I’m three hours into Hollow Knight: Silksong, sprawled on my couch, and I’ve just realised I haven’t thought about the fact that I’m holding a Windows PC. The haunting depths of Pharloom look stunning on the 7-inch screen, the frame rate is locked at a buttery-smooth 120fps, and my hands aren’t screaming for a break despite the device’s 715-gram heft. This is the ROG Ally X working exactly as intended. That’s either the highest praise or damning with faint praise, depending on what happens next.Microsoft’s “this is an Xbox” campaign has always felt like semantic stretching, but the Ally X makes a compelling argument for the idea. Not because it plays Xbox console games—it doesn’t, not natively—but because it delivers on the promise of Xbox as a platform that follows you around rather than sitting in your entertainment centre. At Rs 1,14,990, this is an expensive experiment in that vision, one that succeeds often enough to be genuinely exciting even if Windows occasionally reminds you it’s still finding its footing in this form factor. Let’s get into it: the hardware, the software, and whether the ROG Xbox Ally X justifies its price tag.
Those grips make all the difference
Deeply contoured grips shaped exactly like Xbox Series controller handles let you pull off three-hour gaming sessions without once needing to adjust your grip or take a break.
The Xbox Ally X’s most polarising design choice is also its best. Those bulbous controller grips that protrude from either side looked absurd in press photos—like someone had grafted Xbox controller handles onto a tablet and hoped no one would notice. In person, within the first gaming session, they become the reason you’d pick this over flatter alternatives.
Hall Effect joysticks with RGB lighting rings flanking both sides—flashy, unnecessary, and exactly what you’d expect from a gaming device, though you can disable them entirely.
Most handheld PCs are essentially thick rectangles with controls mounted on the sides. Your palms stretch across the back, supporting the full weight with your hands in an unnatural flat position. It’s manageable for an hour, uncomfortable after two. The Ally X’s grips change everything. They’re deeply contoured, properly sculpted, shaped exactly like the handles on an Xbox Series controller. Your fingers wrap around them instinctively. Your palms nestle into textured curves instead of pressing against flat surfaces. The weight—and there’s definitely weight here—gets distributed across your entire grip rather than concentrated in your palms.
At 715 grams, the weight distributes across sculpted controller handles rather than pressing flat against your palms.
I’ve pulled off multiple three-hour sessions in Hollow Knight: Silksong, a game that demands precise inputs and zero hand fatigue, without once needing to adjust my grip or take a break. Compare that to the Switch, which is lighter but less comfortable because all the weight sits in your palms. The Ally X feels like holding a controller that happens to have a screen attached, and that’s exactly what it should feel like.The 7-inch IPS display hits 1080p at 120Hz with 500 nits of brightness. It’s sharp, responsive, and bright enough for outdoor gaming without the glare issues that plague dimmer screens. Yes, it lacks the deep blacks and vibrant colours of an OLED panel—a few other handhelds do have that advantage—but in practice, the difference matters less than you’d think. Games look excellent here. Forza Horizon 5’s sun-drenched vistas pop with colour. Cyberpunk’s neon-lit streets shimmer convincingly. The 120Hz refresh rate makes menu navigation feel premium in a way 60Hz displays simply can’t match.The speakers flanking the display punch well above their size. They’re loud, clear, and surprisingly full-bodied for drivers this small. I’ve skipped headphones more often than expected because the audio quality is pretty good for a device this size. Bass depth is limited—you’re not replacing proper headphones for music listening—but for gaming, they’re more than adequate. Dialogue in Indiana Jones and the Great Circle comes through clearly. The industrial soundtrack in Doom: The Dark Ages hits with satisfying oomph.
ABXY buttons deliver satisfying clicks with just the right resistance.
Build quality is mostly solid. The ABXY buttons have a satisfying click with just enough resistance. The Hall Effect joysticks feel precise and smooth, with perfect tension for both precise aiming and quick camera movements. The triggers makes good use of Xbox’s Impulse Trigger haptics, delivering subtle vibration feedback in supported games. In Forza Horizon 5, you can the feel road’s texture through the triggers—as you accelerate and brake, the vibration intensity changes and that the feel’s different basis how the surface is. It’s a small detail that makes the experience feel authentically Xbox in a way that goes beyond just slapping a logo on the chassis.
wo programmable back buttons positioned just slightly too far from natural thumb reach—not a dealbreaker, but easy to forget they exist because accessing them requires deliberate hand adjustment.
Up top, there are two USB-C ports—one supporting USB 4.0 for eGPU docks if you’re feeling extravagant—a microSD card slot, and a 3.5mm headphone jack. These cover the connectivity needs pretty well. The power button doubles as a fingerprint sensor for Windows Hello, which works reliably enough that I’ve stopped thinking about it. Then there are two small programmable buttons on the back, and, weirdly enough, they’re positioned just slightly too far from natural thumb reach. I wouldn’t call it a dealbreaker, but I keep forgetting they exist because accessing them requires a deliberate hand adjustment.
How extreme can it go
Specs are tedious to read, but performance is what actually matters. The AMD Ryzen Z2 Extreme processor with 24GB of RAM and 1TB of storage makes the Ally X one of the most capable handhelds on the market right now. What that means in practice is that I’ve spent weeks playing games on it, some demanding at settings that would choked older handhelds, and the Ally X handles them with competence. Forza Horizon 5—a title that I play on almost every single machine I get to test—runs at high settings with some compromises, holding a steady 70–77fps depending on the environment. The game looks splendid on the 7-inch screen: sharp textures, smooth car models, vibrant colours. As I mentioned a few paragraphs above, the Impulse Trigger really makes racing feel tactile in a way that’s absent on other handhelds. This is the closest you’ll get to console-quality Forza in a portable form factor.Cyberpunk 2077, another one of my favourites, runs at 1080p with settings tweaked to medium and FSR upscaling set to Quality mode, delivering 42–44fps and occasionally dipping into the high 30s in densely populated areas of Night City. Now, that might sound underwhelming on paper, but it’s perfectly playable. The environment looks gorgeous, the variable refresh rate smooths out frame drops, and—just like always—I’ve lost hours wandering around Watson at night, neon reflections dancing across puddles, completely absorbed in a game that has no business running this well on a handheld.Doom: The Dark Ages sits comfortably at medium–high settings, hovering around 65–75fps in most scenarios. The fast-paced combat demands responsive controls and stable frame rates, and the Ally X delivers both. I played through several hours of demon-slaying without once feeling like the hardware was holding me back.
Hollow Knight: Silksong absolutely flies at 120fps+, taking full advantage of the high refresh rate display—this is where the hardware flexes without breaking a sweat.
Hollow Knight: Silksong—a game with far less demanding graphics—absolutely flies on the Ally X. We’re talking 120fps+ consistently, taking full advantage of that high refresh rate display. The precision platforming and brutal boss encounters require zero input lag, and the Ally X responds instantly to every command. This is where the hardware flexes without breaking a sweat. And if I be honest, this game been growing on me after I started playing it on the Ally X. Continuing my adventures in Indiana Jones and the Great Circle, the gameplay defaults to low settings here but still manages a stable 30fps with occasional dips. It’s a visual showcase even at reduced quality, and the cinematic presentation translates well to the smaller screen. You’re not getting the full ray-traced experience you’d see on a high-end PC, but the game remains immersive and perfectly enjoyable.Avowed and Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 both struggle more—I had to. Default settings put them in the high 20s fps range, requiring manual tweaking to push above 30fps. This is where the Ally X’s limitations become apparent—these are current-generation games designed for more powerful hardware, and even with the Z2 Extreme, compromises are necessary. But here’s the thing: with some settings adjustments, both games become playable. Not perfect, but playable.
Streaming Hogwarts Legacy at nearly 60fps through a 5G mobile hotspot in a cafe—Xbox Cloud Gaming turns the Ally X into a proper ‘gaming on the go’ device when the internet cooperates
P.S. At the time of writing this piece at length, the author—me—didn’t have access to Xbox Cloud Gaming or any of the cloud gaming services. But things changed over the last couple of days until I had to send the Ally back. And from whatever games I played on cloud—like Indiana Jones, Hogwarts Legacy, Starfield, and then some—in bits and pieces, I am getting what “gaming on the go” meant all this while.Given a good (precisely, speedy and stable) internet connection—i.e., my home WiFi and the 5G on my phone that I used as a hotspot (godspeed to telcos for unlimited internet) in and around Delhi—I was getting near 60fps on all of these, and the quality was even decent, at least better than what you’d have to go through if you played these games on the hardware. Okay, there are ifs and buts: the internet connection has to be solid, and you should be getting a really nice ping. But let’s be honest: you can’t be nitpicking every time.Précis; The Ally X handles modern AAA releases that would simply refuse to run adequately on most other handhelds, and there’s the option to stream games, too. Although that capability comes at a price—literally and in terms of battery consumption. More on that shortly. But whether it feels like an actual Xbox depends entirely on the software wrapping it all together.
Windows meets Xbox
The Xbox Full Screen Experience hides Windows well enough most of the time.
This is where things get complicated. The ROG Xbox Ally X runs Windows 11, but boots directly into what Microsoft calls the Xbox Full Screen Experience (FSE). It’s essentially the Xbox app blown up to fullscreen, with the desktop hidden away until you specifically go looking for it. The goal is to make this feel like a console rather than a PC, and in many ways, it succeeds. In other ways, Windows still finds ways to remind you it’s lurking underneath.The FSE is entered around the Xbox app, which aggregates your games from multiple storefronts. Your Game Pass library sits front and centre—the Ally X includes three months of Game Pass Ultimate, which is I wouldn’t have valued much earlier but I appreciate this freebie a lot more now given the subscription’s current pricing. But you’re not locked into Microsoft’s ecosystem. The “My Apps” section provides one-tap installers for Steam, Epic Games Store, GOG, Battle.net, and Ubisoft Connect. Within minutes of setup, I had Steam running in Big Picture Mode, Epic Games Store installed, and my entire multi-platform library accessible from one interface.
The PlayStation habit of uninstalling a game the moment I get bored of it continues here as well
This is genuinely excellent. No other handheld offers this kind of flexibility this easily. Installing different storefronts is nearly frictionless, and having everything accessible from a unified interface feels like the future of platform-agnostic gaming. I’ve jumped from Game Pass titles to Steam games to Epic freebies without ever feeling like I’m wrestling with the operating system.Game Pass integration is seamless when it works. Cloud saves sync automatically between the Ally X and my Xbox Series X, letting me start a game on the console and continue on the handheld without thinking about it. Xbox Play Anywhere titles—games that work across Xbox and PC—slot into this ecosystem perfectly. Starting Forza Horizon 5 on the Ally X, playing for an hour, then picking up exactly where I left off on my TV later feels genuinely magical. But here’s where the Xbox branding gets tricky: the Ally X doesn’t play Xbox console games natively. It only runs PC versions. That means games exclusive to Xbox console don’t exist here unless they’ve been ported to Windows. When GTA VI launches without a PC version, you won’t be playing it on the Ally X. You can stream it via Xbox Cloud Gaming if you have Game Pass Ultimate, but that requires a solid internet connection and introduces latency. It’s functional, not ideal.The Full Screen Experience hides Windows well enough most of the time. You navigate everything with the controller, rarely needing to touch the screen. Pressing the Xbox button pulls up the Game Bar with quick access to volume, brightness, performance modes, and friend lists. Swiping up from the bottom brings up a task switcher for jumping between apps. Swiping from the right shows Windows notifications. It’s intuitive once you learn the gestures.
The moment you exit the Xbox app, you know it’s Windows.
But Windows is Windows, and it occasionally barges into the experience like an uninvited guest. Installing certain games triggers .NET framework installers that pop up in small, fiddly dialog boxes requiring touchscreen input. Some apps don’t scale properly to the display, rendering text too small to read comfortably. Windows notifications sometimes interrupt gameplay with update reminders or security prompts that feel jarringly out of place on what’s supposed to be a console-like device.The sleep and wake functions are where things get genuinely frustrating. Sometimes pressing the power button puts the Ally X to sleep cleanly, and tapping it again instantly resumes your game. Perfect, exactly what you expect from a handheld. Other times, the device wakes itself randomly while sitting on my desk, draining battery for no apparent reason. I’ve come back to find 15-20% battery gone after leaving it “asleep” for a few hours. Now, this isn’t a constant issue—most of the time, sleep works fine—but they happen often enough to be genuinely annoying. Consoles don’t wake themselves up at 2 AM for no reason. The fact that the Ally X sometimes does reveals how much Windows still undermines the console experience Microsoft is trying to create.But, then there are some constant ones. The Xbox app itself occasionally stutters when navigating with the controller, especially after the device has been running for a while. Menu transitions lag. Input response becomes sluggish. I’ve overshot menu options or accidentally closed apps because the interface didn’t register inputs smoothly. Touching the screen usually fixes the responsiveness temporarily, but it breaks the console-like illusion. Another problem that I faced quite often, even though only with a selected few titles, was windows resizing. All this happens, and you become suddenly aware you’re using a computer with controller support bolted on, rather than a device designed from the ground up for this form factor.
Armoury Crate finds its place
Asus’s Armoury Crate software—the control centre for adjusting performance modes, RGB lighting, and system settings—is now accessed through the Game Bar rather than having its own dedicated button. This streamlines the interface somewhat, though it adds an extra step to reach settings you might want to adjust frequently.The Control Center tab within the Game Bar gives quick access to TDP (thermal design power) modes, letting you choose between Silent (13W), Performance (17W), and Turbo (35W, only available when plugged in). These modes directly affect performance and battery life. Cyberpunk 2077 runs noticeably smoother on Turbo mode but drains the battery faster. Switching to Performance mode extends playtime significantly with only a modest performance drop.
Press the Xbox button and Armoury Crate pops up through the Game Bar—quick access to TDP modes and system settings.
You can customise button mappings, adjust stick sensitivity, calibrate the gyro, and control the RGB lighting rings around the joysticks. The lighting is flashy and unnecessary—exactly what you’d expect from a gaming device—but you can dim or disable it entirely if subtlety is more your style.For deeper system tweaks—driver updates, BIOS settings, fan curves—you still need to launch the full Armoury Crate app. This boots you into a separate interface that feels less integrated with the Xbox experience, but it’s where power users will spend time optimising performance. Though, most people will stick with the quick settings and call it a day.
It lasts just fine
The 80Wh battery is one of the Ally X’s biggest upgrades over the cheaper white Xbox Ally(60Wh). Real-world battery life varies wildly depending on what you’re playing and which performance mode you’re using.Running Cyberpunk 2077 at Performance mode (17W TDP) with medium settings, I got about two and a half hours before the battery died. That’s genuinely impressive for hardware this capable running a game this demanding. It means you can realistically finish a couple of story missions or explore a decent chunk of Night City on a single charge.Less demanding games extend that significantly. Hollow Knight: Silksong at Performance mode lasted over five hours. Hades 2 pushed past six hours. These aren’t games that stress the GPU particularly hard, but the battery efficiency means you can lose an entire evening to roguelike runs without needing to plug in.Streaming games via Xbox Cloud Gaming stretches battery life even further since the GPU isn’t working hard—I got close to seven hours streaming Starfield before needing to charge. What was even better that I could just use it on Silent mode, without hearing all those fans whirr up like it’s some fighter jet. Crank the device to Turbo mode while plugged in, and you’re looking at maybe 90 minutes of Cyberpunk before the battery drains. That’s expected given the power draw, but it means extended sessions require staying near an outlet or accepting the performance drop that comes with unplugging.Charging via the included 65W adapter takes roughly 90 minutes from empty to full. Fast enough that a quick charge during lunch can get you through another gaming session without much waiting around.
Worth Rs 1.15 lakhs?
At Rs 1,14,990, the ROG Xbox Ally X costs more than a literal Xbox. That price is shocking no matter how you frame it, but within the niche market of premium gaming handhelds, similar devices with comparable specs hover around the same price point or higher.Now, some may think (or they may not), I’m just making a hypothetical scenario here that you can technically use them for browsing, document editing, or watching movies. Well, technically you can, but you can’t. After living with the Ally X and spending time with other handhelds, I’ve learned that these devices are singularly focused: they’re for gaming, not Windows productivity. The experience is clunky compared even to a Windows tablet let alone a laptop. The touchscreen works fine for navigating Netflix or YouTube, but Windows isn’t optimised for this form factor outside of gaming scenarios. So, the Ally X makes sense for a specific buyer: someone deeply invested in PC gaming who wants that library portable, values Game Pass, and has the budget for premium hardware. If you’ve got hundreds of games across Steam, Epic, and Xbox, the Ally X becomes the only handheld that can access all of them seamlessly.The flesh and bones of the Ally X is fantastic. The grips make this the most comfortable handheld I’ve held. The performance handles modern AAA games with grace—and even if it can’t—you can just stream those on the cloud. The battery lasts long enough for serious gaming sessions. But the soul or should I simply say the software experience—the part that’s supposed to make this feel like an Xbox rather than a Windows PC—still needs work. The sleep issues, the occasional UI stutters, the random pop-ups reveal that Windows still undermines the console experience Microsoft is trying to create.Now, be that as may, the Ally X still delivers serious gaming capability in a portable package that works impressively well when it matters most. It’s an interesting preview of where handheld gaming is headed, and potential here is undeniable—even if realising it completely will take more than what’s on offer today. For now though, Asus has built the Windows, or should I say Xbox handheld everyone else needs to beat.
