Asus ROG Xbox Ally review: The cheapest Windows handheld gets points for showing up
With the Steam Deck OLED in and out of stock, should you consider going the Windows route instead? … Why you can trust Tom's Hardware Our expert reviewers spend hours testing and comparing products and services so you can choose the best for you.
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Asus ROG Xbox Ally: Cheap and Comfy, But Compromised
Asus's Xbox-branded handheld nails comfort and price but stumbles on display quality and performance.
Asus is taking another swing at the handheld gaming PC market with the ROG Xbox Ally, and the results are decidedly mixed. Tom's Hardware put the device through its paces and found a machine that gets some things very right — and others frustratingly wrong.
On the plus side, the device is comfortable to hold and competitively priced. The Xbox Full Screen interface is a genuine improvement over wrestling with Windows 11 on a tiny screen. That alone could be a selling point for anyone who's been burned by desktop OS jank on a handheld.
The downsides are harder to ignore. The display is weak. Performance lands squarely at average. Sleep and wake functionality — arguably essential for a portable gaming device — has notable issues.
With the Steam Deck OLED bouncing in and out of stock, the ROG Xbox Ally positions itself as a Windows-based alternative. Whether those tradeoffs are worth it depends entirely on your tolerance for compromise.