Hand held PC gaming has come some distance since Valve’s Steam Deck exploded onto the scene in 2022. Along the discharge of AMD‘s Ryzen Z1 APUs in 2023, Asus ROG launched the Best friend — a transportable powerhouse that will take hand held PC gaming to the following point. In 2024, ROG is able to chase the luck of it is freshman unlock with a sophomore follow-up that is positive to be successful: the ROG Best friend X.
Closely teased by way of ROG, and best lately printed to be actual and on it is means by way of a YouTube video titled “The following ROG Best friend is coming” previous this month, we have concrete details about the specifications of this enthusiast-level hand held gaming refresh.
So what have we learnt in regards to the ROG Best friend X, and the way does it fare in opposition to Asus’ unique ROG Best friend and it is festival within the Lenovo Legion Pass and MSI Claw? Let’s to find out.
ROG Best friend X: What is beneath the hood?
Having lately showed quite a lot of leaked specifications with {hardware} website online VideoCardz, we will be able to now verify that the Asus ROG Best friend X can be receiving a substantial improve forward of its unlock later this .
Whilst the Best friend X keeps the unique Best friend’s high-performance AMD Ryzen Z1 Excessive APU, and a shocking 7-inch FHD IPS show, Asus’ hand held gaming PC will now be offering 24GB of LPDDR5 RAM and an 80Wh battery — very much increasing at the unique Best friend’s 16GB of RAM and 40Wh battery.
| Header Mobile – Column 0 | Asus ROG Best friend X | Asus ROG Best friend |
|---|---|---|
| APU | AMD Ryzen Z1 Excessive | AMD Ryzen Z1/Z1 Excessive |
| GPU | AMD iGPU | AMD iGPU |
| Garage | 1TB M.2 NVMe 2280 SSD | 512GB M.2 NVME 2280 SSD |
| RAM | 24GB LPDDR5 RAM (7500Mhz) | 16GB LPDDR5 RAM (6400Mhz) |
| Show | 7-inch, 1080p, IPS, 500 nits, 7ms, 120Hz VRR | 7-inch, 1080p, IPS, 500 nits, 7ms, 120Hz VRR |
| Battery | 80Wh | 40Wh |
| Ext. GPU | USB4/Thunderbolt 4 | ROG XG Cellular |
| Ports | 1x UHS-II microSD card reader | 1x UHS-II microSD card reader |
| Row 8 – Mobile 0 | 1x USB-C 3.2 Gen2 | 1x ROG XG Cellular Interface |
| Row 9 – Mobile 0 | 1x USB-C 4.0 | Row 9 – Mobile 2 |
The ROG Best friend X may even characteristic two new USB Kind-C ports, one among which can be USB 4.0 appropriate with the overall 40Gbps switch price. This modification opens up the ROG Best friend X to take higher good thing about exterior USB4/Thunderbolt 4 GPUs the place the unique ROG Best friend used to be restricted to just the XG Cellular eGPU.
The brand new Best friend X additionally receives a sturdiness spice up thank you to raised rated inputs together with a precision D-Pad rated for five million cycles.
ROG Best friend X vs. Lenovo Legion Pass vs. MSI Claw
For the reason that ROG Best friend arrived onto the hand held gaming PC scene, each Lenovo and MSI have launched hand held units of their very own within the Legion Pass and Claw respectively.
The Lenovo Legion Pass follows the Best friend’s blueprint lovely carefully on the subject of internals, that includes the similar Ryzen Z1 Excessive APU and iGPU combo. Then again, the Legion Pass incorporated USB4 connectivity that may be used to hyperlink with a extra robust eGPU, a 1TB garage configuration, an advanced 49Wh battery, and a bigger, sooner, 8.8-inch IPS show with a refresh price of 144Hz.
With the coming of the ROG Best friend X, a lot of what the Legion Pass needed to brag about has been matched or overtaken with Lenovo’s hand held best protecting bragging rites because of its sizable show and 144Hz refresh price.
| Header Mobile – Column 0 | ROG Best friend X | Lenovo Legion Pass | MSI Claw |
|---|---|---|---|
| Show | 7-inch, 1080p, 120Hz | 8.8-inch, 1600p, 144Hz | 7-inch, 1080p, 120Hz |
| Garage | 1TB M.2 NVMe 2280 | 512GB/1TB M.2 NVMe 2230 | 512GB/1TB M.2 NVMe 2230 |
| CPU | AMD Ryzen Z1 Excessive | AMD Ryzen Z1/Z1 Excessive | Intel Core Extremely 7155H |
| RAM | 24GB LPDDR5X (7500Mhz) | 16GB LPDDR5X (7500Mhz) | 16GB LPDDR5 (6400Mhz) |
| Battery | 80Wh | 49.2Wh | 53Wh |
As for the Claw, this hand held used to be the primary hand held to characteristic Intel‘s Core Extremely 7 155H processor, and it suffered for it. A slew of early functionality problems critically impacted the Claw’s reception, regardless that fresh patches have long gone some solution to making improvements to issues.
Nonetheless, regardless of Intel’s processor that includes extra cores and a better thread rely, the built-in Arc graphics answer is not as ambitious as AMD’s choices. It is 16GB of LPDDR5 RAM is bested in pace and amount by way of the Best friend X, however the Claw is in a position to grasp something over each the ROG Best friend and the Lenovo Legion Pass: Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 5.4 compatibility for far sooner and extra solid wi-fi connections.
Outlook
Total, the ROG Best friend X is a substantial improve for the ROG Best friend, and an excessively welcome follow-up because of its advanced RAM, battery existence, and garage choices.
Whilst we cherished the ROG Best friend, no software is in point of fact highest, and we did have issues we need to see advanced with the ROG Best friend X. Fortunately, it sort of feels that no less than a type of requires trade has been heard, and the Best friend X’s new 80Wh battery existence guarantees to offer the hand held much more doable in relation to portability for taking part in at the cross.
The ROG Best friend X is predicted to reach sooner or later in June 2024, for a value we will be able to’t but formally verify. Then again, we now have heard rumors of a $799 price ticket for Asus’ newest hand held, and given the upgrades on display, that does not appear out of the query.
At first of the we might have anticipated Asus’s unique Best friend to be difficult the Transfer 2 sooner or later, however given the Best friend X’s upgraded {hardware}, why wait to any extent further for Nintendo?
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