Review: Asus ROG Ally X

I was harsh on the original Asus ROG Ally. Maybe a little too harsh, since many of the problems I had with it are inherent to the very concept of a Windows-based handheld gaming console. So, when I got my hands on the new ROG Ally X, I tried to be a bit more open-minded. It wasn’t hard, because the newer model is a substantial improvement. But some hurdles just can’t be overcome.

The ROG Ally X looks almost identical to its predecessor, save for a new coat of black paint. There are subtle differences, like rounded-out grips that are more comfortable to hold, slightly elevated ABXY buttons, and an eight-direction D-pad that handles diagonal movements a bit better. If you didn’t look too closely though, you’d be forgiven for thinking little has changed.

But under the hood, Asus has made some massive improvements. Most notably, the battery size has doubled. The original ROG Ally had a 40-Wh battery, roughly comparable to the original Steam Deck. The ROG Ally X, on the other hand, somehow packs a massive 80-Wh battery. That’s larger than the battery in Asus’s Zephyrus G14 gaming laptop, which I loved for its lengthy battery life. Despite this massive increase, the Ally X is only about 70 grams heavier.

Asus also beefed up the storage capacity—it now comes with a 1-TB SSD instead of 512 GB—and 8 more GB of DDR5 RAM. The company also swapped out the XG Mobile port that’s only really useful for Asus’ external GPUs for a USB4 port that can reach speeds up to 40 Gbps, making it ideal for connecting to external docking stations. But specs can’t tell the whole story.

Photograph: Eric Ravenscraft

The Insurmountable Wall of Windows

Windows isn’t designed to be run on a handheld. That’s just a simple, unavoidable truth. Microsoft expects you to come to its operating system with a mouse and keyboard, or at least a large touch screen. Trying to navigate the OS with a controller is always going to be an exercise in frustration. No matter how hard I try, I can’t seem to escape the basic problem of trying to interact with things on the screen.

One prominent example of this is the Xbox app. Asus has made some solid strides with its Armoury Crate SE app that’s meant to be the bridge between all the other game libraries on your system. Armoury Crate launches at startup, there’s a dedicated button next to the right control stick to open it when you need it, and it has shortcuts to apps like Steam (which launches in the controller-friendly Big Picture mode) or Xbox so you can access any game you own.

Photograph: Eric Ravenscraft

Microsoft even rolled out a new Compact Mode for the Xbox app to make it better for smaller screens. But it still gets confused when you try to navigate it. While using the D-Pad to navigate my library, the up and down buttons would sometimes move my cursor between the grid of apps, or it would scroll through the list like a scroll wheel. Just to make sure it wasn’t me, I would hand the Ally X to my partner and ask them to do something simple like select the visible “Minecraft” shortcut on the screen. After a few seconds of clicking buttons, they would get a frustrated look on their face, give up, and tap the touchscreen.

I’m tempted to say this is just how Windows on a handheld is and that I shouldn’t hold that against Asus. The company is trying after all. I was able to get started playing Steam games more easily than I did on the original Ally, and the Armoury Crate app is far more reliable than it has been in the past.

But it’s still unavoidable: You shouldn’t buy the ROG Ally X unless you’re willing to wrestle with Windows. I found myself frustratedly swiping on the touchscreen to switch apps via the too-small-for-this-screen taskbar. I had to hit extremely tiny touch targets to close apps that popped up in the way. And that intrusive low-battery pop-up that Windows interrupts your game with is still here. These are just some of the annoying quirks Asus simply can’t change, so long as Microsoft is the one designing the OS.

And Now, the Good News

Windows UI jank might be annoying, but it’s only a sometimes problem. Once you get into a game—as long as it has solid controller support—you can play for hours without having to interact with Windows at all. Thanks to the massive battery in the Rog Ally X, that’s possible.

Photograph: Eric Ravenscraft

The 80-Wh battery is larger than some gaming laptops and it pays off. On the original Ally, the battery barely lasted for more than an hour of Doom Eternal. The Ally X, on the other hand, nearly pushed that to three hours. Less graphically intensive games like Hades II lasted longer, though not by nearly as much as I’d hoped.

On my Steam Deck OLED, I was able to play Hades II for nearly 6 hours before needing to charge my battery. The ROG Ally X got closer to three and a half, though it should be noted that the Ally X has a 120-Hz refresh rate, compared to only 90 Hz on the Steam Deck OLED. Cranking out 33 percent more frames per second is going to burn through more battery, but for a game like Hades II where split-second timing matters, I was happy to make that trade-off.

The battery life has, in my opinion, crossed a threshold that pushes it into “acceptable” territory. It still can’t compete with the likes of the Switch or Steam Deck, which have more mobile-focused operating systems and years of optimizations to make games run as efficiently as possible. But you can at least play the ROG Ally X for longer than the length of a Marvel movie before it dies.

Photograph: Eric Ravenscraft

Most Improved Player

I still struggle to say whether or not I explicitly recommend the ROG Ally X. But at least now the answer depends on who’s asking. If you’re a parent looking to buy a handheld for your kid—or you want one for yourself so you can chill with a game after work with minimal frustrations—then you probably want to skip this one.

However, if you’re comfortable fiddling with settings and aren’t bothered by user interface annoyances, then the ROG Ally X can give you a nicer experience (in some ways) than other handhelds on the market. Once I got into the game, Hades II felt nicer to play on the Ally X’s 120-Hz screen than on the Steam Deck OLED. I had to reach for the charger more often, but at least I didn’t feel like I had to be tethered to the wall all the time.

Asus is putting genuine effort into making its handhelds as good as they can be. There are some things only Microsoft can fix, and it might take years for that to happen. But if you want a handheld that can play all your games—not just the ones on Steam—then the ROG Ally X is one of the best options you can get. Just be ready to deal with some jank.