ASUS ROG Xbox Ally X20 Review
How Much Is an OLED Screen, TMR Sticks, and a Fresh Look Worth to You?
Asus' 20th anniversary edition of the Xbox ROG Ally X is as exciting as the $300 price hike suggests. Its add-ons are very welcome, but it's a lot of cash for a familiar package.
$300 more than an expensive handset
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Asus ROG's 20th anniversary lineup has been interesting. Black, gold and fun is the motto here, with the Azoth Extreme Edition 20 and ROG Harpe II Extreme Edition 20 featuring real gold and a decent price to boot.
However, for whatever criticisms I might have, I don't think you're basically paying for the Asus ROG Xbox Ally X20 brand. You get a new OLED screen that's bigger and brighter than the IPS panel on the standard Xbox Ally X, TMR thumbsticks, refined triggers, a new cooling system, and with it a fast 0.2ms response time.
Refined is a good word for the device as a whole. A year later than the last model, the software is fluid and intuitive, and it's easy to switch between Xbox and Windows mode, though it still doesn't feel like a console in action. For my money, it's the best ROG Ally on the market right now, but the memory crisis has skewed the price of all gaming gear, and the X20 certainly isn't the best value as a result.
You want a beefy OLED handheld: OLED handsets are still fairly decent, and given the recent price hikes, I'd prefer this over the Legion Go 2 or OneXPlayer.
✅ You want power on the go: If you're looking for low-stress gaming and don't care about expensive games, I'd recommend a much cheaper handset. For your Cyberpunks and Horizons, you'll want a Z2 Extreme chip or better to play them at decent resolution and settings.
❌ You're OK with IPS: $300 more for the X20 over the X is a lot, especially if you don't want to play with OLED.
❌ You live in the UK: The price of the X20 isn't that great in the UK, with the G3-equipped MSI Claw just £100 more (no OLED, of course) and the standard Xbox Ally X £400 less.
The Asus ROG Xbox Ally X20 (or should I say XBOX) is a fairly detailed update on the Xbox Ally X. I noticed it right away when putting the two devices side by side, but when it comes to performance, you get the same experiences. They have the same chip, same memory, same memory. That's Ryzen Z2 Extreme, 24GB LPDDR5X and 1TB PCIe 4.0 M.2 2280 respectively.
Considering your performance won't suffer, you need to pay attention to the details to consider the X20. Arguably the biggest upgrade is the OLED panel, and it's a beauty. The DisplayHDR True Black 1400 certification isn't just for show, as it appears, it looks both bright and very vibrant. It also has a bigger screen which makes the device more immersive as well as bigger and chunkier.
You can upgrade the plain old joysticks on the ROG Xbox Ally X with a TMR module with a little know-how, but it's very difficult to tap your own OLED screen, and I certainly don't trust myself to perform such fine electronic surgery. So, I see the value of an upgraded, refined and much bigger brother of last year's device. It also has an all-new cooling system for freezing temperatures.
You also get smaller updates here, like the ability to pull up and rotate the D-Pad to make the corner buttons more prominent, plus larger grooves on the face buttons to stop rough edges, and a combination of smoother shocks and triggers. All of this combines to make the X20 feel more thoughtful in approach, and given the price hike, it should.
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The X20 doesn't come with a charger in the box, which makes sense from an e-waste point of view, but means you don't have any plug-in functionality without a decent fast charger. For example, I ran the device in 35W mode and did some of my benchmarks before I realized I wasn't getting the fat 35W mode because my charger wasn't fast enough.
Can you say it's my fault that I don't see the Asus Armory Crate low power popup? absolutely Does this mean you might need a fast charger if you want full wattage performance? Also, absolutely.
The X20 box also has a cardboard base that doesn't feel as luxurious as the device itself, but it's clean, efficient and eco-friendly. It's a small but handy addition that I've used consistently since unboxing the device without any issues.
There was a brief period when the highest-performing Asus ROG Xbox Ally X could be bought in handheld gaming. That was until the much more expensive MSI Claw 8 EX AI+ CG3EM (catchy name, I know) hit the scene.
Despite being released a year after the original Xbox Ally X, the X20 doesn't see any difference in power (as it has the same specs), and so my performance figures are more or less the same as what Dave got in his review of the standard Xbox Ally X.
In a few games, with upscaling on and off (35W plugged in)
Black Myth Wukong (1080p Medium) Black Myth Wukong | Upscaling (1080p Medium) Cyberpunk 2077 (1080p Medium) Cyberpunk 2077 | Upscaling (1080p Medium) F1 24 (1080p Medium) F1 24 |Upscaling (1080p Medium) Horizon Zero Dawn (1080p Original) Horizon Zero Dawn | Upscale (Original 1080p) Metro Exodus Enhanced (High 1080p)
I set the GPU memory budget to 8GB, set the machine to its 35W Turbo mode, and had a blast playing F1 24, Horizon Zero Dawn, and Metro Exodus without any upscaling. Cyberpunk 2077 is borderline at around 40fps, but I can't recommend Black Myth Wukong without some upscaling or framerate generation.
These scores are really respectable and are already more than enough for handheld games. The AMD Z2 Extreme chip is still a great performer, and while it's not top dog, it's certainly one of them. The real top dog, the MSI Claw 8 EX AI+ CG3EM and its Intel Arc G3 Extreme processor, delivers better performance with between 20-40% performance boosts in our gaming test, but it's also 40% more expensive in the US.
Scores on core productivity suites and benchmarks (35W plugged in)
3DMark Time Spy 3DMark Storage 7-zip Cinebench R24 Battery Life | PCMark 10 FFXIV Shadowbringers
What I'm impressed with is what our dev was impressed with: the ROG Ally X20 runs between 15 and 20 watts. It's a great way to conserve battery, keep the heat cool (although the X20 is already rocking in that regard), and reduce fan noise. When I want to play higher I turn this watt down and forget about it until the X20 is half dead. The next day I swear I only had one game planned.
The X20 is quite possibly the most comfortable hand I've ever had, well, hand... It has a slight cutout between the screen and the grips, which I often found my index and pinky fingers slipping under, and the new rubber grips not only feel good, but offer enough traction that I'm never afraid it's going to slip out of my hands.
It's pretty clear from the X20 that Microsoft knows how to build controllers, as the buttons are perfectly squishy, the thumbs feel great, and the shock absorbers and triggers are easy to press, with a comforting click that lets you know I was successful. Well, as successful as I can be when I lose my headshots.
I really miss the trackpad. Windows 11 Mode is good enough, but it feels like a slight downgrade without an intuitive way to control the mouse. My chubby fingers sometimes click on the right thing, especially if it's a relatively small box, although a larger screen would help. You can control the mouse with the left analog stick through the Armory Crate, but it doesn't beat the smoothness of a trackpad.
However, trackpads are relatively rare among handheld gaming devices, as they are handled by the Legion GO, Steam Deck, and some GPD and Ayaneo devices. And if the ROG Ally X20 has a touchpad, it's hard to put all its buttons on it without any issues.
Weighing in at 756 grams, the X20 is certainly not a light machine, but it's well balanced, and I've played it for hours on end. Time without fatigue is a feat in my book.
Asus ROG Xbox Ally X is a very quiet device. Not from the speakers, I should add; They can be raised very high. Even at 35W, the X20's fans never get too loud to be annoying, but they adjust wonderfully between 15-20W. Cyberpunk sound at only 16 volumes will immerse fans in 25 watt mode.
I wouldn't call them completely silent, but while idle I found a PC across the room making a louder sound than the X20 playing Elden Ring. It's impressive, and it meant I never felt the autonomy to bring it out with myself.
The X20 has two sets of speakers on the front, to the left and right of the screen, and they're well tuned and I never wished they were louder. It also has a jack on the top for connecting your headphones and Bluetooth compatibility, if you can get over the lag that most Bluetooth speakers give you.
Asus says the X20 is equipped with ROG's "evolved Smart Cooling System, which directs air to the processor via a new internal duct and high-flow fans." In practice, you actually see it with cool temperatures. I pushed the machine to its limits in its 35W Turbo mode, benchmarking a variety of games for hours and never saw the CPU temperature rise above 79°C. That's 17 degrees Celsius lower than our tests for the standard Xbox Ally X.
I also noticed that CPU Max package power was lower at 48 W, compared to the 55 W we've seen in the past. This suggests that some software tweaks have led to more accurate power management as well.