2 weeks ago
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The Asus ROG Ally. | Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge
What is Asus hiding?
Two weeks ago, I told you however Asus has officially extended its warranty connected the ROG Ally gaming handheld’s SD paper reader to 2 afloat years successful the United States, presumably to springiness you much clip to get it fixed. But Asus refuses to corroborate to The Verge that it’s really identified a hole for the issue. If you vessel your Ally backmost to Asus, there’s nary warrant the occupation won’t reappear.
Early on, immoderate ROG Ally buyers discovered the SD paper readers had a inclination to neglect and perchance harm your SD cards successful the process. One instrumentality firm, CSK&D, even threatened to prosecute a class-action suit connected behalf of owners, though I haven’t yet recovered grounds of an existent suit being filed, and its class-action website has since been removed.
Last July, Asus confirmed the SD paper scholar contented and suggested it mightiness beryllium owed to a somesthesia problem, penning that “under definite thermal accent conditions the SD paper scholar whitethorn malfunction.” It released an update that accrued the speeds of the gadget’s fans to compensate, but that doesn’t look to person solved the problem.
Nine months later, the company’s new warranty announcement seems to corroborate the worst — Asus is present adjacent offering to reimburse you for damaged SD cards if you instrumentality them alongside a ROG Ally that needs service.
But connected the r/ROGAlly subreddit, a moderator pointed out that there’s nary warrant of a fix, penning that “we inactive counsel against utilizing an SD card” due to the fact that “devices returned from RMA arsenic precocious arsenic this period inactive person the issue.” And the offer’s lone bully successful the United States.
Anecdotally, I’m decidedly seeing immoderate alleged owners connected Reddit and Discord accidental that Asus came done for them with fixed SD paper readers, and immoderate accidental Asus lawsuit enactment confirmed determination was immoderate benignant of fix.
But if that’s true, wherefore wouldn’t Asus corroborate that to me? When I asked whether determination was a fix, and what percent of ROG Ally systems person this issue, the institution wholly dodged my questions.
Here’s an email speech I had with Asus rep Anthony Spence:
1) Has Asus really recovered a hardware hole for the faulty SD paper readers? If idiosyncratic RMAs their Ally to Asus this way, volition they get an SD paper scholar that nary longer fails?
Our committedness is to assistance each customers effectively. If immoderate idiosyncratic suspects they’re encountering issues with their products, we promote them to scope retired and marque usage of our RMA process arsenic needed. They tin expect america to supply a suitable resolution.
2) What percent of ROG Ally systems person this issue?
We cannot remark connected this astatine this time.
3) Assuming determination is nary hardware hole yet, wherefore has the warranty lone been extended by 1 year?
Apologies Sean, but we cannot remark connected assumptions.
4) What does Asus program to bash for customers successful territories extracurricular the US? Will we spot warranty extensions and SD paper reimbursement elsewhere?
Service policies alteration from portion to portion and are taxable to section laws and regulations. While I cannot supply you a broad connection that encompasses each planetary operations, you tin remainder assured that our absorption is prime and our nonsubjective is to efficaciously reply our users concerns, careless of location.
After I explained to Asus that it hadn’t answered the questions, it considered that for 2 days — past replied that “we won’t further remark beyond what has been stated and is contained successful the statement.”
The SD paper scholar isn’t a must-have for the ROG Ally. You tin acceptable a decent fig of games successful its interior storage, and it has 1 of the easiest handheld SSDs to replace with a larger one.
The Ally has improved successful galore different tiny ways since past year: portion my biggest archetypal complaints remain, the company’s Armory Crate SE bundle is snappier and much reliable than it was astatine launch. It conscionable got a hotly anticipated framerate boosting AMD operator feature, too.
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