Asus ROG Ally X 6 months later | Review in 2025

The Asus ROG Ally X is an awesome handheld PC, lemme know your thoughts below 👀

What I use with my Steam deck (affiliate):

🧠 Steam Deck SD Card:

🔋 Battery bank:

📺 My 4k monitor (works great with steam deck, has usb-c and power, one cable does everything):

👾 Usb-c dongle to hook up to TV/monitor/external drive/etc:

🔍Steam Deck Screen protector:

🔌 Long charging cable (usb-c to usb-c):

⚡️ 45w charging brick:

🎮 Controllers I use with steam deck:

📀 Internal storage m.2 nvme 2230:

🎹 Wireless keyboard (also works great with mac, can connect to mac and steam deck at the same time and switches with one button push)

🪑sit/stand desk:

[kmacias]

I have the Ally X. I used to have the Steam Deck Oled. I miss the Steam Deck. Don't get me wrong, Ally X performs better. The Steam Deck is just so convenient. I also miss the trackpads. It seems like almost every handheld is ditching trackpads and I think that's a huge bummer.

[JBeanus]

Asus being scummy with their warranty is nothing new. I had an issue almost 20 years ago with one of their products and not only was their customer service AWFUL, they did whatever they could to not honour the warranty. I'm pretty sure I had to pay for shipping to ship the thing back, and when they finally sent it back to me it was the exact same component that I sent in to be fixed. I had to send it back in again, and this time they sent me a different but still broken item. All the while receiving some of the worst customer service I've ever dealt with. So even though their device is more powerful than the SD OLED, and with better battery life, I still went with the Steam Deck. Hell, even if their machine used Steam OS, I STILL would have gone with the SD OLED. Don't ever trust Asus, especially when you're going to be sinking $100s into one of their products that probably has a 50/50 chance of being total garbage and in need of repairs that they're too cheap to cover.

[irvinhardy]

The sleep issue you're having wouldn't really be much of an issue if you just use hibernate instead of sleep. You can change it by typing "what does the power button do" in the windows search.
I have an Ally X and Legion Go and sold my launch steam deck. The Ally X handles windows the best out of those two devices. The steam deck does force you to do some tinkering as well in order to play games that you don't already own on steam.
The fact you can play your entire gaming library including game pass is the value proposition for windows over using steam os. I use Ubisoft, Epic and Ea launchers for my games so the steam deck doesn't really work for someone like me.

[SnooZeGamezZz]

That was hibernate on the Ally X, I'm pretty sure. When it's in sleep mode you don't get the Asus animation. Just the Windows log in screen.

You have to change the sleep/hibernate settings in Windows. A way to tell the device is in sleep mode, is the power led will slowly blink. If it is not blinking it's either off or in hibernate.

[Mobowiz]

As someone who has never used a Windows handheld, and was curious about the idiosyncrasies that are often complained about online, you painted a great picture of why people prefer SteamOS. Your videos are very entertaining and in-depth. Thanks!

[SLASH_GORDON]

I have both the Ally x and the Steam Deck OLED and I still use them both. I use the ally when doing windows only games like fortnite dailies and to get better performance on Marvel Rivals. While i use the Steam Deck for track pad games like rimworld, prison architect, and factorio. Yes Ally can run them better but its so much more easier to run these games on the steam deck. They are both good consoles in my opinion and I am fortunate to have both. Great video!!

[printerschamp]

The OG Ally was my introduction into handheld pc gaming. I loved it and used it as my primary device for over a year. Then I got the white Steamdeck. I love the Steamdeck way more now.

[DespyBlitz]

11:40, if you are updating AMD graphics drivers for Z1E with AMD directly then they obviously aren’t going to work. Any graphics driver updates will come from Asus directly, via armoury crate. I’ve definitely not had a single game refuse to load due to outdated graphics drivers.

[DeshanNaidoo]

The Ally X with Steam OS will be a game changer. The SD Oled will not see the light of day again.

[mattifootballstandard]

Great review! Showing not just the good points but the bad and ugly points. Deciding to go for a Steam Deck OLED due to the Windows server and sleep issues. You have earned a subscriber 👍

[leonic]

Me on silent mode by 720p upscale 1080p with 30fps, and I was able to get 5 hours on MGS rising. 60fps is nice, but i'm not blind to frame data. It's enjoyable. You just have to blink 4 times to fix your eyes. Plus, ya get to use more visual quality. Without killing the art direction. Literally what the OG Ps5 is designed for

[ponhkunsambo]

Bro, you only have 2 place that you need to look out for updates as of now. 1. Windows update. 2. Armoury Crate. The device driver updates from AMD and My Asus are all consolidated in Armoury Crate updates. The Windows update is doing windows update. So IT IS NOT 4 places.

[CrowbarBallad]

Subbed. Hope to see more reviews from you! Keep up the good work 👌

[Abitofeverything]

Subscribed! Love to see an ROG Ally X vs MSI Claw 8 AI+ comparison. Currently thinking about changing to the MSI for the bigger screen and ergonomics but not quite sure yet..

[Deathnote]

uhm sleep function for me is functioning as intended, whether its laptop or desktop, little history here windows 98 era "sleep mode" was known as "stanby mode" on desktop and yes it just puts the thing on a low energy consumption mode but still the device will still be on and running, hibernate creates an image file of every app running save it on memory before shutting down the computer, when you turn it on, it will continue were you left off, in gamer slang hibernate mode is like using suspended mode in castlevania it saves your game in a pinch if far away from a save point and just like that, once you load that it deletes the suspended save file to free up space, hibernate mode is like that. hope this helps and if i am wrong feel free to correct me. happy gaming all

[ricky]

I feel like im tripping, I feel like I watched this video it was uploaded

[xpbloxo]

Love this video my dream console is asus rog ally x

[TheDankChief]

Hibernate is what you're looking for to fix the sleep settings. Windows in general sucks at defining what sleep and hibernate do, hibernate puts the system in a totally powered off state to where you must press the power button and it wont turn on automatically

[Sadows]

I would 100% buy an Ally X, but I've had warranty issues in the past with motherboards and it was a pain in the ass to get it replaced.

[Paul-ngjx]

My ally extreme the first one is a paperweight all of a sudden it got an update. I didn’t realize that it wasn’t charging and it’s been dead for a while. It won’t charge. I’ve done every little trick that you can do out there pull the battery held the power button down did thatnothing and it makes me mad. I love that thing, but I got it through a rental place and it was paid off and didn’t have no warranty information on it because they went out of business.