(06-21-2023, 10:01 PM)Polident wrote: Is this all bad luck or does ASUS have a history? Because I saw some drama around their motherboards recently too.
I think something is just up with ASUS' QC on their 2023 products- I've tried two of their 2022 machines during my endless buying/returning spree and neither had any defects- one was just shit for performance due to weak hardware (Z13) and the other was absolutely amazing for its price (G14 with 6700S). With the 2023 stuff, it seems like if you get something that works, it seems to stay working, fortunately, but if you get one with anything wrong, no matter how minor, might as well just return or exchange it from my experience.
What I don't understand is what ASUS are doing with their BIOS updates. There's too many of them and then every time they release a new one, performance gets downgraded. It's good to see that they at least addressed things fairly fast with the Ally. I am still very much digging that and I think they've done a fantastic job on it. Had I not purchased the Ally, I would definitely have stuck with the Z13 Acronym. The way I see it, they released a similar device, at a third of the price, that works so well that it makes the more expensive options irrelevant (for gaming, at least).
In fairness, if you check subreddits for any of these hardware makers, you'll find crazy amounts of issues being reported for virtually every laptop, desktop, or component out there (ASUS did legit fuck up bad with the motherboard thing though). Checking the Alienware subreddit makes it look like everything they put out is total shit and is not something I wanted to see after placing that order, lol.
If I were to try everything -and I'm getting close to it,lol- at this point after AW all that's left are the new Razer Blade 14 and the Acer Predator Triton 14. The latter, much like this new Alienware, has no reviews out there for whatever reason. I assume they didn't send out review units, which is weird because it looks like both models from last year reviewed well.
TBH, I was pretty close to pulling the trigger on another ASUS model- the 4090 G14. But common sense prevailed in the end. Not just because it could be another cursed ASUS 2023 product, but because when you're looking for the smallest form factor, it's just kind of stupid to bother with anything over the 4070. The power is just not there to make the higher-tier cards worth it.