I was hard on the original Asus ROG Ally. Perhaps a little too harsh, as most of the problems I encountered are inherent in the very concept of a Windows-based operating system. portable game console. So when I got my hands on the new ROG Ally X, I tried to be a little more open-minded. It wasn’t hard, as the new model is a substantial improvement. But some obstacles just can’t be overcome.
The ROG Ally X looks almost identical to its predecessor, save for a fresh coat of black paint. There are subtle differences, like rounded grips that are more comfortable to hold, slightly raised ABXY buttons, and an eight-way D-pad that handles diagonal movements a little better. If you don’t look too closely, you’d be forgiven for thinking that not much has changed.
But under the hood, Asus has made some significant improvements. Most notably, the battery size has been doubleThe original ROG Ally had a 40Wh battery, roughly comparable to the original Steam bridge. The ROG Ally X, on the other hand, packs a massive 80Wh battery. That’s bigger than the battery of The Asus Zephyrus G14 game laptopthat I loved for its long battery lifeDespite this massive increase, the Ally X only weighs about 70 grams more.
Asus has also boosted the storage capacity (it now comes with a 1 terabyte SSD instead of 512GB) and added 8 gigabytes of DDR5 RAM. The company has also replaced the XG Mobile port, which is only really useful for Asus’ external GPUs, with a USB4 port which can reach speeds of up to 40 Gbps, making it ideal for connecting to external docking stationsBut specifications can’t tell the whole story.
Photography: Eric Ravenscraft
The insurmountable wall of windows
Windows is not designed to run on a handheld computer. That’s a simple, inescapable truth. Microsoft expects you to come to its operating system with a mouse and keyboard, or at least a large touch screen. Trying to navigate the operating system with a controller is always a frustrating exercise. No matter how hard I try, I can’t seem to escape the basic problem of trying to interact with elements on the screen.
The Xbox app is a prime example. Asus has made big strides with its Armoury Crate SE app, which is meant to act as a bridge between all the other game libraries on your system. Armoury Crate launches on boot, there’s a dedicated button next to the right stick to open it when you need it, and it has shortcuts to apps like Steam (which launches in Big Picture mode, which is controller-friendly) or Xbox so you can access any game you own.
Photography: Eric Ravenscraft
