Transcription
Xbox and Asus have just collabed to make a handheld. And with the powerful hardware from Asus and the simple software of Xbox, this sounds like the perfect product. But is it actually? Or is this just an ROG ally with a fancy Xbox logo on it?
Well, I ran a lot of tests on it, so let's find out. And please like and subscribe if you like these type of videos.
From the outside, this is an ROG alloy. Shocker, right? Its body is made of plastic to save weight with this little 7-in glass screen on it, but it did get a muchneeded ergonomic upgrade from last generation with these two hand grips on the sides. And these feel exactly like an Xbox controller down to the texture and everything. This feels great to hold for long periods of time. If you've got sweaty hands though, the texture might feel a little weird, but it's not a huge problem. And while 715 g might sound pretty heavy, it's actually very manageable. And because it's such a comfortable design, your hands don't really get tired. It is pretty thick for a handheld, but again, this design means you'll barely ever notice that.
And for such a small device, it is absolutely packed with specs. A Z2 Extreme might not mean a whole lot to you, but this chip is an absolute beast with 24 GB of RAM. Now, you can either get the Xbox Ally X, which I use in this video, or the regular Xbox Ally, which comes with less RAM and a slower APU. And the performance difference between these two is significant, but so is the price difference. We'll get into more detailed performance numbers later, but trust me, this thing can game.
Now, this is already a pretty small package, but it still has a decent port selection. An SD card slot means you could expand the storage pretty easily, and two USBC ports means you could always just plug in a dock for a bunch of different ports, and it also means that it charges through USBC. It comes with this small 65 watt charger, and this thing is very manageable. I tested it with a third-party 65 watt USBC charger as well, and it performed the exact same. So, you could use any one you'd want, which is great.
Now, of course, this is a handheld. So, how is the controller part? Well, if you're used to playing on controllers, this thing feels excellent. It's basically just like you're holding a very wide Xbox controller. The buttons are nice and clicky and don't stick. It also has the same D-pad as an Xbox controller, which means it's basically the best you can get. And the sticks are also just like on an Xbox. They're not Hall effect or anything, but they feel great nonetheless. However, it does have Hall effect LNR triggers, and they feel very smooth.
If you're coming from a keyboard and mouse PC or a laptop, you definitely have to get used to this, though. Thumbst sticks are not as accurate as a mouse, and this does ruin it for a lot of people, especially for FPS games like Battlefield or Call of Duty. But for people that are coming from a console, this should be awesome.
It also has a really good display for its size. I do wish it was an OLED, especially at this price, but full HD 120 Hz at 7 in is more than great. Of course, it does have a touchscreen, which is to be expected when you don't have a keyboard or mouse for input. And while it's a glossy display, it does have a slight anti-reflective layer, so you're not going to be blinded if you use it outside. It also gets plenty bright. At 500 nits peak, you can definitely use it outside. Look, 1080p at 120 Hz might not sound amazing, but at 7 in, it is amazing. It's got great colors. It's sharp. It's very smooth, and it's definitely good enough for even fast-paced games. And guys, this is a handheld, so if you want the best battery life, you're going to be running games at 60 Hz anyways. So, 120 Hz is more than good enough.
And now for my favorite part, it's speakers. I'm being 100% serious when I say this. These are some of the best speakers I've ever heard on any consumer electronic device. I mean, this thing will blow most laptop speakers out of the water. They get loud, they've got a lot of bass, and they just sound great. It also has some kind of surround sound because when I'm playing FPS games, I can hear when people are behind me. So, if you're not a fan of using headphones, I think I just found your new best friend.
Now, what makes or breaks this collab is its software. The only reason the Xbox logo is even here is because people want a simple console-like interface on a powerful gaming handheld PC. And Windows is just a bit clunky for that. Now, what Xbox and Asus have come up with together is actually pretty cool. When the Xbox Ally boots up, it starts in this custom Xbox like OS. It's simple, fast, and has basically everything you need. Well, believe it or not, this is actually just Windows 11, but with every unnecessary desktop feature turned off. This is basically what the original Xbox was as well, which I think is pretty funny. But if you want a regular Windows desktop, you can turn all of that back on again. It's pretty simple. You can do everything a regular Windows PC can do. So, install Steam and every game you want, and then you can just turn all that extra Windows stuff off again and play all those games through the simple Xbox interface. You do need to reboot the system if you want to return to the Xbox OS, but at least it is an option.
Overall, I think this is great. The Xbox Ally has the simplistic interface of an Xbox as well as the compatibility of a Windows machine. Not to mention, it also plays most modern games from your Xbox library if you have one. And of course, it also plays Game Pass games, which might not be the best timing with those price increases, but it's still pretty nice. This interface is not perfect, though. It still happens plenty of times where the inputs are just lost and you have to use the touchcreen instead. And while this isn't a disaster, it is a bit of a turnoff when you're used to the optimized interface of consoles. Minus that it is awesome to just be able to boot this thing up, press play, and after Steam starts up, being able to just play. It's a very userfriendly experience.
All right, but now we get to the most important part. How fast is this thing? Well, it all depends on what you're doing and how you're doing it. In Cinebench R23, this chip performs great. Its multi-core performance is on par with the best 2024 laptops. And in single core performance, it's downright good and competes with some of the fastest laptops of today. In 3D Mark Time Spy, it doesn't look super impressive, though. Its integrated GPU might score low, but just you wait because benchmarks do not tell the entire story here. The Xbox Ally performs slightly differently depending on whether you're plugged in or on battery. And in benchmarks, we do not see this difference. It scores almost identically plugged in and on battery. But we will see this difference in real world use. So, let's play some actual games. Launch them back. Mock. I'll hack you to pieces. You'll never take me down. There we go.
Okay, you might not see it in these numbers either, but when you're on battery, this thing is a little bit kneecapped. Playing games while plugged into the wall is always a little better, especially when you're playing heavy and newer games. It's pretty simple why this is. The Xbox Ally has three performance profiles: silent, performance, and turbo. The lower profile you use, the less power the Ally will push to its APU, which means it becomes a little slower. Turbo is obviously the best for gaming, but it uses the most power. And when you plug the alloy in, it uses that little extra power headroom and it runs a little bit more stable. This is all a little bit confusing, I know, but I'll try to explain everything once we get to battery life, which is now a handheld's greatest strength is its portability and obviously being able to play games on battery. But for how long can it do all of that? Well, it all depends on what game you're playing and in which power profile. So, I tested a couple of games on battery with every power profile. A very heavy intensive game, a mediumintensive older game, and a very lightweight 2D platformer.
Let's start with the heavy game, Battlefield 6. Plugged in and in the turbo profile, it performed very well. It had lots of power to work with, so it ran smoothly with no issues. And when we unplug it in the same turbo mode, it ran a little worse, but still very close. But even in this highest turbo profile, its battery still lasted more than 2 hours, which is quite impressive. In the performance profile on battery, it uses a lot less power, though, so it runs a lot worse. And not just in terms of FPS. This game gets downright unstable. Battlefield 6 does not like it when you're using limited hardware, but since it used less power, it lasted even longer, almost three full hours, which is very cool. Now, I didn't even test Battlefield 6 with a silent profile since it was already very unstable on the performance profile. So, if you're playing the newest, heaviest games, it's better to just keep it on turbo and preferably plug it in.
Now, when it comes to medium inensive games, it's a lot better news. in Battlefield 1 plugged in, it obviously got very high frame rates, but when we run it on battery, it still did perform almost identical. It used quite a bit less power than in Battlefield 6, and it still ran very stable. And with almost 2 1/2 hours of battery life, that's definitely good. Now, in performance, it uses a bit less power, but still stayed very close to 60 fps with no instabilities whatsoever. but it didn't use that much less power than in turbo. So, it only lasted like 20 minutes longer. But in the silent profile, it lasted a lot longer. Yes, it performed quite a bit worse as well, but it used way less power. And believe it or not, it lasted almost 3 and 1/2 hours, which is super long for such a prettyl looking, relatively heavy game.
And finally, a lightweight game. Minecraft is a bit poopy on controller. So, I played Terraria. And yeah, this game is not intensive at all, so it doesn't use much power no matter in which profile you are. It got a rock steady 60fps in every profile, but it just used a little less power in silent, but it lasted damn near 5 hours while playing this game, which is downright impressive for this little machine.
So, what's our conclusion for battery life? For the heaviest and newest of games, it's better to keep it in turbo mode and preferably to just plug it in. Two hours of battery life for even the newest games is still very impressive, though. For mediumheavy or older 3D games, it's better to keep it in the performance profile because it lasts a little bit longer and it doesn't lose that much performance. But in indie or 2D games, I would just keep it in silent because you can pump almost five hours of gameplay out of it, which is just crazy. So, in short, turbo is the fastest but lasts the shortest. Performance performs a little worse, so it gets a little extra time. And silent uses a lot less power, so it lasts a lot longer, but it's just a little weak and isn't really an option for newer or heavier games.
But I was also wondering, does the Xbox OS last longer in battery life than Windows 11? I mean, it should, right? It's literally just a cut down version of Windows. Well, I ran a YouTube video on both Xbox OS and in Windows 11, and Windows 11 lasted a lot longer for some reason. I have no idea how or why this is, but the Ally consistently used one watt less in Windows. Apart from that, the amount of time this thing lasts while doing basic tasks like this is very impressive. I mean, these are MacBook levels of battery life.
Okay, that was a very long segment. Sorry for that. But now we know that the Xbox Ally handles almost every game, but how does it handle its heat? And does it make a lot of fan noise? Yeah. No, it stays very cool. There's not a chance in hell this thing is ever going to overheat or get thermal throttled. These grips or handles themselves also stay very nice and cool. Its heat stayed completely within the middle part of the body and I never ever felt the warmth. And as for fan noise, well, it just depends on which power profile you put it in, but they all stay very quiet. No one's going to look at you weird on the bus while you're playing heavy games. As long as you stick to the normal side of your Steam library, eh?
All right. This is obviously a tiny device, so you're not going to be able to upgrade a whole lot. That SD card slot is technically a storage upgrade path, but SD cards are a lot slower than internal storage, but it does have a replaceable SSD. You will need to screw and pry this thing open, but hey, at least it's possible.
And now we get to pricing. This thing has been awesome so far, but how much does it cost? Well, the Xbox Ally X that I have here is on the expensive side for a handheld. And when you're comparing it to an actual Xbox or a Switch, yeah, it's almost double the price. But the regular Xbox Ally is quite a bit cheaper. Sure, it is slower, but it's much more in lies with other console prices. But this thing is so much more than just a gaming handheld. It's a full-blown Windows PC, so it runs every app and Windows game. But then again, so can the Steam Deck. And this thing is directly competing with it, but at almost two to three times the price, which brings us to our conclusion.
Is the ROG Xbox Ally X worth it? To me, absolutely. This is the best gaming handheld I've tested so far, but to other people, the regular Xbox Ally might have a lot better value. The Xbox Alli X is a very fast device. It runs the newest games with good battery life, little fan noise, amazing speakers, a comfortable design, and a great screen. Yes, it is a little on the expensive side, but that's exactly why the regular Xbox Ally exists. And when you compare this thing to the average gaming laptop, yeah, it's not even close.
But the bigger question we should be asking ourselves is who is this thing for? Is it for console players or for PC players? Well, I would actually say both. But a huge and one of the most important points of figuring out whether this thing is for you is do you like using a controller? Because every time I'm excited to play games on my bed, I get reminded that I have to play those games on a controller. Console users will not have a problem with this obviously, but for people that play games on PC, that is a pretty big turnoff. I mean, I straight up suck with a controller. So, try playing games on a controller first before you buy this thing because it does make a difference. Other than that, this is my favorite gaming handheld so far, and I might actually keep this one.
But is it better than a gaming laptop? I mean, they're both portable and there's a bigger chance that you already have a gaming laptop. So, how do they compare? Is a gaming laptop straight up better or should you get both? Well, let's find out in the next video. Stay tuned for that.
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