Some pieces of hardware arrive carrying expectations so large that they buckle under their own ambition. The new Asus ROG Xbox Ally is one of them. On paper, it’s a slick proposition: a handheld companion to Game Pass, a portable Series-S-for-your-backpack, the Xbox ecosystem wherever you are. In practice, it’s a first draft of an idea that doesn’t quite line up with how handheld players actually use their devices, let alone Xbox players.
The pricing is the first red flag. The Xbox Ally costs more than a Xbox Series X — $999 compared to $749 — and sits uncomfortably close to rivals like the $899 Steam Deck OLED, which benefits from a purpose-built SteamOS and a community of performance presets ready to go. That immediately muddies the pitch. Console players expect turn-on-and-play simplicity. PC gamers expect performance tuning and control. The Ally tries to serve both groups, and ends up serving neither exceptionally well.
The Xbox Full Screen Experience is a smart effort to soften the experience just not enough. Microsoft’s green-and-black identity is immediately recognisable, and the interface does help bring Game Pass to the forefront. But it’s still Windows underneath. Windows 11 is powerful, but handheld gaming exposes all of its friction points. There’s at least four different places where you need to update drivers; Windows, Asus Armoury Crate, MyAsus and AMD Adrenaline software. Additionally, installing games across Microsoft Store, Xbox app, Steam, Epic, and others can turn a simple session into tedious admin work. In the world of design, we fondly refer to this sort of thing as ‘putting lipstick on a pig’ – it might look pretty, but its still a mess underneath.
With the Xbox Ally, I still have had the same annoyances and friction coming between me and just playing a game. I’ve had games launch silently in the background, or refuse to start until I go through another launcher. Then there’s the dreaded “shaders loading” that can often take upto 10 mins, by which time, the urge to play is gone. The Xbox UI often jankily organises my games with some just not having right icons. None of these things are catastrophic — most PC gamers nod knowingly — but handhelds aren’t supposed to be laptops. They should be pick-up-and-play, not desktop workflows compressed into a seven-inch slab. This is something the SteamDeck nails out of the box.
And then there’s the expectation problem: the Ally isn’t truly an Xbox. Your console purchases don’t automatically carry over unless the title supports Xbox Play Anywhere. I own Elden Ring on Xbox console but on the Xbox Ally, it might as well not exist. It’s not “wrong,” but it clashes with the device’s identity as a portable Xbox. Sony avoided this entirely with the PlayStation Portal: no ambiguity, no licensing confusion, just remote play. Xbox could have followed that path and saved users from the frustration of discovering their library isn’t portable after all.
The lack of Xbox creature comforts is equally noticeable. Quick Resume might be the single best gaming feature of the last decade — hopping between titles like TV channels. But, it’s absent here, on the one device it makes the most sense. Adding insult to injury, standby mode behaves like a gaming laptop: sometimes it wakes up instantly, other times Windows quietly drains the battery and won’t wake up. I can’t tell you the number of times I reached for the Ally to have a quick session and it just wouldn’t turn back on.
What makes this all more frustrating is the great hardware itself. Ergonomically, the Ally is excellent. The 608g chassis is comfortable for long sessions, the sculpted grips which looks silly thankfully feel wonderful to hold. Throw in hall-effect analogue sticks which are accurate and smooth with triggers and face buttons that mirror Xbox controller DNA well. As a pure gaming interface, it’s genuinely impressive. If Microsoft ever releases a dedicated cloud or remote-play handheld, these controls should be the template.
The display though, is kinda dissappointing. Microsoft and Asus decided to recycle the same 7-inch 1080p IPS panel at 120Hz from last years Ally X. It’s not a bad screen but with all the stunning OLED displays Asus has been shipping in its laptops, I really expected better here. I’d have been so happy with a 900p 120Hz HDR OLED like the SteamDeck OLED which would make games look so much better and the improved response time would make them feel better too.
Performance is where expectations start to wobble. The custom AMD Ryzen Z2A chip is technically interesting — built for efficiency, not raw throughput — but it rarely delivers the kind of stability console players expect. At 1080p, even with FSR or resolution scaling, many AAA titles need cuts to just to hit a consistent 30fps. You can dial things in to get good results, but you’ll spend time adjusting profiles, experimenting with wattage caps, and tweaking settings instead of simply playing.
That’s perfect for enthusiasts, but not for the average Xbox customer looking for a couch-to-handheld transition. Obviously, if all you do is play indie 2d titles like Hollow Knight: Silksong, then you’ll be a happy camper indeed. Thankfully — albeit annoyingly late for my review — Xbox just released an update that has custom game profiles which take the guesswork out of getting them to run smoothly.
Battery life seals the argument. Even with the efficiency-first silicon, the Ally can struggle to hit more than 1.5–2.5 hours of play depending on the performance profile, wattage settings, and game load. Push anything graphically demanding, and you’ll routinely find yourself watching the percentage drop faster than you’d expect from a device marketed as portable. There’s a difference between “acceptable for a handheld PC” and “acceptable for something with an Xbox logo,” and the Ally lands firmly in the former.
Which brings us to the obvious pivot Microsoft could have taken. Sony’s PlayStation Portal was ridiculed at launch, then quietly became one of the most sensible devices of the generation: cheap, ergonomic, laser-focused on a purpose. Imagine an Xbox Portal: no Windows update roulette, no launcher fragmentation, no licensing headaches. Just a true, resource light and responsive Xbox UI, premium grips, controller-grade sticks and triggers, and seamless Game Pass Cloud for subscribers as well as Remote Play for Series S/X owners. All this for an affordable price of no more than $300. It would appeal instantly to existing console players, while also speaking clearly to a much larger audience and make a stronger case for Xbox Game Pass.
I won’t lie, given the lackluster performance of the Z2A and the battery life woes, I found myself using the Xbox Ally more as a streaming device for Xbox Cloud gaming where it performed beautifully. Chuck it into lowest performance profile and stream games for several hours to your hearts content without worrying about framerate, settings and what not. It proved my hypothesis that the Xbox Ally should have just been a streaming device .
The Xbox Ally isn’t a failure, there’s plenty of out-of-stock testimonies to prove that. But, it’s a technically ambitious handheld trapped between identities. When it works, you get a glimpse of the dream: a portable Xbox. But the friction points — OS complexity, library confusion, performance dips, and short battery life — stack into a reminder that this is still a PC dressed up like a console, not the handheld Xbox people imagined.
A dedicated Xbox portable still makes sense. The Ally proves the appetite is real. Microsoft just needs to lean into what makes Xbox great — affordability, consistency, simplicity, and convenience — all of which the Xbox Ally fails to nail.
Asus Australia kindly loaned the ROG Xbox Ally to PowerUp for the purpose of writing this feature.
