Customer Ratings & Reviews

It's the best handheld gaming PC currently on the market. I had some issues that were able to be resolved. Now I'm able to play AAA and emulate retro games on the go.

Best handheld PC. I’ve tried a lot of them and always ended up not completely happy but Asus nailed this one.

Everything you could ask for from a handheld gaming device! I love it!

Needs more compatibility with games and such but I love it! Long battery charge, easy to use, love love this!

Amazing product. I’m having a ton of fun. I can play a lot of games portable.

Amazing product for gaming and even productivity on the go.

No performance issues, no visual damages, used but runs like its new. Buttons feel good and installation of updates and all system with no issues.

Runs everything pretty well. Some crashes every now and again but overall a good product

This device is so awesome!!! My first PC type gaming device and I don’t regret it!!!

I’ve had this product for about two years and definitely worth it

I have a steam deck and ayaneo geek and this handheld destroys them!! Im in love with it!

I like it more every day. Worth the money if you can afford one.

I’ve been loving everything about this device, it does exactly what I want it to do and I couldn’t be happier.

Fantastic pocket PC, has a great display and runs all games.

Awesome system received pretty fast and well protected

This is one of my more happier decisions ive made dont miss out

I’m amazed how good is the console is like I totally recommend

Feels more premium and loving the new black color.

Great Great speakers Quiet in on Turbo SD card slot Great 120Hz screen with V-Sync 2280 NVME allows more upgrade options RAM faster and larger than standard Ally Higher TDP for Silent and Performance on battery Double the battery from the standard Ally New hand grips are more comfortable Great battery life for the form factor 2 USB-C ports and one with Thunderbolt Works with external GPU for more horsepower Supports multiple game platforms Windows OS allows Xbox emulators Can be used as your regular pc Improved cooling system barely gets warm Thumbsticks support Aura Sync Buttons are clicky similar to an Xbox controller Controls have been improved and feel tighter Asus provides optimum game settings for most games No So Great ASUS controversy over warranty issues RAM and Wi-Fi not upgradable Still not OLED D-Pad squeaks Right shoulder button randomly triggers in 1 game Speakers quieter after firmware upgrade Included stands feel cheaply made Buttons get blocked from working in certain games, including volume Supports 100-watt charging but only includes 65-watt charger Windows still has poor touchscreen support First, if you have an original Ally, Extreme or non-Extreme edition, the Ally X isn’t likely a big enough upgrade unless you just have money to burn. The best way to think of the Ally X is more of a “Pro” version of the original Ally instead of a new version. It isn’t a massive upgrade to every part of the Ally but careful changes to the original to fine to the design. For the most part they succeeded. Out of the box, the most notable change is simply the color change from black to white. There is still a cheap cardboard kickstand in the box but now it is in two pieces which is a small improvement as it won’t tip over now. The Ally X supports 100-watt charging but the charger included is still the original 65-watt. Looking closer, the hand grips are slightly larger and more rounded making holding easier for someone with larger hands. The bottom left and right corners have been rounded as well so you don’t have a squared off edge. Asus mentions the new shoulder buttons are upgraded Hall sensors but what they don’t mention is they are more curved giving a distinct feeling of the upper and lower buttons. Another subtle change is the power button with fingerprint reader is now recessed slightly. This makes finding the button by feel easier than the original Ally. Controls 8/10 The new design feels more comfortable in the hand. It is slightly heavier, but it makes it feel solid. The larger, more sculpted hand grips and shoulder buttons make it feel easier to hold with a more natural feel in the hands. The lower should buttons have a longer travel that feels smoother. The upper shoulder buttons have a clicky feel to them with a distinct activation point. The joysticks feel firmer giving better feedback making movements feel more precise. The d-pad feels completely different with a more domed design with 8 distinct activation points. The one thing that made it feel slightly cheap was it would randomly squeak during usage. Thankfully this didn’t effect performance. The XYAB buttons look the same but have slightly more travel and a more clicky feeling very similar to an Xbox controller. Asus says they have changed the spacing between the joysticks and the d-pad and buttons which is nice, but there is still one small downside. The right joystick is very close to the touchscreen. This means that sometimes when playing you can cause random things to happen as you trigger controls in the game. For example, in Halo you can accidentally trigger your weapon to fire as you are moving. Strangely, when this happens the weapon sometimes continues to fire until you are out of ammo. The activation was random so it can’t be said if that is exact problem. This also happened on the original Ally and one option mentioned was to disable the touchscreen. It would be great if Asus offered option in Command Center to disable the touchscreen quickly for situations like this. I have had it trigger when pressing the Y button hard sometimes. So far, I have only had this happen with versions of Halo so it might be a software issue, but it is worth verifying if you purchase one. There are other game specific control quirks that might need to be worked out. The vibration motors would run constantly in Halo Reach but work perfectly fine in ODST. Cooling 10/10 Asus usually does a great job on their cooling solutions and the Ally X is no slouch. Even when gaming while plugged in with 30W Turbo the Ally only became slightly warm in the center. You can feel them working because they can push out good amount of heat that you can feel straight out of the top air vents. During extended gameplay there wasn’t any sign of heat buildup either. This is likely due in part to the cooling redesign where the fans seem to be on most of the time. Because of the sound profile they are barely audible even at full tilt. Audio 9/10 Asus says have upgrade the speakers to be louder than the previous generation. When first unboxed that was true, but after some updates the answer is more that it depends on what you are doing. Watching YouTube videos or playing music the new speakers are noticeably louder and have much better range. While the no substitute for good headphones or discreet speakers they are good enough to make you question if you really feel like using headphones. After a recent update some games became noticeably quieter. For example, in Halo the music and sounds seem noticeably quieter. This can be improved by turning off Dolby audio, but it is still quieter. The same is also true in Minecraft. However, in Forza the opposite is true. Sounds are just as loud as the Ally X was first unboxed, so the change is something software related. A full solution hasn’t been found but overall, it is a minor issue. Every game has been plenty loud for most situations, and any weren’t they were was when headphones would be best anyway. Battery Life 10/10 While there are a lot of subtle tweaks, the battery upgrade is the not-so-subtle change. Doubling the size from 40 Wh to 80 Wh puts the battery size squarely into the laptop category with hardly any change in the overall weight or feeling. On silent mode it isn’t hard to get over 6 hours of gaming out of this device. If you are playing retro games or willing to turn down the quality even more, you can manually adjust the TDP down to 7 watts and you could possibly get over 11 hours of gameplay. Of course, if battery life is less of a concern, you can push it up to 25 watts and boost up to 30 watts for 2 minutes and still have a good chance of getting over 3 hours of gameplay. In testing, turning off CPU Boost seems to really help extend on battery gaming. Unless your game is CPU bound, leaving CPU Boost on just pushes more power to the CPU unnecessarily killing your battery life. The Silent power profile has been bumped from 10 to 13 watts and Performance from 15 to 17 watts and yet gameplay on battery is still longer than the original Ally. Overall, it is a great feeling to know if you have the option to turn down the power and the battery would likely last longer than you would gaming. Overall, unlike my original Ally, with the Ally X I don’t pay as much attention to battery life unless I need to take it for an extended period. I can play for a bit and set it down. When I return I can feel confident there is enough battery left for a good 20 or 30 minutes to relax. You can’t do the same with a regular gaming system or a console. It feels as quick and convenient as playing a game on your phone. Performance 10/10 Of course, this will never compete in performance with a system has a discrete GPU, but it is surprising how capable the Ally X is for the size. While it is the same CPU as the previous generation, the upgraded RAM helps. With the original Ally the default setting was 4GB of ram for the GPU and 16GB for the system. With Ally X the system can keep the 16GB but now the default VRAM is doubled to 8GB. Older games this isn’t much of an issue but in games such as Forza 2023 this translates to being able to run on High detail settings without RSR and still being to stay north of 35FPS when on 25-Watt Turbo in the Benchmark tool. Halo Infinite was able to maintain a minimum of 30FPS on 25-Watt Turbo but with settings on high. That isn’t ideal, but it was a bit surprising to see it able to keep frame rates above 30. The highest playable preset was Medium with a low of 45FPS. On legacy titles, such as Halo Reach, the Performance preset could keep framerates above 55FPS. If you prefer a slower pace or just want more game time on battery, Minecraft on default settings could run easily on Silent smoothly and play for 3 hours and still have more than half of the battery left. I didn’t bother trying RTX as RTX support even with Nvidia GPUs is hit or miss in Minecraft. I’m still playing around with Emudeck and retro games, but this is where if you needed to go the distance without charging you have a good chance. Games up to SNES and Sega Megadrive run easily at 13 watts and likely much less. I have more games and tweaking to do where I don’t know where to start and that is a nice problem to have. For modern popular games you can save the time tweaking and just visit the ROGAllyLife website and get the best settings for the game for the power profiles that work. Final Thoughts While the ROG Ally X could use further improvement, it is overall a solid evolution of the original Ally. While it comes with the downsides and complexities of a Windows gaming device, it also comes with all the upsides and options. If it is in your budget and you can look past the controversy with Asus warranty support, the ROG Ally X is the best Windows gaming handheld on the market now.

The new Ally X is fantastic, loved the original and this is way better and way faster