I started my week with the ROG Xbox Ally X at 8:31 PM on a Tuesday, coffee still warm, expecting an “Xbox but portable” vibe. Within minutes, Windows 11 politely reminded me I was absolutely not unpacking a console. “Just a moment,” it said for what felt like the length of a loading screen from 2007. Language, region, keyboard, Wi‑Fi. Reboot. License agreements. “Keep your PC on.” Another reboot. By 9:05 PM I was signing into my Microsoft account and Asus warranty. Forty minutes later, I was on a desktop, installing updates, and opening the Microsoft Store so my account would be recognized properly. Console energy? Not exactly. PC energy in the palm of my hand? Totally.
And that’s the thesis of the Ally X. It’s a Windows handheld dressed in Xbox vibes, but it behaves like a very small gaming laptop. That means huge highs-Ryzen AI Z2 Extreme and Radeon graphics absolutely punch above their weight-and familiar PC hassles. If you’ve owned a Steam Deck, Legion Go, or tried cramming a gaming laptop into a train tray table, you’ll know the dance. If you’ve only lived on plug‑and‑play consoles, there’s a learning curve. I lived with the Ally X for seven days straight, and here’s the honest truth: I loved it when I wasn’t swearing at Windows.
My first installs were comfort-food games: Half-Life and FEZ. Both ran beautifully, no drama. Then I pushed it: Forza Motorsport. The game threw an error-“Unsupported CPU detected (code: AP101).” That’s a PC moment right there. I tried Jet Set Radio next and was told to install the .NET framework. The Last of Us Part II Remastered suggested I update my GPU drivers before launching. So I did the usual PC ritual: update everything. Afterward, TLOU2 Remastered ran fine, Forza still complained, and I launched it anyway. It worked.
That wasn’t the only speed bump. One wake-from-sleep session gave me a sudden blue screen while Windows tried to validate something through my Microsoft account. I also ran into the world’s tiniest horror story: the right vibration motor triggered an ugly buzz through the speakers in one game, which a full reboot cleared up. And the oldest Windows lesson still applies: leave a decent chunk of free space on the SSD or random games can crash. Not new issues, just odd to juggle them on a handheld I wanted to treat like a console.
Once I dialed in expectations, the Ally X just kept flexing. DOOM: The Dark Ages is the kind of game that loves throwing your hardware into a meat grinder; the Ally X ran it in the 40-60 fps range with dynamic resolution enabled. Not pristine, but seriously impressive for a machine you can toss in a backpack. Indiana Jones and the Great Circle was the other big eye-opener: not as crisp as a Series X on my living room TV, but absolutely playable, smooth, and gorgeous on a 7-inch panel.
Across a week I played Forza Motorsport (error be damned), Starfield, Forza Horizon 5, Gears 5, The Last of Us Part II Remastered, Ninja Gaiden 2 Black, Age of Mythology Retold, Killer Instinct, Diablo IV, and Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales. The throughline: if you’re pragmatic about settings—dynamic resolution, a sane preset, frame caps—the Ally X will surprise you again and again. The frame pacing felt consistent in the 45-60 fps window in most modern titles. Older or well-optimized games? Cake. FEZ and the classic Half-Lifes felt like they were born for this thing.
There’s also the cute touch in the storefront: some games show a little white flame icon when they’re optimized for the device, similar to how Steam Deck marks verified titles. It doesn’t guarantee perfection, but it helped guide quick installs when I was testing in a hurry.
The 7-inch 16:9 1080p 120 Hz panel isn’t OLED, but it’s bright, anti-glare, and sharp enough that 720p internal render upscales nicely. That 120 Hz headroom matters more than you’d think; even when you’re capping at 60, it keeps input feel crisp and menus buttery. Outdoors on a cloudy day, the anti-reflective coating saved me on a train window seat I usually avoid. Indoors, the screen gets punchy without looking garish.
Then there’s the sound. I wasn’t expecting to notice the speakers, and yet I did. They get loud—like embarrass-your-commute loud—with real low-end. The fan profile is quiet enough (even in Turbo) that the Ally X never sounded like it was about to lift off. Rumble is subtle and mostly silent; only the LB/RB shoulder buttons have that classic click, which I happen to like. If you don’t, there’s a 3.5 mm jack waiting for you.
Ergonomics are the Ally X’s hidden weapon. At 715 g it’s not featherweight, but the widened grips make it feel lighter in practice. The sticks and face buttons are where my thumbs want them to be, and the triggers are easy to modulate. The two rear buttons, M1 and M2, sit a little far back for my hands during heated fights, but they’re perfect for utility. I bound M1 to screenshots and M2 to start/stop video capture, and that habit stuck instantly. I played two-hour stints without clawing up like I do on flat-bodied handhelds.
Armoury Crate SE is the middleman between Windows weirdness and handheld sanity. It corrals your libraries (Xbox app, Steam, Epic, GOG) into one place, exposes the important toggles (power mode, refresh rate, TDP limits, fan profiles), and even lets you cap charge at 80% to preserve the battery when you’re deskbound. It’s the difference between “Ugh, Windows on a handheld” and “Okay, this is doable.” The UI is built for a thumb, not a mouse.
Then there’s the much-memed dedicated Xbox button near the left stick. I rolled my eyes at the marketing too—until I used it. It pulls up the Windows game bar overlay, and from there, switching between the Xbox app, Microsoft Store, Steam, or widgets is instant. It turns the Ally X into a low-friction hub for every storefront I actually use. I’m a long-time Game Pass subscriber; being able to pick up PC versions of games I own through Play Anywhere—like sliding into Silent Hill f without buying it again—felt like the future we were promised a decade ago.
And this part surprised me: I found myself using the Ally X for non-gaming stuff between matches. Windows is Windows, so I fired up a spreadsheet to tweak a review schedule and trimmed a quick video clip on the train. You can install whatever you need on the 1 TB SSD, and with this much CPU/GPU grunt, it’s fast enough to feel like a competent ultraportable when you want it to be. That openness is a perk console handhelds simply don’t have.
Let’s be honest about the friction. You’ll install updates. Firmware, GPU drivers, Windows patches—it’s part of the deal. Shader compilation means some first launches feel long. Occasionally something will just… act weird, and a reboot fixes it. Out of sleep, a game might lose audio or forget your controller until you reconnect it. It’s a PC in a onesie: cute, powerful, occasionally fussy.
During my week, I saw multiple updates drop, and they did improve things: better stability out of sleep and one patch that seemed to reduce hitches in Forza Horizon 5’s opening drive. But if you’re allergic to tinkering, even light tinkering, this handheld won’t change you. I also can’t skip this: my review unit came without a charger in the box. At around €900, that omission stings, especially if you’re not already swimming in 65W USB‑C power bricks.
At full blast (Turbo, 120 Hz, newer AAA games), I averaged right around two hours per charge. If you play indies, cap to 60 Hz, and use a balanced profile, you can stretch it, but this isn’t a cross-country-flight handheld unless you pack a power bank. The flip side is that the Ally X runs cooler than I expected. The rear exhaust never torched my fingers, and on a lap it was fine over long sessions—no summer laptop syndrome here. Fan noise stayed in the “soft whoosh” category, even when pushing Starfield.
I tested Asus’s 65W Charger Dock to see if the Ally X could hold down my living room. The short version: it works like a tiny PC. HDMI into a 4K TV, power and USB for a controller dongle, and you’re good. Windows will be Windows—one time it chose an odd scaling, another time a game popped into windowed mode until I hit Alt+Enter. But once set, couch play rocked. Forza Horizon 5 at 1080p Balanced looks clean from eight feet away, and Diablo IV with a wireless pad felt native. If your dream is to fully replace a Series X with this? I wouldn’t go that far. If you want a “one device, many contexts” machine that moves from desk to couch with minimal fuss, it’s legitimately great.
After 20+ hours of swapping between trains, desk, and TV, this is how I’d map it:
There were three “okay, I get it” moments. The first was DOOM: The Dark Ages on a moving train, dynamic resolution quietly doing its job while demon chunks and sparks filled a 7-inch screen at near-60 fps. I’ve played handheld shooters for decades; this was the first time I forgot I wasn’t on a living room box until the conductor announced the next stop.
The second was late at night in bed, Indiana Jones’s flashlight cutting through a cave while the speakers delivered this surprising warmth. I turned the volume up, waited for the fan to whine—and it didn’t. I caught myself grinning because it felt straight-up premium.
The third was a dorky admin victory: armor-up Armoury Crate, tap the Xbox button, hop from the Xbox app to Steam to the Microsoft Store, start a cloud session of a Game Pass title I hadn’t installed yet, then drop back into a local game—all without picking up a mouse. That, right there, is handheld PC nirvana.
It’s not perfect. Windows still feels like an intruder in certain places: dialogues that aren’t gamepad-friendly, odd pop-ups you have to dismiss with touch, progress bars that hang until you poke them. Sleep-resume isn’t bulletproof. The M1/M2 placement is great for short presses but awkward during action. And that Forza “unsupported CPU” warning popping up each launch? It’s the exact kind of thing that reminds you this is a PC, not a curated console box.
Also, the no-charger-in-the-box decision on my unit still bugs me. I can rationalize the price given the silicon and build, but if you want this to be someone’s first serious handheld, include the brick. Don’t make folks learn about USB‑C PD wattage tables on day one.
I’ve put serious time into Steam Deck and Lenovo’s big-screen handhelds. Steam Deck still wins on “console-like cohesion” thanks to SteamOS and its Verified program. It’s friendlier if you live and die on Steam and want fewer PC headaches. The Ally X, though, takes the performance lead in raw muscle and feels more like a broad-shouldered PC that happens to be handheld. If you bounce between Xbox/Game Pass, Steam, Epic, and even GOG, the Ally X’s openness is a dream. You just need to be okay with the occasional raincloud.
By the end of the week, I stopped expecting the Ally X to behave like an Xbox and started treating it like a tiny, shockingly capable PC. That mental shift made all the difference. The hardware is a joy: a bright 120 Hz screen, excellent speakers, comfortable grips, quiet fans, and silicon that punches out of its class. The software is… Windows. That means flexibility, real productivity tools, Game Pass magic, store-jumping freedom—and updates, drivers, pop-ups, the odd crash, and the occasional gremlin.
If you want a handheld that just works, all the time, with zero tinkering, I won’t try to convert you. But if you’re the kind of player who smiles when a portable box runs Starfield and DOOM like it has no right to, who doesn’t mind tweaking a setting and rebooting when needed, the ROG Xbox Ally X feels like the best expression of “PC in your hands” I’ve used yet.
Genuinely thrilling performance and comfort, held back by Windows fuss and battery reality. Include a charger, smooth the sleep-resume bugs, and this would flirt with a 9.
Get access to exclusive strategies, hidden tips, and pro-level insights that we don't share publicly.
Ultimate Reviews Strategy Guide + Weekly Pro Tips