A little over a year after the launch of the ROG Ally, Asus is offering an upgraded version of its portable device, the ROG Ally X. This Windows machine will be available starting July 22nd for $800. I’ve been playing with the portable console for a few days now and it already has a lot to offer, especially in terms of hardware.
Released in 2022, Valve’s Steam Deck helped democratize portable PC gaming. It wasn’t the first company to explore the format, but Valve found the right combination of specs, portability, and price.
The console’s success was immediate and PC manufacturers took notice. Lenovo released the Legion Go and Asus had its own take on laptop gaming with the ROG Ally. There are also other specialist manufacturers, such as Ayaneo.
The device features a bright seven-inch display with a 1080p resolution and a 120Hz refresh rate. Like a Nintendo Switch, the screen is flanked by your standard array of gaming buttons and joysticks.
Unlike the Switch, the controls aren’t too small. The ROG Ally X feels like a full-size controller in your hands. The joysticks feel like those on a modern Microsoft Xbox controller. The A/B/X/Y buttons are large and clicky. The analog triggers also have plenty of travel.
I wasn’t entirely convinced by the D-pad, though. It’s squishy, much like the D-pad you’d find on a controller from another manufacturer. Likewise, the View and Menu buttons are hard to reach. They’re right next to the screen, forcing me to stretch my thumbs to pause a game.
There are two additional macro keys on the back of the device. I configured them as View and Menu buttons, and it helped. On either side of the screen, you’ll also find a Command Center button for adjusting performance on the fly and an Armoury Crate button for bringing up Asus’s game launcher.
The ROG Ally X’s main software interface, Armoury Crate SE, is decent at best. It acts as a game launcher, centralizing everything you’ve installed from Steam, the Epic Games Store, Ubisoft Connect, and more. It can also tweak your device’s settings, from joystick LEDs to controller profiles.
If you spend as little time as possible on it, it gets the job done. But it has bugs (a game I installed with GOG Galaxy mysteriously disappeared from my list), it can be frustratingly slow to open a menu, and I had a few crashes.
The same goes for the Command Center. It’s an indispensable tool for adjusting settings on the fly, like switching from Quiet to Performance or Turbo mode, but it sometimes becomes slow to respond to your interactions.
The device is comfortable to hold, at least for short sessions. The main problem with this type of portable PC gaming consoles is that they are heavy. They also get hot, especially when you are playing a game.
Before testing the ROG Ally X, I spent hours playing with the Logitech G Cloud, a portable Android console designed specifically for cloud gaming and remote play. It’s a hugely satisfying experience because the G Cloud is silent (it’s fanless), you don’t have to worry about battery life, and it’s easy to hold in your hands.
We’re only at the very beginning of this massive shift in PC gaming, from full-fledged PC towers to nimble but capable handhelds. Over time, handheld gaming consoles will become smaller, lighter, and quieter. They’ll become more like Android-powered handhelds. For now, though, experiences like G Cloud remain limited.
The ROG Ally X, on the other hand, feels like the pinnacle of portable gaming consoles. When Nintendo released the Game Boy 35 years ago, it felt like you could play NES games on the go.
Likewise, the ROG Ally X is a good gaming companion for long travel days or daily subway commutes. Despite its weight, I had no problem immersing myself in games for several hours at a time.
An independent gaming machine
As for performance, Asus has kept the same APU for the ROG Ally X, the AMD Z1 Extreme. However, the RAM has been increased from 16GB to 24GB. This makes a difference in gaming performance as the memory is shared between VRAM and system RAM.
The handheld comes with a user-replaceable 1TB NVMe storage card (2280 form factor). The battery is twice as large (80Wh) as its predecessor, and the proprietary eGPU port has been replaced with a more standard USB Type-C port with USB 4.0 support.
The device works especially well with games that don’t require a high-end PC, such as Jusant, Cocoon, or Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown. The ROG Ally X can easily output 60 to 120 frames per second for these games at 1080p without using the 30W boost mode.
For AAA games, there are some compromises to be made. I was able to get around 45 frames per second on the High graphics preset in Marvel’s: Spider-Man by enabling RSR, AMD’s resolution scaling feature. As for games that really struggled on previous handhelds, there’s no magic here. For example, you have to use low settings and aggressive resolution scaling in The Last of Us: Part I to hit 30 FPS.
If you’re really into strategy or simulation games, the ROG Ally X might not be the best form factor for those games. At least you can plug it into a monitor and use a mouse and keyboard if it’s the only PC you own.
As for battery life, it really depends on the type of games you play and the power mode you select. You can play Baba is You on “silent mode” for a long time. But using “boost mode” for The Last of Us is going to have a significant impact on your battery life. Unfortunately, I didn’t have enough time with the device to do extensive testing, but I’m sure many reviewers will post reviews this week.
As a gaming console, the most surprising thing about the ROG Ally X is that it’s a Windows PC, at least on paper. Sure, you can install whatever you want and use it in a desktop environment. But Windows without a mouse and keyboard is a frustrating experience. It’s fine if you want to install a game launcher and a few games. But a real laptop (or even a smartphone) is more convenient for everything else.
Also, since it’s a PC, you can install all games available on Windows. But some will run better than others, so you’ll have to adjust your expectations. You can also tweak the settings to get better battery life or better-looking games.
The ROG Ally X has a console-like form factor. But don’t expect a polished, console-like experience: this isn’t a Nintendo Switch competitor. In many ways, the ROG Ally X, or at least this handheld form factor, could be seen as an early glimpse into the future of PC gaming. A future in console form that plays like a PC.