Asus ROG Xbox Ally X review - a great gaming handheld, but not because of Xbox

The Asus ROG Xbox Ally X is finally here, and with it comes a new era in Windows gaming handhelds, thanks to Microsoft's incredible Xbox app… is what I'd love to be able to write about this new $1,000 handheld. However, for the most part, this is just another example of why Windows alternatives to the Steam Deck still can't beat Valve's original for overall usability. However, despite its lackluster Xbox console-like experience, the Xbox Ally X is still a great handheld that's well worth consideration, thanks in large part to its fantastic AMD processor.

It's the AMD Ryzen Z2 Extreme that sits at the heart of this machine, and it brings a big step up in performance compared to the Steam Deck and other "first-gen" handhelds such as the ROG Ally X and Lenovo Legion Go. Crucially, while we've seen the likes of the Ayaneo 3 and AOKZOE A1X deliver similar levels of raw performance (thanks to AMD Radeon 890M-class GPUs) in recent months, the Asus ROG Xbox Ally X comes in at a far more reasonable, if still expensive, price. With a place on our best gaming handheld guide at stake, read on to find out just what does and doesn't shine in what is sure to be the biggest-selling Windows handheld of the year.

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Specs

Design

The design of the Xbox Ally X stands out from the crowd thanks to its intriguing grip design. However, in most other aspects, it's clearly just an iteration on the existing ROG Ally X. It comes in the same two colors - black for the Xbox Ally X and white for the Xbox Ally - and has the same face buttons, dpad, and thumbstick design, with the same rings of RGB lighting around the latter. The only difference is the addition of the Xbox button on the front left of the screen.

As such, you really aren't getting anything revolutionary here. No detachable controllers, no slideout keyboard, no kickstand on the back, no fancy extra connections, and no touchpads like on the Steam Deck. It's every bit the classic Windows handheld, other than those grips.

Speaking of which, they do actually work rather well. This is easily the most comfortable gaming handheld I've used, with the extra depth and fullness of the grips sitting very naturally in the hand, just like the best PC controller designs. What's more, the split section at the bottom, which makes this handheld look like someone has ripped a controller in two and stuck a screen in the middle, allows you to really wrap your fingers around the grip. This, along with the grip-aiding crosshatching pattern on the grips, means you can easily hold the device one-handed.

Otherwise, its ergonomics are largely similar to other handhelds. It's a touch heavier than a Steam Deck, at 715g, but well below the Legion Go's 854g, and the overall proportion of the 7-inch screen with the control layout works well, even if the reasonably wide bezels around the screen do suggest a slightly larger screen could have been squeezed into the chassis.

Display and sound

Looking in more detail at the screen, it's an LCD panel with a 1080p (1,920 x 1,080) resolution, and it can run at a refresh rate of up to 120Hz. It also supports variable refresh rate (VRR) with Freesync, so you can run the screen at a lower refresh rate to save battery life, while also ensuring you never get screen tearing or stutter.

As those specs suggest, it's a screen that works great for gaming, with it offering all the speed and variation in performance you need to either run fast games at high frame rates or slower titles in a way that best preserves battery life, all while maintaining good image quality and a smooth-feeling refresh rate.

However, in terms of raw image quality, this screen is fine but nothing special. It has good viewing angles for an LCD, and produces natural and reasonably saturated-looking colors, but as it's just a standard LCD without a multi-zone backlight, it can't produce particularly low black levels. This means it lacks the contrast and punchiness of OLED panels, such as on the Steam Deck OLED and AOKZOE A1X. It also technically doesn't have as fast a response time as OLED panels, though this isn't much of a factor on a handheld such as this one.

This screen also doesn't support HDR and only stretches to fill 100% of the sRGB color space and 75% of the AdobeRGB color space, so it lacks a little vividness in its colors compared to the best gaming monitor designs.

As for sound, it's a strong suit for the Xbox Ally X. Its stereo, forward-firing speakers get loud - far more than necessary, really - and maintain a decent amount of depth so they don't sound too shrill and tinny. The headphone jack also offers clean, clear audio with no obvious background hiss or hum.

Operating system and Xbox app

Along with its new Z2 Extreme processor and competitive price, the main reason so many people have been extra excited about the launch of the Xbox Ally X is that Microsoft was promising a new Xbox app experience that would revolutionize the usability of Windows gaming handhelds. However, while there are some nice features in the new app, it's far from a full fix for the frustrations of trying to navigate Windows with a dpad and touchscreen.

The Xbox app loads as soon as the Xbox Ally X has booted up, providing a one-stop shop for your installed games and your Xbox profile, along with access to Game Pass, Cloud gaming options, and the Microsoft game store.

The installed games section will include games from other launchers, such as Steam and Epic, and they'll open the launcher and game directly from the app. However, that's about as far as the app goes when it comes to providing a single access point for navigating your device or controlling its settings.

The app is, after all, just the existing Xbox app for Windows with a new interface, so it's somewhat understandable that it doesn't integrate every specific function for this device. However, Microsoft has completely missed the opportunity to simply duplicate standard Windows controls, such as screen brightness control, volume, power mode settings, and more.

The crucial point here is that not only would this make sense for use on gaming handhelds, and other instances of trying to run a Windows gaming machine without a keyboard and mouse (a PC plugged into a TV, for instance), but Valve has already shown how to do this well with its Steam Big Picture mode. All Microsoft needed to do was make its own equivalent.

Back to what the app can do, and the main home screen provides a list of your recently played games - annoyingly, only the icons without the names of the games - then mostly just promotes other games and Game Pass.

Likewise, in the Game Pass section, it doesn't concentrate on showing you what games you already have installed via Game Pass but on promoting the service. The Library section is where all your installed games are brought together in a clean, sensible interface, and then the cloud gaming and store sections are, as you'd expect, portals for picking up new games.

Jump to the Friends section and you can chat to your Xbox pals, seeing who's online, and you can either chat via voice, voice-to-text, or using the onscreen keyboard.

With so little in the way of device management included in the Xbox app, it's left to the Xbox/Asus overlay to control these features. This overlay will appear over games and any other apps you're running when you press either the Xbox button or the Asus Command Center button just next to it.

Press the Xbox button, and you're taken to the home section of the overlay, where you can launch one of your last three played games or open a game launcher. Tap left and you get to the main Asus Command Center, which is where you control all the device's settings.

Here you can adjust brightness and volume, power down the device, switch between power modes, set the FPS Limiter, turn on AMD RSR, and change resolutions. The power modes refer to the ability to have the handheld run its processor at a maximum power output of 13W (Silent), 17W (Performance), and either 25W on battery or 35W when plugged in (both called Turbo mode). The lower the power consumption, the longer the battery life, but the lower the performance. We test the effect of these settings in the performance section of this review.

To the right of the home section of the overlay is where you find the settings section that duplicates the volume and brightness controls, power options, and network options already shown in the Command Center. Then there's an Xbox Social tab, Audio tab, screen capture tab, system monitoring tab, Xbox Achievements tab, inevitable CoPilot AI tab, and a Widget Store tab.

The whole lot combines to feel overly complicated and fussy, with oddities such as there being three different sections where you can control system volume (Command Center, Settings, Audio). That said, there's no doubt that it's useful to have most of these functions to hand. It just feels like the whole thing has been rushed and not really considered in a holistic manner.

What's more, on my review sample, after a recent automatic firmware update, pressing the Xbox button now actually causes Steam Big Picture to load, at which point using the dpad to navigate the overlay would no longer work. As such, to access these functions, I have to press the ROG Command Center button to bring up the overlay and navigate it from there. I'm sure it's a bug that will be fixed soon enough, but it was quite a frustrating experience.

Moreover, the Xbox app and overlay still can't overcome the fact that Windows still just has a terrible touchscreen/dpad navigation experience. The company needs to just create a single interface that brings together the majority of key Windows functions into a proper mobile-style interface, with a clean, scrolling app drawer, a simple settings menu, and so on.

The way it currently just smashes together both touch and mouse interfaces has made Windows worse on desktop, and it's still awful on touchscreen devices. It's a lesson the company should have learned well over a decade ago when Windows 8 fell flat on its face, and yet it still hasn't managed to take it on board.

Performance

Thankfully, while the sleek Xbox experience of the Xbox Ally X leaves a lot to be desired, the raw performance and gaming experience of this handheld is still excellent. Once games are running - especially if they're running on Steam - the controls work superbly, and the new AMD Ryzen Z2 Extreme processor at the heart of this machine provides far higher frame rates than early-generation handhelds. The likes of the Ayaneo 3 and AOKZOE A1X may have similar GPU power, but the numbers are still impressive.

Starting with Cyberpunk 2077, I started off using the highest 35W power mode (with the device plugged in), then ran the game at 1080p with medium detail settings and using FSR upscaling set to quality, where the Xbox Ally X duly delivered a perfectly playable experience. A 43fps average and 33fps 1% low isn't quite smooth enough to feel great when using a mouse and keyboard, but I found it was fine for controller input. Crank up the FSR upscaling to balanced mode (so it's starting at a lower initial render resolution before upscaling), and performance jumps to a 49fps average.

In the lower-power 17W mode running on battery, performance drops by about 25%, with our average using balanced upscaling dropping to 37fps. That's still just about playable, but you might want to tweak a few other settings - dropping to low overall quality, for instance - to get a slightly smoother experience for more intense combat sections. Play at the same resolution as the Steam Deck, using balanced upscaling, and you'll get a 52fps average.

Meanwhile, if you feel like it, you can even (just about) play with ray tracing enabled in this game at 1080p. Using the low ray tracing quality preset and with FSR set to balanced again, the Xbox Ally X will get you 29fps using the 35W power mode. It's not how I'd choose to play the game, but the option is there.

Speaking of ray tracing, Indiana Jones and the Great Circle is a game that doesn't let you turn this feature off completely, yet it still ran great on the Xbox Ally X, even without any upscaling. If you use the low quality preset, you can play this game at a 33fps average using the 35W mode. Switch to 17W mode, and this drops to 29fps, but in a slow-paced game like this, that's still just about playable.

For a slightly smoother frame rate, enabling FSR upscaling at the quality setting will get you a 42fps average in 35W mode (37fps at 17W), and using balanced upscaling will push this to 46fps average at 35W (39fps at 17W). All the while, even though the quality setting is set to low, the game still looks fantastic when running at this resolution on a screen this size.

Away from specific benchmark runs in modern AAA titles, I also played a range of older 3D titles, such as 2011's Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine, which trotted along at well over 100fps in 17W mode.

As for heat and noise, this handheld stays remarkably cool and quiet. Even in its top 35W mode, it still only hit 38dB from a distance of 10cm while playing Cyberpunk 2077. Using its 17W mode, it hit just 33dB. All the while, the device only gets slightly warm.

Battery life

With a sizeable 80Wh battery packed inside it, the Xbox Ally X delivers solid battery life for a gaming handheld. Using the PCMark 10 gaming battery life benchmark, which is quite demanding, this handheld lasted just under two hours in its top 25W power mode, but this jumped straight to three hours using the 17W mode.

However, both these tests were conducted with the FPS Limiter not set to help reduce the workload for the GPU, and again, this is a reasonably demanding test. We'll be updating this review soon with a test that includes using the FPS limiter, along with a test just measuring battery life with video playback and using the PCMark 10 Office benchmark, like we do for our gaming laptop reviews. For now, in our general use of the device, it would deliver in the region of four to six hours of gaming on less demanding titles, which is on par with other handhelds.

Price

The Asus ROG Xbox Ally X price is $999 / £799, which makes it an expensive purchase and considerably more pricey than the Steam Deck OLED and several first-gen handhelds. However, it actually puts this handheld comfortably below other competing handhelds that use second-gen chips, such as the AMD Ryzen Z2 Extreme. The UK price, in particular, is incredibly competitive, with it being the same as the existing ROG Ally X. In contrast, the likes of the AOKZOE A1X cost upwards of $1,300.

Alternatives

AOKZOE A1X

The undoubted champion of Windows gaming handhelds right now in terms of performance and the quality of its screen is the AOKZOE A1X. It also packs a similar second-gen AMD processor to the Xbox Ally X. However, it's considerably more expensive and has worse battery life.

Asus ROG Ally X

Despite using an older generation of processor, the original ROG Ally X remains a great choice of handheld. It offers basically all the same features as the Xbox Ally X, just with a slower processor. However, right now its price still hasn't dropped sufficiently below that of the Xbox Ally X. If Asus does drop its price significantly, to around $600-$700, it'll be the mid-range option to get.

Steam Deck OLED

The Steam Deck interface still reigns supreme for ease of use, and with the Steam Deck OLED being half the price of the Xbox Ally X, it still makes for undoubtedly the best gaming handheld overall. It's showing its age with its 800p screen and ancient processor, but it's still the device to beat.

Verdict

The big hope that an Xbox-branded Windows device would finally make Windows feel like a slick, streamlined gaming handheld interface has not materialized in the Xbox Ally X. However, despite its Xbox additions feeling fairly token, this remains the Windows handheld to beat right now.

Much of that positivity comes from the power of its AMD Ryzen Z2 Extreme processor, which delivers a really marked step up in gaming performance compared to the Steam Deck and other first-gen handhelds. However, the peculiar-looking controller-style grips on the Xbox Ally X are a great addition too.

The biggest factor of all, though, is that while this is still an expensive, premium gaming handheld, it's far more competitively priced than other devices in this performance league. If you're tempted by a Windows handheld and want the best right now, this is it.