Microsoft is launching its ROG Xbox Ally X and ROG Xbox Ally gaming handhelds globally today that let you take your game library on the road.
The devices combine the best of Asus ROG hardware as well as the flexibility of Windows, and an approachable Xbox experience. You can access your games, friends, and progress that you’ve made on other devices.
These devices aren’t cheap. The ROG Xbox Ally X sells for $1,000 — a price that nobody loves but was probably made inevitable by Donald Trump’s tariffs. The stripped-down ROG Xbox Ally sells for $600, for more casual players. You can go to Xbox.com to find retailers. Normally, you would see lots of celebrating going on with such a rare historical moment where Microsoft is entering a new segment of the gaming market, but the price has surely muted some of that enthusiasm.
The handhelds will also be available 38 markets around the world, including places where Asus ROG Ally series products are currently sold, including Brazil, China, India, Luxembourg, Malaysia, Philippines, and Switzerland. More countries are coming.
The machines are different from other Windows handhelds in that they can launch directly into the Xbox full screen experience, a dedicated experience purpose-built for gaming, powered by Windows 11, and inspired by the console user experience.
The Xbox software experience
The software has new modifications that minimize background activity and defer non-essential tasks, more system resources are dedicated specifically to gameplay.
A dedicated Xbox button on the upper left side opens an enhanced Game Bar overlay for Windows 11, making it easy to return home, browse your library, launch or quit games, chat with friends, access ROG’s innovative Armoury Crate SE, and more.
An aggregated gaming library gives you quick access to games from Xbox, Game Pass (where available), and installed games from Battle.net and other leading PC stores.
Xbox controller-inspired grips, with ergonomics that allow you to play comfortably for longer gaming sessions.
In select markets, every Xbox Ally comes with three months of Xbox Game Pass, unlocking hundreds of games playable across devices. Of course, Game Pass Ultimate, the highest subscription tier, just got a price increase to a total of $30 a month. More than 1,000 existing games will work on the device.
And Xbox Play Anywhere titles are where the majority of console players spend their time on Xbox, and you can now experience those same games on the go with the Xbox Ally handhelds.
Remote play, which allows you to stream your full console library from your Xbox console anywhere in your home – all via a smooth and intuitive user experience built for handheld.
Xbox Cloud Gaming (beta), which takes portability even further by allowing you to stream your Xbox library of console games to your handheld on the go. Whether you’re traveling, commuting, or just stepping out, you can pick up where you left off (where available).
Accessories
The Xbox Ally handheld lineup is expanding with a wide range of compatible accessories (sold separately), just in time for the holidays. From ultra-fast storage options to protective gear, you will soon have more ways to customize your play experience on the Xbox Ally X and Xbox Ally.
There are options like the SanDisk microSD Card. You can take your supported games with you anywhere with a high-performance storage card engineered specifically for the Xbox Ally X and Xbox Ally (sold separately). With up to 2TB of storage, enjoy blazing-fast downloads and up to 200MB/s read speeds for instant play, anywhere.
There’s also a Seagate FireCuda 530R SSD – Unleash ultra-fast speeds, extreme durability, and unrivalled performance. The FireCuda 530R SSD supports Microsoft DirectStorage for seamless gaming, and is available in 1TB, 2TB, or 4TB capacities.
You can also get a ROG Xbox Ally (2-in-1) Premium Carrying Case. This Xbox co-branded case fits Xbox Ally handhelds, with a water-repellent exterior, soft fleece lining, and a unique zipper. It includes a detachable pouch for a 65W charger (sold separately) and easily fits into bags to protect your device from scratches or bumps.
Hardware specs
The ROG Xbox Ally X has some pretty hefty hardware. It features the AMD Ryzen AI Z2 Extreme processor with eight cores and 16 threads. It uses Zen 4 architecture on a chip built in a four-nanometer process. It can hit 5.10 GHz boost clock on the CPU.
The GPU is an AMD Radeon RDNA 3 with 12 computer units running at up to 2.7 GHz and up to 8.6 teraflops of performance. It has 24GB of LPDDR5X-8000 (non-upgradeable) RAM. It has 1TB M.2 2280 PCIe Gen4 SSD that users can upgrade.
The device’s screen is a seven-inch diagonal IPS-level touchscreen with a resolution of 1920 x 1080 (FHD) and a refresh rate of 120Hz with Variable Refresh Rate and an aspect ratio of 16:9. It uses WiFi 6E connectivity. The ports include one USB 4 Type-C, one USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-C, one UHS-II MicroSD card reader and a 3.5mm audio jack.
By not including the whole Windows operating system on the ROG Xbox Ally X, the hardware designers were able to save about two gigabytes of additional RAM, which goes back to being available for running the game. If the machine goes to sleep, it draws about a third of the idle power state.
There are buttons on the back of the device that you can use when you have an Xbox elite controller and you want to make use of the optional buttons on the back. You can map them as you wish.
You can play around with it for perhaps three to eight. The aim is to optimize for a balance between performance and battery life.
Playing games
I am not expecting to play Battlefield 6 on it, but Call of Duty: Black Ops 6? Maybe, as Microsoft has had plenty of time to optimize it. Shaders for such games can load in the background. You can cast the game over to a larger display if you wish. Microsoft said you can run it at 70 FPS to over 100 FPS depending on your settings. You can run multiplayer Call of Duty at 1080p with 25W TDP and Frame Generation enabled to hit 90 to 100 FPS. It can also run Cyberpunk 2077 at high frame rates.
There are convenient tabs in the user interface like “recently played” games that you can return to with a button push. The screen is a touchscreen, which makes scrolling easier. With the TV casting, you can “roam your games across multiple devices,” said Jason Beaumont, vice president of experiences at Xbox.
You can fiddle with volume, brightness, microphones, WiFi, Bluetooth and game assist. You can capture your game playing and monitor performance.
In the integrated game menu, you’ll see an aggregation of your games. You’ll find a Battle.net Call of Duty game alongside Xbox games and so on. There’s a tab for cloud gaming titles.
You can train your power button to recognize your fingerprint. So when you turn it on, it will log you into your Xbox account. It sometimes takes a couple of presses to get it right, but it saves you the hassle of typing in your login and password on a virtual keyboard.
I played games like Gears of War: Reloaded on it as well as Hollow Knight: Silk Song. A 2D game like that might draw 15 watts or so.
I’m downloading more titles that I missed this year. I like how this gives me a second chance to play them. It really feels like you’re playing with a game controller.
It’s not always easy to find games, as you won’t see games that are still downloading in the My games section. Rather, they will still be in the Install queue. It takes a long time to download games on WiFi, but you can play games while another title is downloading. It’s also smart enough not to try to load two games at once.
What I really like about it is the grip of the controllers on each side. You can’t take them off and play with them. But they feel just like an Xbox controller, and that means you can feel at home in something like a first-person shooter game.
But I’m not a fan of the weight. I can hold it with one hand, but just barely, as it weighs 1.58 pounds. That makes it heavier than the 1.41 pound Steam Deck OLED and the 0.93 Nintendo Switch OLED. But there’s a lot of stuff in the ROG Xbox Ally X to justify that added weight.
The advantage of playing on a device like this is — like the Nintendo Switch 2 or the Steam Deck — is that you can play games for more hours in the day. You can play while on the move or while traveling.
Will it run your games?
Xbox has tested thousands of games to see whether they’re truly compatible. Some games you can find in your library will come with a warning about compatibility, like how some features won’t work. The number of compatible games is well above 1,000. But no games are really specifically design for this, as Xbox games are meant to be under the “Xbox Play Anywhere” umbrella.
Microsoft says that if it runs on Windows, then it runs on this device. How well is the question.
Conclusion
It’s a good first product in the handheld market — the first in many generations of hardware. But it comes with tradeoffs and a price that is a nonstarter for many players — not only with its $1,000 price tag but also the $30 a month Game Pass Ultimate subscription. I would normally say you should wait for the price to come down, but that’s not a give with our current tariff environment.
In terms of usability, it’s one of the first handhelds that I really like because it feels so much like an Xbox controller, which is my gaming input device of choice.
If you’ve got the money, you can buy it. But for many gamers around the world, this is going to be a slow-adoption device. I give it a four out of five stars.
Disclosure: Microsoft sent me a ROG Xbox Ally X for the purpose of this review.