, just check one of my softwares: (52) Facemaker - YouTube

If you're 100% satisified with product, I'm happy for you 👌

[Ebone710]

I never said I was 100% satisfied but it's close. I had to RMA mine after a couple months to fix the bad SD card reader. Never have any of the issues you stated besides AC freezing sometimes but I believe that will get fixed with updates. My RGB lights work perfectly. 

There is already a couple of alternatives out there to AC if you don't like it and I'm pretty sure they are free. 

I'm not dumb and I realize there is a lot of issues people are having but it's pretty normal with a device like this. 

[NunoBessa]

Well, I'm no the only one with these problems I described... so maybe a combination of settings is causing this, I don't know. This would explain why some users have it and other don't.

My Ally has exactly the same software, except for the bloatware and a 2TB SSD upgrade I made.

On Reddit alone, you have dozens of fthreads regarding the RGB problem.

This one for example, has a video showing exactly what I described: ROG Ally RGB lights keep coming on even when setting says off (not plugged in) : r/ROGAlly (reddit.c...

This is what happens to me. I set it off (0%), but when the console wakes up, RGB is 100%.

[NunoBessa]

OK, looks like someone read the complaints, regarding the RGB.
Today I updated AC and it looks like the problem is solved!

I'm not sure if I contributed in some way to it, but I'll keep on reporting.

After all, without bug reports, devs can't fix stuff, right?

The next complaint is not a bug (I think), but a feature I find very annoying.
Whenever the Ally is charging, the RGB flashes constantly, like saying "Hey world, I'm charging!".

Why? On a dark room, it is really annoying, not speaking of the waste of energy.
I usually charge my Ally on my bedroom (I'm a late night player) and it looks like a lighthouse sometimes.
The LED on the top is enough, no need for the switches RGB to keep flashing.
Please devs, remove this feature. It serves no purpose and it only delays the charging (if only by a couple of minutes, but I'm sure it does delay it, because instead of that energy going into the battery, it is going into the RGB). 
Or at least, if you find this feature awesome, give us the option to turn it off.

Here's a video of the behaviour I'm speaking of:

Thank you.

[Deodora]

Hey there can you please tell me how to solve the problem of the console not starting also the battery side is blinking orange 

[NunoBessa]

I don't know.
The fact that the battery led is blinking might be described in the Manual.

Do you see the initial ROG animation?
If you do, you might be able to enter the BIOS. To enter the BIOS, keep "volume minus" pressed and then press the power button. Keep them pressed until you enter the BIOS and then check ifeverything is correct (like, is the SSD detected and stuff like that).
On the BIOS, you can also start the Asus Cloud recovery process, that will reset your Ally to factory state.

On the other hand, if you can't even see the ROG animation at start, you may have a faulty device.
In this case, I'd start a RMA process because your ROG Ally is still under warranty.

I've read some startling comments on the web about people being asked for money to get their ROG Ally repaired, despite it being under warranty.
This video for example, describes what happened with Gamers Nexus and others: 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NHQqKi9NcTs

[Deodora]

• Yeah I can't see the Rog animation so I'll be trying the rma process hope they'll do something about it .
• I actually bought it 10 days ago n it's showing these signs I'm disappointed in Asus 

[NunoBessa]

If you only had it for 10 days, the seller might replace it free of charge.
Check you country's warranty laws. Where I live, if a product is defective and malfunctions within a 14 day period, the seller must replace it immediately.
This way, you wouldn't have to wait for the device to be sent to Asus and you'd avoid the RMA process altogether.