Asus ROG Ally X review: Better performance and feel in an expensive package

Asus' first ROG Ally, a $700 Windows-based handheld gaming PC, performed better than the Steam Deck, albeit at a significant sacrifice in battery life. The hardware also felt first-generation, and the software featured both Asus' own all-around gaming app and Windows itself. The Ally posed an awkward question: “Do you want to pay nearly 50 percent more than you would for a Steam Deck for a slightly faster but far more cumbersome handheld?”

The ROG Ally X makes that question more interesting and less obvious to answer. Yes, it's still a handheld that tries to hide Windows annoyances, and it still lacks trackpads, without which some PC games just feel bad. And (review spoiler) on less demanding games, it still eats a charge faster than the Steam Deck OLED.

But the improvements Asus has made to this X sequel are notable, and its new performance stats make it more viable for those who want to play more demanding games on a fairly sharp screen. For $800, or $100 more than the original ROG Ally with no extras, you really have to Really You want the best possible handheld gaming experience, but you've still accepted the drawbacks of Windows.

What's new in Ally X

The ROG Ally X is essentially the ROG Ally with a bigger battery in a body that's impressively not much bigger or heavier, more storage and RAM, and two USB-C ports instead of one USB-C port and a weird mobile port that nobody knew how to use. Asus redesigned the device and changed the feel of the front button, and everything feels noticeably better, especially now that gaming sessions can last longer. The company also moved the microSD card slot so your cards don't melt, which is nice.

There's a bit more to each of these changes that we'll get into, but that's the short version. Minor spec tweaks wouldn't have changed much of the ROG Ally experience, but the changes Asus made for the X version make quite a difference. More available RAM has a significant impact on frame performance in demanding games, and you can see that in our benchmarks.

We kept the LCD Steam Deck in our benchmarks because its chip performs about the same as its OLED upgrade. But it's really the Ally vs. Ally X comparisons that are interesting; the Steam Deck has fallen back from AAA viability. If you want the Ally X to run modern, GPU-intensive games as fast as a battery-powered device can, it can now do that much better—and for longer—and feel a little better while doing it.

The Rog Ally X answers the question “why not just buy a gaming laptop?” better than its predecessor. At $800 and up, you might still be wondering how much portability is worth to you. But the Ally X isn't so much a niche (Windows-based handheld) within a niche (mediocre-quality handhelds).

This is what it feels like to use the Rog Ally X

My testing of the Rog Ally X consisted of benchmarks, battery tests and playing some games on the couch. In detail: Deep Rock Galactic: Survivor And Tactical Breakthrough Wizard at the lowest power level of the device (“Silent”), Death Loop at the medium performance level (“Performance”) and Shadow of the Earth Tree in maximum “Turbo” mode.

All four games worked flawlessly for the most part, but DRG: Survivor pushed the limits of Silent Mode a bit when levels were crowded with enemies and projectiles. Most games were able to automatically find a decent settings scheme for the Ally X. If a game offers AMD's FSR (FidelityFX Super Resolution) upscaling, you should at least try it out; it's usually a huge advantage for a game running on this handheld.

Overall, the ROG Ally X was a device that didn't stand out to me when using it, which is the best recommendation I can give. Perhaps I noticed that the 1080p screen was brighter, closer to glass, and sharper than the LCD (original) Steam Deck. Handheld, the difference between 800p and 1080p isn't much to me, but the difference between LCD and OLED is bigger. (Of course, an OLED version of the Steam Deck was released late last year.)