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ASUS unlocks your gaming capabilities with the ROG Ally X
When ASUS launched the ROG Ally in 2023, it was positioning the handheld as your one-stop shop for playing all of your games, and not just those in your Steam library. While the Ally was and is still a very cool PC gaming handheld, the ROG Ally X brings in several improvements that make this the go-to choice between it and the older models. The ROG Ally X still uses the same AMD Ryzen Z1 Extreme APU, but it beefs up the RAM and battery and updates the SSD support for a much better gaming experience.
Let’s start with the battery life. The ROG Ally X features an 80Wh battery so you can keep playing games for longer without having to plug the handheld in. While we haven’t tested it, you can probably expect at least an additional hour of gameplay if not more. That’s pretty exciting if you have long commutes and like to play games during that time. But ASUS didn’t stop there. The ROG Ally X also has an updated design. Things aren’t massively changed here. But they have been improved in small, meaningful ways.
Like the bottom corners of the unit that rest against your palms. On the original ROG Ally, these were sharp angular lines and corners. The ROG Ally X makes things a little more ergonomic by giving these corners a more pronounced curve. This is likely to make it more comfortable to hold for longer. Speaking of ergonomics, the ROG Ally X also has more defined curves and depth for the hand grips on the back. Giving your fingers ever so slightly more room to rest back there. Because of these improvements, we’ve awarded the ASUS ROG Ally X the Best of Computex 2024 award.
The ROG Ally X has loads of meaningful improvements
A bigger battery is one of many improvements ASUS made to its handheld. It also now has 24GB of RAM compared to 16GB. This will help you allocate the APU’s resources more evenly across both the system and gaming activities, so games and tasks can run more optimally. One of the slickest upgrades though is the jump to Full M.2 2280 SSD support. The old ROG Ally uses a smaller SSD form factor. However, the new ROG Ally X is compatible with full M.2 2280 SSDs. So you can more easily upgrade the handheld’s storage if you want.
Plus, the system now comes with 1TB of internal storage as standard compared to 512GB. ASUS also made the cooling fans thinner and more efficient and even made the joysticks a little closer to the d-pad and face buttons so they’re easier to move your thumbs between. All in all, it should be a noticeably more enjoyable gaming experience than before. This is why we gave the ASUS ROG Ally X the Best of Computex 2024 award.