Handheld PC gaming has come a long way since Valve's Steam Deck exploded onto the scene in 2022. Alongside the release of AMD's Ryzen Z1 APUs in 2023, Asus ROG released the Ally — a portable powerhouse that would take handheld PC gaming to the next level. In 2024, ROG is ready to chase the success of it's freshman release with a sophomore follow-up that's sure to be a hit: the ROG Ally X.
Heavily teased by ROG, and only recently revealed to be real and on it's way via a YouTube video titled "The next ROG Ally is coming" earlier this month, we now have concrete information about the specs of this enthusiast-level handheld gaming refresh.
So what have we learnt about the ROG Ally X, and how does it fare against Asus' original ROG Ally and it's competition in the Lenovo Legion Go and MSI Claw? Let's find out.
ROG Ally X: What's under the hood?
Having recently confirmed a number of leaked specs with hardware site VideoCardz, we can now confirm that the Asus ROG Ally X will be receiving a considerable upgrade ahead of its release later this year.
While the Ally X retains the original Ally's high-performance AMD Ryzen Z1 Extreme APU, and a stunning 7-inch FHD IPS display, Asus' handheld gaming PC will now offer 24GB of LPDDR5 RAM and an 80Wh battery — greatly expanding on the original Ally's 16GB of RAM and 40Wh battery.
The ROG Ally X will also feature two new USB Type-C ports, one of which will be USB 4.0 compatible with the full 40Gbps transfer rate. This change opens up the ROG Ally X to take better advantage of external USB4/Thunderbolt 4 GPUs where the original ROG Ally was limited to only the XG Mobile eGPU.
The new Ally X also receives a durability boost thanks to better rated inputs including a precision D-Pad rated for 5 million cycles.
ROG Ally X vs. Lenovo Legion Go vs. MSI Claw
Since the ROG Ally arrived onto the handheld gaming PC scene, both Lenovo and MSI have released handheld devices of their own in the Legion Go and Claw respectively.
The Lenovo Legion Go follows the Ally's blueprint pretty closely when it comes to internals, featuring the same Ryzen Z1 Extreme APU and iGPU combo. However, the Legion Go included USB4 connectivity that could be used to link with a more powerful eGPU, a 1TB storage configuration, an improved 49Wh battery, and a larger, faster, 8.8-inch IPS display with a refresh rate of 144Hz.
With the arrival of the ROG Ally X, much of what the Legion Go had to brag about has been matched or overtaken with Lenovo's handheld only retaining bragging rites due to its sizable display and 144Hz refresh rate.
As for the Claw, this handheld was the first handheld to feature Intel's Core Ultra 7 155H processor, and it suffered for it. A slew of early performance issues seriously impacted the Claw's reception, though recent patches have gone some way to improving things.
Still, despite Intel's processor featuring more cores and a higher thread count, the integrated Arc graphics solution isn't as formidable as AMD's offerings. It's 16GB of LPDDR5 RAM is bested in speed and quantity by the Ally X, but the Claw is able to hold one thing over both the ROG Ally and the Lenovo Legion Go: Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 5.4 compatibility for much faster and more stable wireless connections.
Outlook
Overall, the ROG Ally X is a considerable upgrade for the ROG Ally, and a very welcome follow-up thanks to its improved RAM, battery life, and storage options.
While we loved the ROG Ally, no device is truly perfect, and we did have things we want to see improved with the ROG Ally X. Thankfully, it seems that at least one of those calls for change has been heard, and the Ally X's new 80Wh battery life promises to give the handheld a lot more potential in terms of portability for playing on the go.
The ROG Ally X is expected to arrive at some point in June 2024, for a price we can't yet officially confirm. However, we have heard rumors of a $799 price tag for Asus' latest handheld, and given the upgrades on show, that doesn't seem out of the question.
At the start of the year we'd have expected Asus's original Ally to be challenging the Switch 2 at some point, but given the Ally X's upgraded hardware, why wait any longer for Nintendo?
