@Runex2121@Banjo-
So here is my hands on review. First, I honestly thought it looking like a controller or with controller grips was pretty stupid. I was wrong about this, it’s awesome. I own both the original white rog and the black fancy one and this is a huge noticeable difference right away.
The games I have played so far are a couple of indie games and a couple of power houses Starfield and Dying light 2 to name a few .I also streamed Assassins creed Valhalla and Odyssey to see how easy it is.
My opinion about the games is they run great, and the new windows Xbox full screen system is awesome. Rune mentioned the time it takes to get started, and a couple of other things it took me about an hour and a half to get windows set up and a game downloaded. The game was fallout 4 and I played an hour or so. I though had the experience of two previous rogs so I knew to expect this and what windows options to pick to speed it up and how multiple installs and hard drives worked ahead of time.
Strengths the games are awesome streaming was a great experience and easy to do in my whole house. The feel of the system in your hands and how comfortable it is has to be the absolute best handheld I have ever owned in the last few generations as far as fitting in your hand and feeling good in that regard. The switch 1 and 2 have always felt cheap in the area of the joycons and the rogs and steam deck have felt a little unwieldy this does not.
The software is a stickler for me though with some caveats first in full screen mode it is awesome. I am still trying to figure out some of the functions but it seems like a much better setup going forward but, when I was playing creed in the cloud there were several times I hit the library key and then couldn’t figure out how to get back to the game without going through the steps I would to launch a cloud game again. Once I learn just how to navigate better it will be a better experience overall for me. So, I can’t really say that’s a software issue maybe just an onboarding one.
My second major issue though is windows/Microsoft its beyond stupid that they limit the number of times you can make something your home device to 3 times a year or limit how many devices you can have. If everything is an xbox then I shouldn’t have a limit on how many I can have.
Overall I am really impressed and for me it was a worthwhile investment but, I travel a lot and have a 6 year old who I wouldn’t want seeing me playing a zombie game on the big screen.
Since were all about scores 8.5/10.
Good review, and agree on all fronts. Ive now installed a 4tb ssd and had the joy of setup twice.
While once you get going, upgrading is simple, knowing to boot from the cloud is a leap. It also takes about 2 hours to reinstall the os and million addons/updates.
Oddly enough, before i updated all my games appeared in my library, but when it went to the new gamebar, they all disappeared again. Thankfully that just seems like an easy fix later and everything is installable.
Still figuring out how to get battlefield 6 via the ea app to show on the aggregated screen, but its easy enough to open it from the armory crate.
Honestly, Im at where you are with the software, when it works its great, particularly in the game mode with msft only items. Go outside of that and there is a lot of room for improvement.
Games do play great, tried starfield, two forzas, blops 6, bf6, and some indies. With minimal tinkering they played well. Cloud was great too. Next trial is remote play from my series x, gotta figure out how to do that.
Biggest thing id advise now is if your going to replace the ssd, do it early because im not sure there is a means to back things up efficiently.
Also, if ms can create proper getting started software updates and continue to update, this could be an amazing device.
For now, id concur, 8.5 is about right, with software being the only area for improvement.
@Runex2121 what SSD did you buy as I'm going to go that route also. I did it with both previous rogs. although with how well cloud gaming has been working so far..... but, I'm a storage hog.
one other thing I noticed is the downloads from the Windows PC store have been incredibly fast which is a major improvement.
@VisitingComet1 I wound up with the samsung 990 pro 4tb. Was a good balance of space and price and its considerably faster than the included ssd. (Which was also a samsung but really looked cheap.) i got the one with a heatsink to be safe, the 1tb included didnt have one. No issues with space thankfully.
It's good to hear that you both are happy with the hardware. If they had messed that up, only a revision could fix it, while the software can be fixed by updates. It's not cheap, but high-end mobile phones are more expensive and can't do what the Rog Xbox Ally X does nor have the same ergonomics. This is, indeed, a combination of PC and a handheld console. One thing I like is that the cooling, fan noise and battery performance are all fine, according to reviews. There is a fingerprint scanner which seems useful. I expect this to be used by third-party stores and apps in the future like on mobile phones. Are the speakers good? What games would you highlight as looking and performing great? What is what you like the most about the system? This one is relatively old, but have you tried the (now delisted) Forza Horizon 3 at 60fps (still 30fps on Series X)? And Retroarch?
Not sure of others opinions, but I find the speakers to be quite good. A step up from the switch, steamdeck, and other handhelds. Not as good as headphones ofcourse, but good for portable speakers.
As for testing horizon 3, I have not tested that. I do own it(im a huge forza fan), but im currently queued up for 2.5 TB of games and it seems to cut off when i sleep(im sure its just a setting to adjust). So it may be a few days before I can play that one. I can confirm that after a bit of adjusting, horizon 5 plays really well. In still working on motorsport, the defaults on that one are pretty laggy. I dont do emulators, while I love the classics, ive found emulation winds up putting too many games on my plate and the urge to download more roms is ever present. I have enough to play as it is with my limited time.
@Banjo-@Runex2121 the speakers are great high quality. I also bought a case, SSD, and the steel series artic xbox gamebuds. so I'll review those on Monday.
the fingerprint scanner is how my windows hello functions and I sign into my password app which is nice.
my favorite feature so far is cloud gaming on it. so far it is just silky smooth without a hitch. I'm going to play ac odyssey from scratch just through the cloud to see how it does. that's another feature that if you asked me two weeks ago I couldn't care less about but, it's pretty awesome.
retro arch works great on the previous rogs so I don't see why it wouldn't work.
@Runex2121 if you open full windows and go to power management and tell it never to go to sleep while plugged in it will download all night without an issue hope that helps.
Thanks for the tip, I was looking in armory crate for some odd reason.
I will say ive been impressed with the speed of the downloads so far. I get a solid 650mb/s via wifi. (Im in the us with a 2gb connection and wifi7 throughout the home, phones pull in 1.5gb, but consoles on wifi rarely seem to break 250. )
Just got my RoG Xbox Ally X!! Only just plugged it in to start charging and will start the Set up in a bit, but I must say, it feels very good in the hand. It literally feels like an Xbox controller in each hand - just a bit more weight and wider grip due to the screen. Its heavier than my OG RoG Ally but instantly feels 'better' and more 'natural' in my hands. I could never find a 'comfortable' way to use my OG Ally and struggled to use the 'controller' controls - I think that's because the device is designed to be as 'slim' as possible and as small as possible - hence 70% smaller Thumbsticks, buttons etc. I'd go to hit a Button and my Muscle Memory would mean it missed or hit 'wrong' buttons. It just felt really awkward and unnatural in the hand.
Of course I haven't spent time or completed the set-up yet, but initial impression does feel like a Premium Xbox Controller with the weight and screen. The weight doesn't feel that heavy - seems well ballanced so the weight just makes it feel 'premium' and solid.
I know what to expect from the screen - its not changed from previous Ally's. I thought it looked incredible and more than adequate. It was regarded as the 'best' Handheld screen in Gaming, better than all other handhelds at that time - inc OLED panels because this was the ONLY 120hz VRR display abd VRR is most important. I have an OLED Laptop and Game on a QD-OLED TV and would have liked a OLED VRR 120hz+ screen, but I'd take comfortable ergonomics over OLED.
Now to begin the set-up and all the updates before I actually get to try it for Gaming!!
A pessimist is just an optimist with experience!
Why can't life be like gaming? Why can't I restart from an earlier checkpoint??
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Had some further time to test some games out yesterday and came away really impressed with the Xbox Ally X. Figured id comment on a few of them below:
(all are on Turbo undocked, so 25w draw, and at 1080p)
Forza Horizon 5 - Highest Settings, essentially a lock at 60fps with a few minor dips to 58 or 59. There were some stutters though which appeared to be more of an internet issue than a game issue since it didnt affect the fps counter. Overall, this one was a solid win.
Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 - 120fps on default settings, which was pretty low, but the game still looked great on the smaller screen. Upping everything to max put me in the 30-40 range outside of combat, which dropped pretty low in combat. Im more of a campaign player, so medium was the best target for me which gave me 45-60 consistently in combat. For MP, I havnt configured my firewall yet for the device so it was running with extremely high latency, so cant comment since the rubber banding was horrific.
Baldurs Gate 3 - This one was tough, I have been tinkering with it and cant get it to get above 29fps regardless of how low I set it or how high I put the draw. Even at the lowest settings it seems to dip into the low 20s on a regular basis. It honestly played better on my old steamdeck, so I think there is something I need to adjust somewhere that I am missing. (it is being played via the steam app)
Ball X Pit - This one plays at a locked 120 on silent, which is expected for an indy game. It look and plays great though.
Forza Motorsport - I get the "not optimized" message along with an "unsupported CPU" error for this one. I press on and it plays, but it definitely doesn't play as well as it should. I rarely hit 50fps in default after benchmarking. Game is also a bit grainy as the defaults are pretty low. Needs optimization from MSFT.
Indiana Jones - Default settings are good, game plays very well overall. I set the target for 30 fps as I dont mind lower FPS as long as they are stable and it remained stable throughout the first hour. Medium settings, no issues.
Star Field - This one killed expectations for me. I maxed the settings and it was still super smooth in the cities. I did not go into battle yet, but will test this one a lot more as I was holding off on playing it until I got the Xbox Ally X.
Keeper - This one is probably the worst performing of the bunch for me. At default it bounces between 20-30 fps and looks ok, lower the settings and I get 40fps but it looks really bad. It plays great on cloud, so that is how ill be playing it.
The gist here is that nearly every game ive played has been a clear step up from any previous handheld platform ive used. One thing that is annoying and maybe someone here can help me with it is that a lot of games seem to be too bright. like there is a layer of sunlight on everything. I cant seem to find a way to reduce the contrast or adjust the screen to make it clearer.
More impressions below. The following Asus Rog Xbox Ally X review is comprehensive and covers everything you can think of: performance with a written list and video attached, ergonomics, vibration, speakers, screen, software, comparison to other gaming handhelds, charger, stand, cloud, battery...
@Banjo- I picked up the official case, dock(not really a dock, more of a plug), and the bulwork dock last week. also picked up a ROG ultralight mouse and a smaller non ROG keyboard for living room use.
ROG gear is expensive, but works well. Everything has been plug in play and pretty straight forward to use. One thing that has been a bit troublesome is bluetooth, though its probably more of a me issue than a system issue. I connect the ROG to the mouse and keyboard in my media room, but when I move to another room like my bedroom, the devices pop on and off. This connect/disconnect causes the handheld to stutter in whatever it is playing and really impacts any form of gameplay until you turn off bluetooth or walk to the other room and manually turn off the devices. Again, more of a me issue, but it would be nice if the disconnect/connect didnt render the console useless until adjusted.
Another issue I have is with input lag in the OS. When booting up the xbox full screen, it always seems to require me to touch the screen before it will allow me to use the controls. Again, not an issue as much as an annoyance. At times there is also a noticeable lag between pushing a button and movement of the curser in the xbox full screen mode.
@Runex2121 Good news is that both Asus and Microsoft are interested in fixing all these software issues. Hopefully, they will get sorted out because they are small but annoying things. The dock is three separate parts, stand, ports hub and charger, which is weird compared to other docks, but I think it looks great.
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