ASUS ROG Ally X review: a massive improvement

Our Verdict

Thanks to software, battery, and design improvements, the ASUS ROG Ally X is now a proper competitor to the Steam Deck OLED and is easily the best Windows 11-based handheld out there. The only real issues are the price, which is a touch too high, and the occasionally tedious experience of Windows 11 on a touchscreen.

Reasons to buy

• Best-in-class performance
• Much improved battery life
• Vibrant LCD screen
• Refined ASUS UI

Reasons to avoid

• Windows still a bit clunky
• Expensive
• No carry case included

Following the launch of the Steam Deck, the industry sat around and waited for the Xbox to its Playstation, the Pepsi to its Coca-Cola, or the Papa John’s to its Domino’s. Then, the original ASUS ROG Ally arrived. Unfortunately, due to a disappointing battery life and software issues, it felt more like the generic store brand soft drink to the Steam Deck’s Coca-Cola. That could all be about to change, though. With the release of the ASUS ROG Ally X, the competition might finally have enough fizz to get interesting.

Okay, so enough with the analogies. The Ally X is here, and it is an impressive leap forward. Its battery life is much improved, the gaming interface is better, and the performance is out of this world. Still, while it might be the biggest factor, performance isn’t always everything. So how exactly does this new bit of kit from ASUS stack up alongside the rest of the Steam Deck alternatives and portable gaming consoles? Let’s get into it.

Price and availability

The ASUS ROG Ally X is available now for $799.99 / £799, either directly from the ASUS ROG website or Best Buy in the US and Currys in the UK. It ships with a beefy 65W charger, and unlike the Steam Deck OLED, which is available in different storage configurations, every Ally X comes with a whopping 1TB of storage. Like Valve’s portable PC, it’s also only available in Black.

Specs

Features and software

The ASUS ROG Ally X runs on Windows 11. You might think this simplifies the experience, but that isn’t always the case. Sure, it’s easier than Linux if you want to browse the internet or watch some clips on YouTube, but let’s be honest, that’s what your phone is for. If you’re getting an Ally X, you’re getting it for gaming, and that’s where Windows can be a bit of a nuisance.

Unless you’re incredibly dextrous, using a Windows touchscreen device can be frustrating due to the small sizing of on-screen icons. I am anything but dextrous, and I also have club thumbs – look it up – so getting around the screen can be a real headache.

There’s the option to plug in a mouse and keyboard, but if I wanted to do that, I’d have just bought a gaming PC. There’s also, as is often the case with Windows, the odd moment where the software just doesn’t want to play ball, randomly closing the keyboard or bringing up the taskbar while you’re trying to play. It’s not the end of the world, but it could be smoother.

Fortunately, once you’ve got everything ready to go Windows-wise, you can use the latest version of the Armoury Crate SE overlay to simplify things. You can open Armoury Crate SE by pressing the lower button to the right of the display, and here you’ll find all your games. I mean all your games; it brings together everything from your library across platforms like Xbox Game Pass, Steam, Epic, and more, and puts them all in one place.

Armory Crate SE is where to go to play with all of your settings, from choosing LED analog stick lighting patterns to remapping your controls. Thanks to a relatively recent update from ASUS, this overlay is incredibly user-friendly. At no point did I struggle to find a setting I was looking for, and I like how it lays out all of my games in front of me, even if it adds to the shame of having so many unplayed Steam titles.

The Ally X also makes it incredibly convenient to change any settings with the Command Center. Like the Armory Crate, you can open the Command Center by clicking a button next to the display, but this time it’s on the left-hand side. From here, you can adjust the operating mode, control mode, and FPS limiting or bring up a real-time monitor with different options for displaying information on the screen. As a reviewer who has to keep his eyes on all things battery life and fps, I can only thank ASUS for this.

Design

In terms of ergonomics, I don’t have a bad word to say about the Ally X. It’s thinner than the certified wide-boy Steam Deck, the buttons, d-pad, and analog sticks all feel more tactile and responsive than the original, and the rounder grips with a new texture feel much better in your hands. There’s still no equivalent to the Steam Deck’s trackpads, but I’ll be honest, I don’t use those trackpads, so this more compact layout is exactly what I’m looking for.

Still, the biggest design difference between the Ally X and the original isn’t apparent until you flip the thing over. The additional buttons on the back are smaller and closer to the middle of the console, rather than featuring as part of the grips. While this might make them a little harder to reach for those with small hands, I much prefer the new layout. Admittedly, I don’t use these extra buttons much, but their new placement means they’re out of the way when I don’t need them and just in reach when I do.

While the build is much improved, I can’t exactly say that it’s lightweight. At 678g, this thing is almost 200g heavier than the Nintendo Switch or around 40g heavier than the Steam Deck OLED. However, I wouldn’t say it’s too hefty for long play sessions, and if anything, the weightiness makes the thing feel a little more sturdy than the alternatives. I’m still not going to throw it down the stairs to put this to the test, but I feel like it could easily handle the occasional drop.

Display and audio

While fans of the original Ally were hoping for an OLED display with the follow-up, ASUS has stuck with an LCD screen. In fact, there’s no real change outside of a slight dim that makes the display easier on the eyes; it’s pretty much the same 7-inch HD-ready 120Hz refresh rate screen of the original. So yes, the Steam Deck OLED has an OLED panel, but the Ally X is capable of 120Hz, 30Hz more than the Steam Deck, and can run games in glorious 1080p.

The Ally X’s peak brightness is 500 nits, 100 less than that of the Steam Deck OLED, but in reality, it’s barely noticeable. Whether you’re playing in the dead of night with all the lights off or enjoying a bit of Another Crab’s Treasure – a personal Xbox Game Pass favorite – in the garden and under the blaring sun, there’s no issue discerning what’s going on on-screen.

Not only is the display crisp, but it’s durable too, thanks to ASUS opting for Corning Gorilla Glass DXC coating that both reduces glare and offers 40% more scratch resistance than the original. Scratch resistance is a big deal on a touchscreen device like this, and as someone who’s especially clumsy and accident-prone, I appreciate it. Unfortunately, it’s still all too easy to leave fingerprint smudges on the screen, but that’s not a problem unique to the Ally X, so I can’t lambast it for that all too much.

Much like the display, there’s little change to the fantastic speakers of the original Ally, except they’re a little louder. I tend to play with headphones in, but the in-built speakers do a solid job, especially with sound effects. Things can get a little muddy if there’s a lot of audio going on at the same time, mainly in the higher frequencies, but it’s never enough to become grating. I’d still opt for headphones, but if you prefer to play with cans off, the speakers are more than capable.

Performance

I’m not going to mince my words here: the ASUS ROG Ally X is a performance beast. Whether you’re looking to play your indie favorites or the latest AAA titles, this thing packs more than enough horsepower to offer a handheld PC gaming experience that goes beyond anything I’ve experienced so far.

One thing that hasn’t changed with the ROG Ally follow-up is the AMD Z1 Extreme processor. I’m not a massive PC gaming guy outside of portables like the Ally X, but even I know that this SoC is the best you’re going to find in a handheld. It offered better performance than the Steam Deck OLED in the original Ally, and now, with better battery life and cooling, it’s barely even a competition. In terms of pure performance power, the Ally X is the best handheld out there, making the Nintendo Switch look almost primitive in comparison while also showing up Valve’s blockbuster console.

While battery life is the headlining improvement of the Ally X compared to its predecessor, the 8GB RAM increase is the real showstopper when it comes to gaming performance. Not only does this thing have more RAM, but it’s also quicker, around 1,000MHz quicker, combining with the top-tier AMD processor to offer performance that handheld fans could only dream of just a few years ago.

All these numbers and specs are great, but I know what you’re asking – how well does it actually run games? Very well, is the answer. During my testing, I poured plenty of hours into Hi-Fi Rush and Another Crab’s Treasure, each of which performs nicely at around 60fps at 1080p resolution in performance mode without any noticeable dips. Considering the Steam Deck tops out at 800p, this is all the more impressive.

However, neither of these examples are AAA games, and while the Ally X still cuts the mustard with games like Elden Ring and Cyberpunk 2077, you’re looking at closer to 30fps on 1080p. If you lower the resolution to 720p, you can get closer to the 50fps mark, but whether or not you want to do that depends on whether you value frames-per-second or resolution more.

There’s a bit of technical jargon there, but put simply, the Ally X can run any modern game, you just might have to tweak the settings a little to get the experience you want. You also need to be a realist and accept that it’s not going to be quite as high quality as an actual gaming PC, but for the growing niche of handheld PCs, there’s nothing around at the minute that comes close, even if the Lenovo Legion Go shares some of the same hardware.

As I’ve found out with other portable consoles, wicked performance doesn’t mean much if the thing itself gets too hot to use over a prolonged gaming session. Fortunately, that’s something else you don’t have to worry about with the Ally X, thanks to its Zero Gravity cooling system. Like other handheld PCs, I’ve noticed that it gets hottest if it’s lying on its back, but thanks to some nifty little cardboard stands that come in the box, you can keep it standing while it’s on charge or downloading a game. In the hands, it’s nice and cool, and not nearly as loud as the Steam Deck, which is all you can really ask for.

Battery

Considering the battery life of the original ROG Ally was one of its most lambasted features, ASUS must have surely known that a follow-up had to offer a considerable improvement to draw folks away from the Steam Deck OLED. Good news: it does. The 80Wh battery goes for much longer than that of the original’s 40Wh, which isn’t a massive surprise considering it’s double the size. This means you can play your favorite games for longer, which is always a win in my book.

Exactly how long you can play depends on your performance settings. There are three pre-determined setting options; 25W turbo, 17W performance, and 13W silent. As you’d imagine, the battery drains quickest on 25W turbo mode, offering just around two hours at 25W, three hours at 17W, and four hours on 13W. That’s a rough guideline, but it all depends on what game you’re playing and whether you’ve turned the thumbstick LEDs off for extra juice.

Another highlight is that, unlike other portable PCs, the Ally X barely loses any charge in standby mode. There’s nothing more annoying than picking up your Steam Deck after leaving it on standby overnight to find that its battery is almost flat. You just don’t get that with the Ally X.

In terms of charging speeds, it all depends on whether you’re using the Ally X or not while juicing. On standby mode, you can fully charge this thing in around an hour and a half to two hours, provided you’re using the charging unit from the box. If you’re playing, it takes almost twice as long. Still, it’s an improvement on the original, and it seems charging times can be even quicker if you’re using a more powerful charger.

Should you buy the ASUS ROG Ally X?

If you’re looking for a top-end portable PC gaming console and budget isn’t a problem, the ASUS ROG Ally X is a fantastic option. Honestly, it’s the only thing I’ve tried out since the arrival of the Steam Deck OLED that properly rivals Valve’s market leader. While I’m personally a big fan of the nostalgia-inducing Ayaneo Flip DS, if I had to choose just one Windows-based console for a desert island trip – specific, I know – I’d go for Ally X every time.

The big caveat is Windows. Even with all the work ASUS has put into improving the experience, which it certainly has done with the latest version of Armory Crate, navigation is still clunkier than the Steam Deck alternative. There’s also the price point, which is $150 more expensive than the 1TB Steam Deck OLED. Whether you feel like stretching your budget is up to you, but even as a big fan of the Ally X, I find it hard to justify spending that much more, especially when you don’t get a complimentary carry case.

Alternatives

If we haven’t sold you on the ASUS ROG Ally X, check out our suggestions for alternatives below.

Steam Deck OLED

There are no prizes for guessing this alternative. With both the Steam Deck OLED and ROG Ally X’s status as solid bits of kit, the big differentiator here is whether you prefer a Windows or Linux operating system. If you’ve read this review in its entirety, you’ll know that I prefer the Steam Deck’s Linux approach, but you might feel differently. If you want to know more, check out our Steam Deck OLED review.

Lenovo Legion Go

While I can’t say that the Lenovo Legion Go is as impressive as either the Ally X or Steam Deck OLED, its detachable controllers help it stand apart from the PC-based portable console pack. If you’re hesitant to spend almost $800 on a new console, the Legion Go is also around $200 cheaper than the Ally X. For more details, see our Lenovo Legion Go review.