The Asus ROG Xbox Ally X is a peculiar beast: long-anticipated, but trepidatiously so. It's the best handheld gaming PC in many respects, but not really worth all that money, and while it's lacking in some key features, it's apparently easily upgradeable. This last point has come to light thanks to iFixit's recent disassembly of the handheld.
It's also upgradeable in ways that should be very relevant to many ROG Xbox Ally and Xbox Ally X owners (presumably the same applies to the non-X version, too, even though that wasn't tested). This is particularly true when it comes to storage and thumbsticks.
The $1,000 handheld comes with a 1 TB SSD, which is decent for a handheld, but if you're paying gaming PC prices for a handheld, more storage than this would be nice. Thankfully, though, the ROG Xbox Ally X has an easily-accessible M.2 slot, so you can swap it out with a new one of your choice. It's the standard 2280 form factor, too, which should broaden your options, and you can take your pick from PCIe 4.0 drives.
The one pain point here is the custom Windows OS installed on the handheld. The bespoke version of Windows 11 comes with a 'Full Screen Experience' that makes it easier to use and improves overall performance a little. But this means if you swap out your SSD, you can't just whack a normal Windows installation on there. Instead, you have to boot into the BIOS and load Asus Cloud Recovery, which iFixit says takes a "glacial" amount of time.
In addition to the upgradeable SSD, the thumbstick modules are easily removable, too. This is very relevant because—annoyingly, for such an expensive handheld—it doesn't have Hall effect or TMR sticks, but rather regular potentiometer ones. These can be prone to stick drift, as many Nintendo Switch or Switch 2 owners likely know.
This sucks, to be honest, considering plenty of the best handheld gaming PCs use Hall effect sticks these days, such as the Lenovo Legion Go S and MSI Claw 8 AI+. But as the iFixit video shows, the thumbstick modules in the ROG Xbox Ally X can be unscrewed and unplugged easily, so they can, at least in theory, be replaced easily should they start to drift. And if Hall effect versions are ever released, swapping them out should be easy.
There's a big asterisk here, though, and that's that this is only 'in theory' because there are currently no replacement parts available, nor any repair guides. So while these parts are easily replaceable, this is a little redundant until there's something to replace them with.
The foundation is definitely there, though, to have a very repairable and upgradeable device. It even has a modular button board, fans, and rumble motors. The speakers are easy to remove, too, but this requires removing a soldered wire, which risks messing stuff up.
Not everything is easily removable, though. The screen, for one, is glued in place, and it seems it's not meant to be removed from its housing. The four memory modules, too, are soldered onto the rear of the mainboard, as is usually the case with mobile devices like these.
The icing on the cake is that apparently just one tool is needed for all this: a single Philips screwdriver bit, which will fit all the screws. Though something thin to help lever-pry out the cables safely will help—all stuff you'll get in an iFixit kit, of course. Assuming replacement parts actually enter the market, it looks to be a very upgradeable and repairable handheld. Let's hope we get some Hall effect or TMR stick replacement options, too.
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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