Now it's in my hands the new Xbox Ally X is a far better handheld than I expected, but it's still got a lot of work to do to convince me it's a) worth $1,000 or b) that it's an Xbox

Now, I've only had the new Asus ROG Xbox Ally X in my hands for a few days now—thanks to delays in shipping and fun with NDAs—but I'm surprised by just how much I do like it. Maybe I shouldn't be that surprised, given how much of a fan I was of the original Asus ROG Ally, and how highly Nick regards the updated ROG Ally X.

But when I first clapped eyeballs on the strangely shaped Xbox version, with it's new button and elongated, controller-like grips, I was not immediately taken. Honestly, I thought it looked ridiculous.

Though it was more what Microsoft was promising with its installed version of Windows that had me actually interested. We were told we were going to get an optimised experience of Windows that makes far more sense on a handheld PC, something honestly Microsoft should have introduced a long time ago. The Steam Deck has been with us for a long time, now.

In my short time with it, this is what's sticking out to me right now:

• I find the elongated grips mighty comfortable
• It's soooo quiet
• Althought the speakers get loud
• It's not Quick Resume, but sleep seems solid
• It's the fastest handheld I've tested in games
• I still really struggle with the price
• It's the most expensive Xbox ever made, but Xbox owners aren't going to find it an upgrade

Here it is in my hands now, however, and I'm going to have to eat crow about its design. It's genuinely the most comfortable handheld PC I've used; it's hefty, more so than the original Ally X, but feels beautifully balanced. And, because it's designed to follow the lines of the Xbox controller, the actual on-body controls feel comfortable in the hand in a way they just don't with any other handheld, Deck included.

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Okay, I do have a pretty broken thumb thanks to a nasty car accident a couple of months back, but I've also never been particularly happy about the asymmetrical layout of the thumbsticks on most handhelds. The left-hand side is fine, but on the right, the lower stick positioning just doesn't work with where you end up holding the devices. You have to either cramp your thumb in an uncomfortable/awkward way, or shift your right-hand grip far lower down to cater for using the stick.

Not so with the Xbox Ally X. Those elongated grips allow you to hold it in a way that is intuitive relative to the buttons and sticks on the device itself. And, as proven by Jacob lying flat on his back in the middle of the office, it's actually going to work pretty well in a bedroom environment. Though it's a bit weighty when you need to hold it one-handed to scratch your nose.

It's not just all about those sticks, however, because the buttons feel great and the triggers have a generous amount of travel, too. On the surface, then, all is well.

While we're on the design, it's also a little thicker than the Ally X. You could understand that if it was just to accommodate the more powerful AMD Ryzen Z2 Extreme chip at its heart, but I think it's also to allow for a better level of cooling.

Because, damn, this thing is quiet.

It's probably the quietest handheld PC I've used, whether running at 35 W when plugged into the wall, or running in its cut-down 17 W Performance mode. In that latter mode, you will be hard-pressed to hear the soft hush of air shifted about by the fans while you're gaming at all.

The Radeon 890M integrated GPU inside might be a known quantity by now, but Asus has managed to push it beyond the level that the OneXPlayer OneXFly F1 Pro manages at 30 W, and in my early benchmarks is delivering the highest performance of any handheld we've tested.

That's impressive, but so is the fact that you're getting a tiny bit higher frame rates when you're using the new full-screen Windows mode. Actually, Microsoft doesn't want me to call it that. This is 'Xbox full-screen experience powered by Windows 11'.

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Essentially, it's a stripped-back interface, with some standard Windows elements parked until you switch to Windows Desktop Mode, reminiscent of the Xbox Series X/S interface, and allows you to easily flip between your game library (across multiple game stores) and Game Pass and Xbox cloud gaming. You can also quickly and easily flip screens between Steam's Big Picture Mode and GeForce Now.

Whatever Microsoft wants to say, however, it's absolutely not able to achieve the same sense of unity that you get from a device running SteamOS. Even with just Armoury Crate on there by default, you have multiple sources of settings screens for the device and multiple game library instances. Load in Steam, GeForce Now, Ubisoft Connect, Epic, et al, and you're multiplying that many times over.

But, while it still has that somewhat disjointed nature, it's still far more easily navigated and managed than a standard Windows desktop interface writ smol onto a 7- or 8-inch screen. That's what you get with other Windows handhelds, and it does make a difference to the overall experience.

Yet it's still not a games console, and for all of Microsoft's 'This is an Xbox' marketing, I think anyone looking to 'upgrade' from their Xbox Series X/S machine to the Xbox Ally X is going to be wondering exactly what they're getting for their $1,000 outlay.

Sure, it's a handheld, and you can play Xbox games at high frame rates if you run them in the cloud, but that's where that all begins and ends for me. For half the price, you can buy the Lenovo Legion Go S with native SteamOS built in and get far more of a complete console experience.

That's our current pick as the best handheld gaming PC, and while there definitely are many things that make me think the Asus ROG Xbox Ally X is superior to it—from performance to ergonomics and acoustics—I just don't think it's worth spending twice as much.

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That's the sort of pricing that the smaller Chinese brands, such as OneXPlayer, GPD, and Ayaneo, are pricing their machines at. They don't have the marketing or manufacturing might of either Asus or Microsoft, but neither of those companies has been willing to subsidise the Xbox Ally X in the same way they might with a genuine console to bring its price down.

To be honest, this makes it feel like Microsoft has fundamentally misunderstood why people might buy a handheld gaming PC. The Steam Deck has had such unexpected longevity because of this. It was something our James noted; the high price tag of almost every device subsequent to the Steam Deck has made the Valve machine feel more relevant for far longer than anyone realistically expected.

Sure, Microsoft has an Xbox Ally no-X, using the weak-heart AMD Ryzen Z2 chip, but that's still a $600 device—almost the same price as the Series X console—and is going to deliver very Steam Deck-like performance for the money.

But I do still really like it. Take away the pricing, and this is quite probably the best handheld around. I've more testing to do, on its battery life and the CPU performance of that Z2 Extreme chip, but I'm impressed and slightly dismayed in different measures so far. Stay tuned for my full review soon, but *spoilers* it's not going to be dislodging the Legion Go S from its top spot on our best handheld list anytime soon.

Best handheld PC 2025

1. Best overall:
Lenovo Legion Go S SteamOS ed.

2. Best budget:
Steam Deck

3. Best Windows:
MSI Claw 8 AI+

4. Best big screen:
Lenovo Legion Go

5. Best compact:
Ayaneo Flip DS

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