Asus ROG Xbox Ally X review: Exceptional performance and brilliantly versatile handheld gaming comes at a price

A year and a half ago, Microsoft’s head of gaming Phil Spencer explained what he’d like to see in a theoretical Xbox handheld.

Praising other companies like Valve, Lenovo and Asus for their handheld PCs, Spencer said he wanted these systems to “feel like an Xbox”.

“Forget about the brand,” he said back in March 2024. “More like, are all of my games there? Do all my games show up with the save [files] that I want? I want to be able to boot into the Xbox app in a full screen, but in a compact mode. And all of my social [experience] is there. I want it to feel like the dash of my Xbox when I turn on the television. [Except I want it] on those devices.”

Fast forward 19 months and Spencer’s comments now read more like a spoiler than a wishlist. With the Asus ROG Xbox Ally and Xbox Ally X, Microsoft and Asus have created a handheld experience that does indeed feel a lot like playing an Xbox on TV – to an extent.

Xbox provided us with a ROG Xbox Ally X – the more powerful of the two – for review purposes, and having put it through its paces I’m generally extremely happy with what it does, though there are some things to bear in mind before you fork over £800 / $1,000 for one (not least whether you can actually afford that in the first place).

The Xbox experience

First, let’s get one major point out of the way. Despite their branding, the Asus ROG Xbox Ally and Ally X do not natively play Xbox console games – they play PC games – so all those third-party console games you may own on your Xbox console can’t be downloaded and played on the device. Depending on the title it may be possible to stream them instead, but we’ll get to that later.

Instead, both devices – like their non-Xbox branded predecessors the ROG Ally and Ally X – are essentially handheld Windows PCs, with extra software included to streamline the process of playing games to make it feel somewhat more console-like.

The star of the show when it comes to this extra software is the Xbox front end, which the ROG Xbox Ally boots into by default. According to Microsoft, the idea is that when launching into this full-screen Xbox experience, the handheld isn’t loading the full Windows OS in the background, freeing up system resources for better game performance.

The UI itself is just as Spencer dreamed of – to all intents and purposes, it looks like an Xbox front-end – specifically the Xbox app on PC, with Game Pass, Library, Cloud Gaming and Store options on a column on the left-hand side, along with other options for Notifications, Friends and the like.

By choosing the Library option you can turn on and off filters allowing you to see the games you have installed on the handheld, the games you personally own, the games that are currently available in Game Pass, and the games that can be downloaded and installed, and the games that can be streamed via the Cloud.

The one thing that differs from the Xbox app on PC is that the ROG Xbox Ally version adds a new option called My Apps. By selecting this, you can choose to install separate apps for Steam, the Epic Games Store, GOG, Ubisoft Connect and Battle.net, and once installed you can boot these for similar full-screen front-ends.

Download and open the Steam app, for example, and it boots straight into Steam’s more streamlined UI, which looks practically identical to that on the Steam Deck. Download a game on Steam and not only will it appear in Steam’s own Installed list, it’ll also appear in your list of installed games in the Xbox app, meaning the next time you boot the handheld you can load your installed Steam game straight from Xbox without having to go to My Apps and boot Steam first.

As such, unless you play strictly on Steam and don’t entertain any other services – in which case the Steam Deck might be more up your alley – the ability to simply switch between the Xbox PC, Steam, Epic, GOG, Ubisoft and Battle.net stores and libraries with a couple of button presses is immensely useful, and does make you wonder whether this is the start of the journey for the much-speculated next Xbox console.

“The ability to simply switch between the Xbox PC, Steam, Epic, GOG, Ubisoft and Battle.net stores and libraries with a couple of button presses is immensely useful, and does make you wonder whether this is the start of the journey for the much-speculated next Xbox console.”

Xbox said in June that its future devices will offer “an Xbox experience not locked to a single store” – if the next console combines more power with a frontend like this offering access to Steam, Epic, GOG et al then it could be an enticing prospect that finally differentiates itself from PlayStation.

The other notable offering in the Xbox app is Cloud Gaming, which recently came out of beta and is now available on all tiers of Game Pass. I’m subscribed to Ultimate, which offers 1440p streaming at 60fps, so I can’t speak for the quality of other tiers, but I was really surprised by how well it ran on the ROG Xbox Ally.

As someone who still doesn’t really get the appeal of cloud gaming it’s been a while since I tried Xbox’s offering, so I don’t know if it’s been like this for a while or if it’s a new development since it came out of beta. In the past, when I’ve dabbled with Xbox Cloud Gaming I’ve had to wait ages to connect to a moderate quality stream that had a tendency to break up at times.

This time I was connected within a few seconds and was able to play Doom Eternal for a full hour at a seemingly smooth 60 fps with not a single major stutter. For the first time, I can now say I would genuinely consider streaming a Game Pass game to try it out before installing it – and, of course, given the PC-only nature of the handheld, some console-only games can only be streamed anyway.

While the fact the ROG Xbox Ally is a PC instead of a console means the whole ‘this is an Xbox’ tagline is stretched a little here, it does further highlight the benefit of the Play Anywhere initiative Microsoft has been running for a number of years now. The idea, if you’re unaware of it, is that if you buy a Play Anywhere supported game on your Xbox console, you get access to the PC version at no extra cost (and vice versa), with game saves syncing across all devices.

For example, I’ve been playing Disney Dreamlight Valley regularly ever since it launched on Game Pass back in 2023, but I’ve only ever played it on Xbox Series X. I installed it on my ROG Xbox Ally X and, sure enough, my 220-hour save was waiting for me to resume right where I left off when I last played it a week ago (look, those pumpkins don’t grow themselves).

There are more than 1,500 games that are Play Anywhere supported (the full list is on the Xbox website), so even if you’ve never played an Xbox game on PC in your life, if you own an Xbox console there’s a chance you may already have games that can be installed on the ROG Xbox Ally.

Crate Expectations

As well as all the Xbox functionality, the ROG Xbox Ally still has all the features the previous non-Xbox ROG Ally handhelds boasted, the most notable of these being Armoury Crate SE. It may have an awful name but it offers one of the best, most comprehensive selections of options you’ll see in a handheld.

Armoury Crate has its own bespoke button on the handheld, and a tap of it brings up a Command Center menu which lets you access the more essential options on the fly without coming out of the game – this includes the ability to switch between Silent (13 watt), Performance (17 watt) and Turbo (35 watt, when plugged in) modes, ideal for when you want to ramp up performance for a graphically intensive game, or dial it down to save battery life when you’re playing a smaller indie title.

The Command Center also lets you quickly toggle between resolutions, limit the frame rate to 30 / 45 / 60 / 90 / 120 fps to avoid uneven frame pacing, turn on and off AMD Radeon Super Resolution upscaling (when supported) and bring up a stats bar to analyse temperature, frame rate, battery life and the like.

“The Command Center also lets you quickly toggle between resolutions, limit the frame rate to 30 / 45 / 60 / 90 / 120 fps to avoid uneven frame pacing, turn on and off AMD Radeon Super Resolution upscaling (when supported) and bring up a stats bar to analyse temperature, frame rate, battery life and the like.”

Being able to do this with a single button press without having to come out of the game is a really cool feature, making it a breeze if – for example – you’ve switched from a AAA game to an older title that requires less power, and want to quickly bring down the wattage to save on battery life.

If you want even more options, you can head into the full Armoury Crate app itself, which lets you calibrate every element of the handheld, from lighting to audio to keyboard shortcuts and more detailed CPU stats. You can even set individual Game Profiles for each title, allowing you to remap the buttons, adjust the control stick sensitivity and the like.

Game Profiles also let you turn on or off a series of AMD advanced graphics options on a per-title basis, such as AMD Fluid Motion Frames (frame generation), Radeon Anti-Lag, Radeon Boost (which lowers the resolution when fast character motion is detected) and Radeon Chill (which saves power by dropping the frame rate when you’re idle and restoring it when you play again). These options can be assigned globally to everything you play, but they may not be suited well to every game so the option to toggle them and save those options for each title is welcome.

The whole thing is an enormously impressive array of options, leaving you somewhat spoilt for choice when it comes to customisation. Of course, as previously stated, the Armoury Crate app was on the previous ROG Ally handhelds too, so anyone who has one of the older devices will already know what to expect here.

Gameplay – Performance and control

All these gizmos and doohickeys are all well and good but they’d be a waste of time if the ROG Xbox Ally struggled to actually play games at a decent level of performance.

The Xbox Ally features an AMD Ryzen Z2 A Processor with 16GB of RAM, while the Xbox Ally X has a faster AMD Ryzen AI Z2 Extreme Processor with 24GB of RAM. The Xbox Ally X also has more storage, with a 1TB SSD compared to the 512GB in the standard Xbox Ally.

As previously stated, we were sent the Xbox Ally X for review so I can’t speak for the performance of the Xbox Ally. What I can say, however, is that playing games on the Ally X is a brilliant experience for all but the most graphically intensive titles.

I could go on for thousands of words summing up the different results I got with the different permutations I tried, because – as is always the case when dealing with PC games that aren’t running on top-of-the-line £4,000 desktop rigs that just blaze through everything you throw at them – there are numerous variables that can affect how each game performs.

The most obvious of these is whether you’re playing with the handheld plugged into its provided 65w charger. This grants access to the aforementioned Turbo mode, which gives 35 watts of power to the CPU and GPU (as opposed to the 13-watt or 17-watt options when it’s unplugged) and boosts performance as a result.

The ability to switch between these modes on the fly shows the real difference it can make. Avowed requires a lot of processing power to run well, and with all the graphics preset to High (even with AMD’s FSR upscaling applied) you’re looking at around 20 frames per second when playing on the 17-watt battery mode, according to the Xbox Ally X’s status bar. Plug it in and switch that to Turbo mode and the boost to 35 watts brings it up to a more comfortable 30fps or so.

When playing on Turbo mode, I was able to play Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 3+4 with the graphics set to High, and was consistently hitting the high 50fps mark. Since a game like this sometimes requires accurate timing, the handheld’s built-in option to limit the frame rate to 45fps or 30fps is useful for those who need it.

I played a number of games on various graphics presets and took notes of the frame rate on the optional stats display as I played. With the obvious caveat that these are very rough numbers and the likes of Digital Foundry will provide much more detailed performance analyses, here are the figures I noted down while playing:

• Death Stranding (Very High) – 40-60fps on 17 watts, 60-70fps on Turbo
• Dirt 5 (Ultra High) – 20fps on 17 watts, 30fps on Turbo
• Dirt 5 (High) – 30-35fps on 17 watts, 40-48fps on Turbo
• Dirt 5 (Medium) – 50-60fps on 17 watts, 60-75 on Turbo
• Disney Dreamlight Valley (Ultra) – 55-65fps on 17 watts, 65-80fps on Turbo)
• Gears of War Reloaded (Ultra) – 30-35fps on 17 watts, 40-45fps on Turbo
• Gears of War Reloaded (High) – 60-70fps on 17 watts, 65-80fps on Turbo
• Mafia: The Old Country (Epic) – 12fps on 17 watts, 17fps on Turbo
• Mafia: The Old Country (High) – 22fps on 17 watts, 30fps on Turbo
• Resident Evil 2 (Max) – 30-45fps on 17 watts, 45-70fps on Turbo
• Silent Hill F (Quality) – 10fps on 17 watts, 20-23fps on Turbo
• Silent Hill F (Performance) – 25-30fps on 17 watts, 30-35fps on Turbo
• Tetris Effect Connected (Epic) – 45-120fps on 17 watts, 60-150fps on Turbo (varies wildly depending on stage effects)
• Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 3+4 (High) – 35-50fps on 17 watts, 40-60fps on Turbo

If you want to see some of this in action, I put together this montage of off-camera footage showing eight games running on the ROG Xbox Ally X, with the frame rate stats visible.

In general, then, the Rog Xbox Ally X should be able to run anything you throw at it, as long as when it comes to the most recent AAA games you have no issue with dropping down the detail a little and/or running at 30fps, depending on the game.

Playing is also a pretty comfortable experience thanks to the new shape of the handheld. Whereas the previous ROG Ally handhelds were basically big slabs similar to the Steam Deck, these new Xbox-branded efforts add handles to the sides to make it feel more like you’re playing a large controller.

The ROG Xbox Ally X also includes impulse triggers like those used in Xbox controllers, providing tiny rumble motors in the analogue sticks for an extra tactile feel. The cheaper ROG Xbox Ally doesn’t have these, but it does have normal rumble.

The X also has some of the best surround-like audio I’ve heard on a system. The addition of Dolby Atmos tech, Smart Amplifier Technology and the wide placement of the speakers means it does a surprisingly amazing job of throwing sound around.

It’s almost considered sacrilege to play Tetris Effect without wearing headphones, but a full playthrough of its Journey mode was an absolute aural delight despite me using the speakers, with some stages chucking voices all around me with surprisingly effective results.

Asus ROG Xbox Ally X versus Steam Deck OLED

While there are numerous PC gaming handhelds out there, it stands to reason that the Steam Deck is the most likely comparison point for anyone who’s considering buying a ROG Xbox Ally X.

In terms of screen size, both the Xbox Ally and Ally X have a 7” screen, the same as the standard Steam Deck. The fancier Steam Deck OLED trumps them all with a 7.4” screen, not to mention one with an OLED display compared to the IPS display of the Xbox Ally systems.

That said, the Xbox Ally displays are still no slouch, and their full HD 1080p resolution gives them a clear advantage over the 800p offered by the Steam Deck models, as well as a 120Hz refresh rate compared to Steam Deck’s 90Hz, so all things considered it’s probably a draw.

Hold a ROG Xbox Ally X and a Steam Deck OLED in each hand and not only will you have a cheap alternative to going to the gym, you’ll also notice that the Xbox Ally X is heavier, weighing in at 715g versus the OLED’s 640g. The handles on the Xbox Ally X make it more comfortable to hold than the Steam Deck’s wide slab shape, however, so even though it’s heavier the weight is distributed in a way that you don’t really feel a big difference when playing.

“The handles on the Xbox Ally X make it more comfortable to hold than the Steam Deck’s wide slab shape, so even though it’s heavier the weight is distributed in a way that you don’t really feel a big difference when playing.”

As for audio, the Xbox Ally X wins out here, and not only because of its surround sound previously discussed. The Xbox Ally X can get comically loud if you turn it up to maximum volume: I loaded the same game on each system and tried to match their volumes – the Steam Deck OLED at 100% volume comes to around 40% volume on the Xbox Ally X.

The main point, however, is performance, and in this respect the Xbox Ally X easily wins. Of course, it’s hardly a fair fight given that the Steam Deck is now three years old and the Xbox Ally X costs $350 more than the best Steam Deck currently available, the 1TB OLED.

You’d absolutely expect the Ally X to beat it hands down, then, and sure enough I ran a benchmark test of the notoriously shonky PC port of Batman: Arkham Knight to see how the Xbox Ally X and Steam Deck OLED both handled the exact same sequence.

Plugged in, the Steam Deck OLED managed an average frame rate of 56fps during its Arkham Knight benchmark, a noble effort but one let down by the section where the Batmobile sweeps through Gotham City and the frame rate plummeted to the low 30s.

Also plugged in and running on Turbo mode, the Xbox Ally X hit an average frame rate of 69fps – which in itself is nice – but impressively only dropped to a minimum of 52fps during the Gotham City section. Given that it was also rendering at 1080p instead of Steam Deck’s 800p, that makes the achievement all the more impressive.

Finally, although this review has mainly been focused on playing games on the ROG Xbox Ally X – we’re a video games website after all – the main fact that this is a PC really does have to be taken into account too.

While in theory the Steam Deck can run Windows, it takes quite a bit of jiggery-pokery, with users having to choose between wiping SteamOS from the internal storage and replacing it with Windows, or creating a bootable MicroSD card which can be used to dual boot between SteamOS and Windows.

Here you can switch to full Windows as easily as swiping up from the bottom of the screen and selecting the option. At this point you have a full touchscreen enabled Windows PC, which enables you to install any software you like to either its main storage or its MicroSD storage.

Want to watch some films on it? Download Kodi and copy your files over. Want to check your emails? Just log in and check them. And yes, I’m sure there are other, less moral things you’re thinking about now, and it’s good for that too (and it’s up to you to decide whether my mind has gone in one direction, or the other).

The downsides

So far this has been an almost entirely positive review, but if you’re the impatient type who’s already looked around the page you’ll see that there aren’t five stars attached to it. That’s because as impressive as the ROG Xbox Ally X is, there are some issues that let down the experience.

Firstly, it’s a bit cheeky to charge a grand for a handheld and not provide any extras to make it feel like you’re getting a premium package.

The Steam Deck OLED comes with a very nice carrying case and a cleaning cloth, but the Xbox Ally X doesn’t come with either – and until you get a case, you’ll be terrified of taking a beast like this on your travels, so that’s another expense. Asus is trying to charge £60 for its own case, but unless it also gives you a back rub while you play you’d probably be best looking for cheaper alternatives.

The only thing included in the box along with the 65w charger is a stand, which is made out of what feels like premium cardboard. I’m sure there’s an environmental reason for this, and it’s sturdy enough to take the handheld’s weight without issue, but it feels extremely cheap for such an expensive product.

The lack of an HDMI-out port or any older USB-A ports is also disappointing. If you want to play on your TV you’re going to have to find a compatible USB-C to HDMI adapter, and if you want to use an old USB-A mouse or keyboard you’re going to have to find an adapter for that too. Asus sells a ROG Gaming Charger Dock which solves both these issues but, again, this isn’t included and you have to pay for it.

“The only thing included in the box along with the 65w charger is a stand, which is made out of what feels like premium cardboard. I’m sure there’s an environmental reason for this, and it’s sturdy enough to take the handheld’s weight without issue, but it feels extremely cheap for such an expensive product.”

In terms of the ROG Xbox Ally X itself, the fact it’s a PC at its core means that no matter how streamlined it tries to make the experience, there will always be compatibility issues and various other quirks that may never be ironed out.

Sometimes you’ll launch a game and wait for it to start, only to suddenly start hearing it and realise it booted in the background, forcing you to swipe up and find it in the running programs. Sometimes the controls won’t work until you tap the screen first.

Sometimes when you launch a game for the first time – especially an older one – it’ll launch in a small window, and you’ll have to go into the settings and change it to 1920×1080 and fullscreen. And sometimes a game just won’t recognise an external controller – I couldn’t get one to work with Avowed, for example, and it’s never made clear why.

The handheld also doesn’t feature a trackpad like Steam Deck does, meaning mouse-based games – of which PC Game Pass has a number – can only be played with the touchscreen, which isn’t great for certain games that were made with a more accurate mouse pointer in mind.

Playing offline is a bit of a crapshoot, too. Playing games on something like Switch 2 is generally fine when you’re offline, because only a percentage of games require an online connection and there’s nothing like achievement syncing or the like to worry about.

With the ROG Xbox Ally X it can be a less predictable matter. To be clear, it isn’t alone in this – it can be an issue on Steam Deck too, even in its Offline Mode – but when you’re dealing with games created with PC in mind, many of which expect a permanent internet connection because of DRM or what have you, the percentage of games in your library that simply can’t be played on the move will be higher than that on Nintendo‘s console.

That’s before you take into account other issues, like Play Anywhere Xbox games not syncing your previous console cloud save until you boot them, meaning if you’re offline when you do you won’t be able to continue your recent progress.

Essentially, then, the ROG Xbox Ally X, like most other handheld PCs, are really at their most useful if you plan on playing with an online connection most of the time – be that at home, at hotels or when tethered to your phone’s data connection – rather than something like playing on public transport where you may not always have a solid, permanent online source.

Summary

The ROG Xbox Ally X is a fantastic piece of hardware, which – let’s face it – you’d hope would be the case given its price.

In terms of performance it’s one of the best handhelds we’ve ever tried, with its Turbo mode easily running most PC games at healthy frame rates (depending on graphics settings, naturally).

Treated simply as a handheld gaming device, however, that $1000 / £800 price point is quite a pill to swallow, and if graphical performance isn’t the be-all and end-all to you then you might want to look into cheaper, less powerful alternatives like the Switch 2, Steam Deck or even the cheaper non-X version of the ROG Xbox Ally (which costs $600 / £500).

Your gaming habits should also be considered, however. If you don’t have any loyalties to Xbox or PC gaming, you might want to look into a Switch 2 instead – because Nintendo’s console doesn’t try to be a jack of all trades, and because its games are released with Switch 2 specifically in mind, you’re guaranteed a much more stable experience in general.

If you’re a PC player but you mainly focus on buying Steam games, then the Steam Deck may still be a better option because although the hardware is a few years old it’s much cheaper and is still capable of running all but the most graphically intensive games to at least some degree of playability.

If, however, you aren’t exclusively a Steam player and you also want to play games from the Epic Games Store, GOG and the like, then this handles all that in a far more streamlined, elegant way than Steam Deck which requires plugins, external apps or dual-booting solutions.

Of course, the main selling point here is also the Xbox integration, and while the ROG Xbox Ally X doesn’t play console games natively – though it handles cloud streaming of such titles extremely well – its support for Xbox Game Pass means there’s a healthy selection of PC games available there for subscribers.

The fact it can quickly boot into full Windows 11 mode also shouldn’t be forgotten, essentially opening the handheld up to a wide range of possibilities only possible in a PC environment.

Ultimately, the main thing the ROG Xbox Ally X offers is choice. Its versatile suite of options lets you run high-end games at solid frame rates, or drop the power down to play smaller indie games and save on its (generally quite impressive) battery life. Its choice of app stores means you’re not limited to Xbox (or indeed Steam), giving you a variety of places to find your games. And the option to switch between a gaming and PC environment on the fly means you can basically do whatever you want on it, as long as you can justify the cost.

If this is indeed the next step in Xbox’s journey, then, it’s certainly a positive one, and if the speculation that the next Xbox console will be a console/PC hybrid turns out to be true, if it’s handled as well as this then I’ll be all for it.