The best thing about the ROG Xbox Ally X is that it finally acknowledges the truth – a truth that, despite continued denials by device after device, at least partly accounts for why the little old Steam Deck still rules the world of handheld PCs despite being slower and lower-rez than almost everything that followed it. You know it, I know it, and at last, Microsoft know it: Windows 11 just isn’t that good as a handheld OS.
Thus, the biggest upgrade that the ROG Xbox Ally X – and its little brother, the ROG Xbox Ally – makes is not to its hardware, but the software. Instead of booting straight into the Windows 11 desktop, a miserable experience when your only navigational tools are thumbsticks and a touchscreen, it defaults to a far more gamepad-optimised (and specifically gaming-focused) ‘Xbox’ mode that provides quick, D-paddable access to your choice of launchers and the games installed within. Yes. Great. Cool. Big fan. I still wouldn’t buy one.
