I started with an indifferent feeling towards the Asus ROG Xbox Ally X20 — playing on it at Computex and feeling worried it was being left in the shadow of Intel Arc G3-armed handhelds being announced at the same show.
Then the price got announced: $1,299. Being real, that’s not as bad as I thought it could be in the age of RAMageddon. Plus with the ergonomic improvements, translucent aesthetics and that gorgeous OLED screen, I believed this was the slightly-weaker-but-better-quality-alternative to what we’re seeing in the MSI Claw 8 EX AI+ and others.
And then, I took it on my press trips across the globe over the past couple of weeks, and I’m left feeling a little mixed. The internal specs remain exactly the same (AMD Ryzen Z2 AI Extreme, 24GB RAM, 1TB SSD), and while Asus did mention evolved ROG Intelligent Cooling, the performance hasn’t moved an inch.
At $999 with nothing else really competing in the market, that level of performance was the absolute best you could get. Now Team Blue’s in town, that price increase becomes harder to swallow.
In all fairness, this may improve over time, as AMD has announced FSR 4 is going to be coming to its handheld silicon. I’ll be keeping a close eye on that, but then we’re back at that same issue again — with the OG ROG Xbox Ally X at the $1,000 mark, are these upgrades worth the cost increase?
1x USB 4 Type-C, 1x USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-C, 1x 3.5mm audio jack, 1x microSD card reader slot
Source link







