Are the Nintendo Switch 2’s days of unchallenged market supremacy about to come to an end?
Possibly, if the Asus ROG Xbox Ally X has anything to say about it. This latest collab between gaming PC maestro Asus, Windows and Xbox, promises to contain the power of a cutting-edge console within a small handheld device.
The ROG Xbox Ally, and its more powerful older brother, the Ally X are heading to shelves from October 16.
With huge batteries and massive memories, as well as some cutting-edge new features, they promise to make it easier than ever for players to take their library of games everywhere with them – and play their faves anywhere, anytime.
But would the consoles stand up to some in-depth playtesting? I got some hands-on time with the Ally X to find out.
Asus ROG Xbox Ally X key stats
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Design
First thing’s first: this feels good to hold. The designers have done a masterful job of taking everything that’s tactile and comfortable about the Xbox controller and transferring it across to a portable device – right down to the chunky handgrips, which are textured to allow better grip.
The device itself is thick, and bulker than the old Asus Rog Ally – not a surprise, when you consider how much power it’s packing behind that screen – but not too heavy (about 715g), so holding it for hours at a time is actually surprisingly easy.
The only confusion comes with the Asus Rog Ally X’s profusion of buttons. We get the standard two joysticks and two control pads, as well extra five buttons which do things like open the Xbox app, settings, games library and Command Centre (more on that later).
To be honest, the library and settings buttons look similar and are easily confused – as is navigating your way around the console. It’s probably one of those things that gets easier with time (especially if you already own a gaming PC) – but anybody coming to this expecting a tiny version of the Xbox might be a bit bamboozled to start with.
Plus, anybody who’s clumsy can breathe out: the whole screen is coated in Gorilla Glass for scratch resistance. Thank goodness. Nobody wants to scratch up £750 worth of kit.
Performance
This thing runs like nobody’s business. There’s a lot of processing power packed in here; a staggering amount, really, which is evidenced in just how little time it took me to test-download Blue Prince to the console. Thirty seconds, to be exact (the game came in at a tiny 6GB), whereas my poor old Xbox X/S struggled to do it in thirty minutes - that’s thanks to the new 8-core AMD Ryzen AI Z2 Extreme Processor it comes with.
It’s been paired with AMD Radeon RDNA 3.5 Graphics, and the two combined are a killer combo. The graphics run like butter – ray tracing, high definition, 500 nit maximum brightness (most LCD displays have 200-300), the lot. Hell, it even ran some AAA games at 70fps: no mean feat considering how beefy they are.
All that power comes at a cost – which is why a lot of time has been spent into making the device as efficient as possible. There’s a new intelligent cooling system, which apparently includes some ultra-thin fans, and means the battery can operate for longer.
And it does: easily 5 hours, if not more, while running a game. Not bad.
Features
Everything here has been set up to make accessing your favourite game as easy as possible.
There’s a microphone (which works well and has noise cancelling) and excellent sound thanks to the two Smart Amp speakers, which delivered incredibly clear audio for a handheld – so clear it felt weirdly like I was wearing headphones.
Given that the whole thing runs on Windows, the home screen and operating system is surprisingly PC-ish. There is something slightly awkward about seeing Windows 11 boot up on such a small screen (several orders of magnitude smaller than a laptop screen), and the text, at times, ended up being squint-and-you-miss-it tiny.
That said, barring the awkward moments where you have to use the touch-screen keyboard to type things like email addresses, it’s easy to use – and the power button works as a fingerprint sensor, which is fun. The console can also be connected to a keyboard and mouse via Bluetooth: all the better for PC gamers.
Pressing the Xbox button opens an enhanced Game Bar overlay which makes accessing the library, in-game chat and the Armoury Crate easy – within a few clicks I could stream games on the Cloud service (a huge title like Assassin’s Creed Shadows, which I played without a lag time), download PC titles or browse and buy Xbox ones. Next to it, the Command Centre button will let you tweak things like the console’s Performance, Game Profiles and FPS Limiter.
Oh, and storage? There’s a lot of it here – 1TB to be exact (512GB on the standard Asus Rog Xbox Ally), enough to download multiple AAA titles without breaking a sweat. Clair Obscur fitted on there no problem, with oodles of space to spare.
Cost – is it worth the price?
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I’ll say it plain: at £799, this is a hefty investment. This isn’t a console for the idly curious: this is a seriously sophisticated bit of kit that has been designed to give PC and Xbox gamers a stellar playing experience.
Everything a gamer could possibly want is catered to here: it’s a pocket rocket with amazing sound, performance, display and almost infinite flexibility when it comes to playstyles, modifications and more. For people who love sinking hours into the latest title, this could be the console that does it all.
Asus ROG Xbox Ally X
There’s a lot to love with the Asus Rog Xbox Ally X (except for the wordy name). The console’s intelligent design (those hand grips!), insanely advanced processor and stellar graphics makes playing AAA games a breeze, while the Windows 11 operating system has been cleverly tweaked for a handheld (though still proves a touch fiddly, especially when it comes to navigating around).
As for whether it’s worth the cost… you certainly get what you pay for, and this does boast some world-beating tech. Otherwise, the Asus Xbox Rog Ally is £499 and comes with a slightly diminished processing power, storage and battery – still, it’s a great investment, and one for the true gamers.
Buy now, Currys
