I have a really bad habit of obtaining every piece of tech that catches my eye, so here I am with the new ROG Ally X. I like to babble so figured I’d throw my honest opinions out there as a gamer who plays every console (PS5, XSX, and Switch), but doesn’t own a real gaming PC. Im going to rank my top 5 features of this bad boy after using it for a good while now

Even though it's marketed as a handheld, using it as a PC is my bread and butter. I'm sorry but I CANNOT understate how much I still love this as a feature for handheld PCs. I’ve done docked with both the Steamdeck and the Legion Go, but the Ally X takes the cake for me right now simply because of the power it can output. Surprisingly it can actually output some games to 1440p, albeit with FSR and lower frames, but it being possible at all is pretty neat.

I don’t have a gaming PC for god knows what reason. I bought and built one with my girlfriend last year but still haven’t gotten around to building myself one, so being able to use this as a solid stopgap is awesome. Although it doesn't fit in the dock my Steamdeck fits in, it thankfully still works the same just by plugging it into the dock and laying it down.

The display is crispy. The original Ally had a great screen and I believe this is the same one. Going from the 800p of the deck and barely 720p IIRC of the Switch/OLED to 1080p is really night and day. I think 1080p will be the standard for these handheld PCs as we go forward

Performance is nice. Most games I’ve tried play near flawlessly and I haven’t had any real issues yet but I’m sure that will change. Games like Valorant I can easily get 1440/60 which is a blast, FiveM for GTAV is one of my favorite pastimes and after struggling to get it running on other decks it’s actually pretty playable on this one. Also playing Elden Ring handheld is a blast. I sucked at playing it on lower FPS but with the FPS bump I can get from the Ally X, I feel like I can play the game better. But I am complete ass to be fair. I’ve also loaded up years long files on Sims 4, Parkitecht and Cities Skylines to see how it handles it and it’s all surprisingly smooth.

Streaming is still one of my favorite features of these handhelds, as a big Xbox gamer I used to stream games to my phone with the Xbox app when I was on the go but now everything is so much better on the Ally X. I’m sure its because of the wifi chip but the performance is so much more bearable compared to my iphone/ipad/laptop when it comes to streaming Xbox games. I’ve been playing through my College Football 25 Dynasty remotely and its a blast, latency not really an issue at all vs the CPU.

Battery life isn't an issue for me. I know the original Ally had tons of people complaining but at least with the Ally X I can get a solid 6-7 hours so far with some decent mid tier gaming.

Emulation is where it's at. As a Nintendo fanboy I have to mention this aspect. This is an emulation dream. Obviously this thing can play a ton of games emulating, but having my literal entire Nintendo library at my fingertips on one device is insane to me. Everything from NES to Switch running (mostly) perfect. As sad of a sentence it is, nothing in my life is as satisfying as playing BOTW 1080 with 60+fps. I know that's not very impressive hardware wise as tons of devices can make that claim but I had to throw it out there.

Overall it's a great device. The price point will limit some people from getting in on it and it is a bit pricey, but for me the gaming experience combined with the desktop PC experience is worth it.

My biggest complaints would be

1 The triggers are a bit to clicky for my liking

2 It does feel a bit clunky in the hands compared to the Switch but thats a bit expected and on par for handheld PCs as far as I know

3 The lack of viable software on board when you buy it is a bit annoying. The fact that its just windows 11 and armory crate leaves a lot to be desired, but thankfully there are tons of softwares out there like EmuDeck and Playnite out there that make the user experience much much better