The ASUS ROG Ally X is the best Windows gaming handheld ever. It has the most comfortable grip, the smoothest gaming experience, and the longest-lasting battery – three elements that make PC gaming truly a reality portable for me.
Most of this is no surprise: It’s smooth, as Asus makes the only handheld device to pair AMD’s powerful Ryzen chips with a variable refresh rate screen that better syncs with your games. It has better battery life, as Asus now includes an 80-watt-hour battery pack, which is the largest we’ve seen in a handheld device to date. The battery is so big, okay Keep AMD chips operate at higher power levels for higher frame rates.
But here’s what might surprise you: The Ally X is the first handheld I can recommend, and it’s also my gold standard for handhelds: the Steam Deck OLED. That said, don’t mind wrestling with Windows if you’ve got some extra bills in your pocket, and trust that Asus has actually learned its lesson with customer support.
My ROG Ally X review unit arrived just before I went on vacation, which was the perfect opportunity to test out its massive 80Wh battery. As of today, I’ve spent over 24 hours playing actual games on the Ally X.
At first, the battery life doesn’t seem like anything special. When I browse Japanese high school devil drama Persona 3 Reloaded Get 2.5 hours of use per charge at maximum brightness in the car and at the beach. That’s not enough to sustain a drive from Northern to Southern California, at least without an external battery. I did gain a whole hour more diver dave That compares to the Lenovo Legion Go, but my total run time of 3 hours and 19 minutes still pales in comparison to the Steam Deck OLED’s 4 hours and 42 minutes of total run time.
But when I fired up more demanding games, the Ally X was way ahead. I got almost a full hour of extra time Armored Core 6 (2 hours 59 minutes) plus an additional half hour Shadow of the Tomb Raider (2 hours, 41 minutes), 720p and medium specs, using Ally X’s preset power modes. This is the best handheld game console I’ve ever seen!
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I then spent a full two hours playing one of the most demanding PC games in existence: Alan Wake II.
Technically speaking, the ROG Ally X is the first to even begin to satisfy Alan Wake II System Requirements. It requires 16GB system memory and 6GB VRAM, which will throw an error on boot if you’re out of memory; on the original ROG Ally and Steam Deck OLED, which have to share 16GB between system memory and the GPU, gaming is a mess.
But the ROG Ally X has a full 24GB of shared memory, and it shows! Rendering at 540p resolution, upscaled to 1080p via AMD’s FSR 2.1 technology, I could actually delve deeper into the game’s lush and eerie forests without having to throw the handheld against the wall. The game did drop to 29fps during combat, but I saw a smooth 35-45fps when running.
It felt like it was fun enough, so I finally sat down. beat the game On the Ally X, I had enough battery for two hours of operation using the Ally X’s 25W “Turbo” mode.
As you can see in my comparison screenshot, the game only runs 5 fps faster on the Ally X when Saga is standing over the corpse. But when we play a game with a smoothness lower than 30fps If it weren’t for this push—— On handheld devices with VRR and low framerate compensation (as low as 30 fps) — it makes a world of difference.
In game after game, benchmark after benchmark, Ally X delivers the smoothest gaming experience I’ve ever seen on any handheld device, even in valleys and caves. Shadow of the Tomb Raider Technically speaking, Legion Go produces more frames per second. This is because Asus’ screen works dynamically to make everything work smoothly. (Even Steam Deck OLED’s brighter, more colorful, and more responsive OLED panels can’t match it.)
Speaking of benchmarks, Alan Wake II This isn’t the only game Ally X is leading. Despite using the same AMD Ryzen Z1 Extreme chip as the original ROG Ally, it also impresses with faster memory, more efficient cooling and power scaling.
Tested at 720p low resolution, save dirt rally 720p Ultra HD. Ally X was tested in 15W custom TDP, 17W “Performance”, 25W “Turbo” and 30W “Turbo” AC modes.
While you should note that the Ally X now defaults to the new 17W “Performance” mode instead of 15W, I got better numbers in almost every game I played with the newer handheld, regardless of wattage.
How to see return In 25W “Turbo” mode, my 720p benchmark now hits 38fps, compared to 33fps on the original Ally? like Alan Wake IIwhich I bet means it can finally be enjoyed on a handheld device.
But again, power is only half the performance story. A year ago, the first-generation ROG Ally drained its 40-watt-hour battery pack at 40-50 watts in Turbo mode, which meant that if you were running the Ally that fast away from a charger, You can only play the game for less than an hour. With the Ally X, I drained the 80-watt-hour battery pack at 33-40 watts in Turbo mode, which usually lasted two hours at worst.
I didn’t even see any slowdown when the battery ran out – it was fine all the way up to 3%, and when it went to sleep I could start playing at full speed almost just by plugging it in. .
Even configured at the lowest wattage of 7W TDP, the Ally X doesn’t consume as much power as the original. Balatero At 50% brightness, I was able to play a magical roguelike poker game for over 8 hours, but consumed less than 10 watts of power throughout. My best result so far is a total battery consumption of 7 watts slay the tower, lower than the OG Ally’s 9 watts. At this speed, the Ally X should be able to play for 10 hours straight before shutting down.
I’m not going to rehash everything I’ve already told you about the ROG Ally X during my early hands-on days – there are a lot of substantial little changes that deserve their own story, and I’ve already written about that story. But I suspect you may have three different questions that need answers here:
- What about revised ergonomics and other physical changes?
- Can Windows really be so bad that you’d choose a worse-performing Steam Deck?
- Why trust Asus when it sidestepped our issue with a defective SD card reader and its customer support reputation is in trouble?
I found ROG Ally X so much Despite the added weight, it’s more comfortable to hold than the original. The richer grip, trigger and pebble-shaped full rear button no longer have any protrusions to get in the way. The joysticks and bumpers feel tighter and more premium, the front buttons have a deeper throw (albeit noisier), and the D-pad has gone from mediocre to pretty good – although I’ve already heard an annoying sound when I press the down arrow The squeaking sound. The fan is also really quiet, which wasn’t an issue with the original.
Even if I can’t connect a Thunderbolt eGPU yet (Asus tells me there are currently driver issues with AMD eGPUs), it’s nice to have dual USB-C ports for charging and peripherals.
But I really like the Steam Deck’s symmetrical analog sticks, which always sit directly below where my thumbs naturally land, as opposed to Ally’s offset right analog sticks, which would make me uncomfortably change my grip. I miss the larger screen and less cramped 16:10 aspect ratio found on other handheld devices.
I can’t stand Windows still Can’t reliably build a gaming handheld computer Go to fucking sleep And reliably wake up again. The Nintendo Switch does this perfectly, and the Steam Deck does this almost perfectly, but I can’t keep track of the number of times Windows decided not to recognize my sensor fingerprint anymore or blacked out my game or Ally when I put it down. X would wake up again, or the Asus Armory Crate settings app simply forgot about my choices (such as whether to turn on the joystick’s RGB lighting).
I’m happy to say that Armory Crate has actually improved tremendously over the past year – the game launcher now intelligently sorts my games, allowing me to easily map buttons and gyro controls for fine aiming , and seamlessly download updates (including BIOS updates) to the website or separate apps without having to navigate.
But that’s nothing compared to SteamOS’s ease of use and compatibility with generations of older PC games thanks to community support – and Windows itself looks more like a pig than ever. Before I used Ally X for the first time, I spent nearly 45 minutes waiting for forced updates and clicking on various unwanted offers for Microsoft products.
Do I get a joystick-navigable virtual keyboard or PIN screen or a pre-mapped Alt-Enter shortcut to solve my problem? No, instead Asus added a Copilot shortcut, I have a copy of Outlook on my taskbar, and OneDrive is on by default. The only regret is that Microsoft Teams doesn’t start on startup this time.
As for the whole SD card situation, Asus only tells me that it’s not the same card reader as the old card reader, but it doesn’t admit there’s a problem – it’s the card reader used in the laptop. I guess that’s kind of reassuring. After a week of playing, I haven’t had any issues playing SD games yet, in case you were wondering.
The ROG Ally X doesn’t tick all the boxes for a handheld that meets my personal needs. The one-two punch of performance and battery life is tempting, but not enough to make me pass up the $549 or $649 Steam Deck OLED, which makes it easier to play my old Steam game library and then reliably plays when I want to enter sleep state. Customer support disputes are just another reason for hesitation.
But if you must use Windows or play the latest games on the go, the Ally X is by far the best Windows handheld. I hope bigger batteries and VRR screens are normalized, and I hope Asus will seriously consider a SteamOS version as well. I hope to test it with Bazzite (an unofficial SteamOS clone) later this year.
Photography: Sean Hollister/The Verge
