As someone who primarily plays on Xbox, I was cautiously optimistic about it ROG Xbox Ally X. The idea of being able to take my Xbox library on the go was very appealing, but more than that it would be a convenient way to play online co-op and multiplayer games with my wife in the same room without having to get another Xbox console and pull out another TV. I was shocked by the absurd $1,000 price tag of the ROG Xbox Ally X, but figured that in the long run I would still get enough use out of it to ultimately justify the cost. That may still be the case, but as of now, the ROG Xbox Ally X has given me serious buyer's remorse.
The ROG Xbox Ally X has been billed as an Xbox handheld, when that's clearly not what it is. The ROG Xbox Ally X is a ROG Ally with the Xbox branding on it and the Xbox “full screen experience” built in. It seems like it's aimed at Xbox fans, but it's not really. If you're someone who has built up a large library of games on Xbox consoles, don't make the same mistake I did and pick up the ROG Xbox Ally X assuming you can actually access that library on the handheld without resorting to cloud streaming.
The ROG Xbox Ally X is not a true handheld Xbox experience
Despite owning games like Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 and Borderlands 4 on Xbox I can't download them on my ROG Xbox Ally X. Instead I have to stream them through the cloud. Then Borderlands 4 the split screen experience isn't ideal, I was hoping to use the PDA to play on my own screen while my wife could stick to the TV. The cloud streaming works well enough for the most part, but there's no denying that the experience would be more stable and better if i could download the xbox game i own on the xbox branded handheld. It also means I can't play many of my Xbox games on the go, which is one of the main reasons for getting a handheld in the first place.
Another game I was hoping to play on my ROG Xbox Ally X is Mass Effect: Legendary Editionthe improved collection of the original Mass effect trilogy that brought the classic games to modern platforms with tweaked graphics and other improvements. I own Mass Effect: Legendary Edition on Xbox, but other than that, the game is available via Xbox Game Pass Ultimate, so I figured there wouldn't be any obstacle here. The catch is that since the ROG Xbox Ally X is actually a handheld running Windows, you can only download the PC version of Mass Effect: Legendary Edition. This requires another download of the EA app and also means I can't access my console boxes. Now I can stream the console version of Mass Effect: Legendary Edition through the cloud, but again, that kind of defeats the purpose of a PDA.
From a technical standpoint, the ROG Xbox Ally X is a powerful machine that has performed admirably with almost every game I've tested it on. It was an older Steam game I was trying to load that strangely caused the system to crash, but otherwise it's been smooth sailing so far. It's a well-built machine with impressive performance, but the problem is that it doesn't serve the purpose you'd expect from an Xbox-branded handheld, and that's incredibly disappointing.
In the future, I hope to see more use of the ROG Xbox Ally X, mainly thanks to Game Pass. The Xbox Game Pass November 2025 lineup features games where the ROG Xbox Ally X will come in handy when playing co-op, such as Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 and its 4-player co-op campaign and the upcoming co-op survival game Void trainwhich looks like a lot of fun. I'll eventually get my money's worth, but if you're a big Xbox gamer and look to the ROG Xbox Ally X as a true handheld version of that experience, you're going to be sorely disappointed.
- Stamp
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Xbox / ROG
- Operating system
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Windows 11 Home
- Processor
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AMD Ryzen AI Z2 Extreme processor
- Show
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7″ IPS, 500 nits, 16:9, 120Hz refresh rate, FreeSync Premium, Corning Gorilla Glass Victus + DXC Anti-Reflection
- Resolution
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FHD 1080p
- Original release date
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2025
