After many days with her, these are my impressions and review of the beast: ROG Xbox Ally X

These are our impressions of the ROG Xbox Ally X, the new portable console from Asus and Microsoft that arrives with everything.

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After spending several days testing the new ROG Xbox Ally at home, I think I can tell you with more than enough knowledge what the new Asus and Microsoft portable console has to offer. To put you in context, I’ve had a Steam Deck for a few years now, and I could more or less guess where things were going, although honestly, the new machine is more than what Valve’s console offers, without belittling the latter, which is a machine I love.

Important: All captures and videos you see in this article are taken by the ROG Xbox Ally X.

For days, I’ve been able to tinker with all the functions and many games for it, and the truth is, within its desire, it’s a very interesting machine and almost essential for those who have a large digital library and want to take it wherever they go. The first thing you should know is that it’s a PC with Windows 11 in front of you, but with nuances, many nuances that make it not so simple to summarize it like that.

Let me explain: the machine is designed to be an all-terrain vehicle, either to play only with your PC games through the Xbox application or to play from the cloud or remotely. The ROG Xbox Ally offers a range of possibilities, perhaps one of the things that I liked the most, along with its ergonomics and power, is that it’s a “beast” that moves almost everything you throw at it with ease.

All gaming options

Whoever plays on PC is sure to already know the Xbox application for PC, so now imagine integrating all that into a machine in the palm of your hand. With brutal ergonomics, exclusive Asus features, and a game catalog from different platforms that you can’t finish. The only thing that can be blamed is that not all your Xbox games can be executed on it, but this is a starting point, from here it begins, and it offers a lot to be the first incursion in this field.

But as I say, it was not conceived like that, and although sometimes magic exists, in this case, the starting point is this, and among the Xbox Play Anywhere games, cloud games, and other clients, you have games to play for years without stopping. With this, I’m not justifying anything, I’m exposing that as it was designed, the machine doesn’t deceive, it’s designed to expand the Xbox ecosystem and the available options, it doesn’t come to replace any of the current platforms, it comes to complement them.

ROG Xbox Ally X features

We remind you that two models of the machine are launched, although we have used the X for all our analysis:

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As you can see in the table above, the hardware differences are significant, although as Microsoft has explained on several occasions, the experience remains intact, saving the mentioned differences. In the tests I’ve done in these days, I’ve had time to try many games, and I think that’s what matters most. The installations are divided by type, i.e., from games that you can install natively to those that you can play through the cloud or remotely. I’ve been trying different titles, and all of them I’ve been able to execute, many of them leaving me amazed at how they moved at 1920×1080 with medium graphics when some PCs struggle.

For my tests, I wanted to use games with different graphic characteristics and demands, and the truth is that it’s a beast, it moves everything. At least, everything I’ve tried: Forza Motorsport, Forza Horizon 4 and Forza Horizon 5, Indiana Jones, Hogwarts Legacy, Robocop, Persona 5: Tactica, and a few more that I won’t mention… and all of them moved very well, obviously, saving distances with a PC or a desktop console, but all of them I’ve been able to execute on the machine and touching some graphic settings, (in some more and in others less) I’ve been able to enjoy a complete experience in the palm of my hand.

In this article, I’ve left several videos of my tests where you can see the fluidity of the games from the outside, as I say, these are some of the ones I’ve tried, but I have more videos of more games to upload and share with you, I’ll do it later. The experience, which is what matters, has convinced me totally, although I could put some blame on the software part, which still has room for improvement.

The plastic feel and finishes are excellent. Here I want to be very honest, I’ve played for days, and I don’t know what can happen in the next few months, but it’s noticeable that the machine is well built, and the materials feel like quality, but as I say, I haven’t had time to evaluate its wear and tear over the weeks and months.

My conclusion

After all these days of testing, I can affirm without fear that the ROG Xbox Ally X is a firm step towards the future of portable gaming in the Xbox and PC ecosystem. It’s not just a portable console, but a complete PC in a compact format, designed to offer total freedom to the player. In this sense, Asus and Microsoft have achieved an outstanding integration, which allows access to both the Xbox Game Pass catalog and libraries from Steam, Epic, or GOG without complications, something that no other device does in such a notable way.

The ergonomics and performance are its two great strengths without any doubt. ROG Xbox Ally X improves everything regarding previous Asus models: it improves memory, battery, and cooling, making it a very capable machine for demanding titles. During my tests with games of all kinds, the Ally has moved with brutal ease within its segment, offering a complete and visually more than notable experience for a device of these dimensions.

However, Windows 11 is still a double-edged sword in some things: it offers total flexibility that we all know, but also an interface not very thought out for touch screens or at least as I would like for a device of this class. The Asus Armoury layer helps, but there is still a way to go for the experience to be as direct as on a console. The same happens with the Xbox application for PC, which although functional, still needs more optimization and simplicity in its use. All are small things that can be improved, and surely they will, but for now, they still have room to continue improving all these features. If they are perfect on PC, on a portable device, they can still be perfected.

My final conclusion is that, overall, the ROG Xbox Ally X does not intend to replace your Xbox Series or your main PC, but to complement them with a powerful and versatile portable experience. It’s a machine ideal for those who are already part of the Xbox ecosystem and want to play from anywhere without giving up their digital library. If Microsoft continues to refine its software, this alliance with Asus can mark a before and after in portable gaming within the Xbox universe.

We thank Xbox Spain for the material provided to carry out this analysis.