Less than a year later, Asus surprised us all by releasing a follow-up, the ROG Ally X.
The highly-anticipatedSwitch 2has still not been officially announced by Nintendo, seven years after the original launched.
Along with the larger battery, the ROG Ally X now supports up to 100W charging speeds.
Instead, think of the ROG Ally X as a refinement on an already impressive bit of gaming kit.
This is a jump from the $699 / 699 that the high-end version of the original launched at.
This puts the ROG Ally X in a bit of a strange position.
And, if you just want the best portable gaming system, thebest gaming laptopsare the way to go.
There are, though, some key differences in the design that make the ROG Ally X stand out.
Unlike on the Steam Deck, there are no touchpads on each side of the screen.
Theres an additional USB-C port, which supports USB4 speeds, and the thumbsticks and D-Pad have been improved.
The fingerprint scanner of the Ally X is a nice solution to those issues.
Overall, the design of the ROG Ally X isnt revolutionary, but it is a refinement.
Theres also Turbo mode, which prioritizes performance.
This is the setting youll want if youre playing graphically-intensive games and want the highest possible frame rates.
Gaming performance is very good, as long as you keep your expectations in check.
With graphical prefs on high,Ghost of Tsushima: Directors Cutran at a solid 30fps with default prefs.
It’s well worth doing, however, as the results can be impressive.
At default tweaks, Cyberpunk 2077 hits around eight to nine fps, making it unplayable.
Using Windows 11 does have its benefits, however.
In my day-to-day gaming with the Ally X I was pleased with how long the battery lasted.
Playing games uses a lot of energy, and that means batteries can get depleted quickly.
Should you buy the Asus ROG Ally X?
It doesn’t offer the same amount of RAM or SSD storage space, however.
Read more about how we test
