More musing on the ROG Xbox Ally and ROG Xbox Ally X…..

Since I last wrote the piece on the ROG Xbox Ally X, I have been looking, reading and pondering more about what people are saying. I have been less interested in the conversations of people who speak about these kinds of things for a living but more interested in actual people’s response to the device. These are the people in comments sections of articles and videos dedicated to the new ROG Xbox Ally and Ally X. People seem to be of a mind that they won’t be buying it with the main reason being the price to specs to use value is too high. It seems people just don’t feel (not necessarily unjustifiably) that the value is there.

Of course, the ROG Xbox device (specifically the pricier one at £800/$1000) sold out almost immediately so take people’s musings and comments with all the salt in the world. This could be due to Xbox only releasing a set number of devices that was vastly under the demand (not the first time this would have happened) or whether this is actual people or the bots and AI that have caused this to be sold out I can’t say but it is interesting that it sold out as opposed the base ROG Xbox Ally which sits at £500. This has of course been used to console war which in of itself is ridiculous. No one should care if this device sells other than Xbox and Asus themselves. If the device is for you then it is and if it isn’t, then it isn’t. I love the handheld market and am glad that there are more devices out there and therefore more choice.

I am intrigued by the reasons people are stating for the cost or value of the device and whether they think it is worth it. Like I have stated it is not a cheap device, but I would argue that none of the devices are. Sony increased the prices of their devices everywhere to compensate for the effects of tariffs in the US whereas Xbox increased the prices everywhere and then a second time in the US to account for the tariffs. Irrelevant of your personal opinion on tariffs or the effect they are having on the price of things, prices have been affected by them. Prices have also just been going up in general and this is seen all over gaming and components. We can argue about the price of this until the end of time, but the point is they are what they are irrelevant of whether this is due to greed or just inflation being out of control. Until people just stop buying things at these prices, nothing will change. The Switch 2 is a prime example of this. It became the fastest selling console based off initial few months sales although people stated they were not going to buy as it is overpriced, which it is. Of course, we will wait to see if this trend continues but I would speculate that this was a push by people who wanted the device and upgraded immediately, and we will see if the rest follow. The initial Switch was an everyman device, but I just don’t see needing to upgrade unless you are a proper fan. Most people have the device for the kids, and I am unsure they will upgrade.  

I have seen people comparing the new ROG Xbox Ally X to the Steam Deck. I think this is wholly unfair as the Steam Deck, as much as I love mine and sing it praises all the time, is not a patch on the ROG Ally for power, let alone the ROG Xbox Ally X with its new processor and added RAM. The Steam Deck blew people away when it came out but as much as we sing its praises, it has it faults. Many actually. The later devices like the Lenovo Legion Go and the ROG Ally are much more powerful and can do more. The Windows on the device is still good old bloated Windows but you can play anything you can play on a PC, and the Steam Deck needs work arounds for many games. I know you can do this with what are fairly simple work arounds, but it still requires work. Game Pass is not native to the Steam Deck neither are the GOG and Epic stores. Any of your games through these stores require a work around in order to work and Game Pass requires you to use Xbox Cloud Gaming and therefore requires an internet connection to work.

Whenever you see people start to defend the price of these other devices, they start spewing techno babble that requires an understanding not only of computer components but specifically knowledge of components for mobile devices. It can be hard enough to keep up with basic PC components let alone chips that do multiple processes on mobile devices.

I will give you an example of where this techno babble has been shown up and, in the end, failing. When the Xbox Series and PS5 consoles were upping the information overload to get people to invest in their new consoles, they started boldly proclaiming how many teraflops and FPS and graphic fidelity and 4K (even 8K) capabilities these consoles were going to have. There were bold claims of no loading screens and being able to load quicker into games than ever before. Our gaming lives would be changed forever! And each company would say that theirs was the best and will beat the other because of all these capabilities. In the end people were let down. The new consoles on the whole are fantastic and bang for buck they are worth the price tag. If you are a serious gamer, you will benefit immensely from these devices and without doubt these are much better than their predecessors. They were not by any stretch the technical leap they claimed to be. Also in basically all ways they are the same device with similar components and similar performance.

The takeaway from this was how people were bamboozled by the techno babble and the outlandish promises that were made. My experience as a PC gamer was, from the beginning, that this was never going to be the world changing leap people were led to believe it would be. This is based on years of hard lessons about PC components with every new component being the thing that will blow our minds (every graphics card ever), but in the end were just substantial upgrades that were often not worth the price of entry. People who bought into either Xbox or PlayStation system did not do this and I can see it beginning again when discussions around the next Xbox\PlayStation consoles are being had and leaks are coming out.

The ROG Xbox Ally X is a case in point. I do not believe for a second that the AMD Ryzen AI Z2 Extreme! (I feel it needs an exclamation mark at the end) is going to destroy every console out there and will be a world breaking leap forward in gaming handheld consoles. I think this will be a great step forward. Paired with the reduced Windows OS system and increased RAM it will be a substantial change to the previous iterations of handhelds.

The Steam Deck is becoming a little long in the tooth now which is not a surprise as it was not designed to be a device that would last forever. I believe the brief for the Steam Deck was extremely specific, to make a gaming handheld that could play games at 720p, with upscaling when needed, using a Lynix based OS that contained less bloat and therefore required less resources to run, had a battery to space ratio that was well thought out and was a device people could just pick up and play. They were clear that the device had very deliberate benefits and drawbacks. Valve was adamant that the device balanced useability with price with function with power.

It is difficult when comparing the Steam Deck and the new ROG Xbox Ally X, not to compare it directly but they are not the same thing. A linier increase of power does not equate to linear increase in price. It never has. I see why the comparison is made between the devices as the Steam Deck is a marvel in what it does for the price.

Without adding to the techno babble the basics of the differences between the two device are as follows:

-          The Steam Deck is £279 (on sale from £349) for the 256GB LCD model, £479 for the 512GB OLED and £569 for the 1TB OLED model. All Steam Decks have 16GB RAM. The Xbox Ally is £499 with a 512GB SSD and 16GB RAM, and the Xbox Ally X is £799 with a 1TB SSD and 24GB RAM. All devices use the same type of RAM

-          Steam Deck uses a Lynix based OS that is user friendly and is set up for gaming specifically and equated to Steam’s Big Picture mode on PC. The Xbox Ally X uses a paired down Windows that by all accounts I could find is very good and is similar to the Xbox dashboard but has other launchers and is minus the usual Windows bloat

-          The chipset of the Xbox Ally X is a newer and much more powerful Ryzen Z1 Extreme chip compared to the Steam Deck. The chipset is the mobile chipset and has integrated NPU (a unit on the chipset) which is designed for AI and machine learning tasks such as FSR for frame generation

-          The Steam Deck has 16GB of RAM in the OLED model whereas the Xbox Ally X has 24GB. This is a substantial upgrade in RAM and therefore makes the device more powerful

-          The Steam Deck has 3 SSD variants from 256GB, 512GB to 1TB of storage. The Xbox Ally X has a faster (double the read speed at 2500MB\s compared to 5000mb\s and more than double the write speed 1800MB\s compared to 4000MB\s) 1TB SSD drive

-          The OLED Steam Deck has a 1280x800 7” OLED screen while the Xbox Ally X has a 1080p 7” IPS screen. Although the Xbox Ally X’s screen isn’t OLED it does have a 120Hz screen as opposed to the Steam Decks 90Hz screen (60Hz in the non-OLED version). There are discussions as to whether the OLED is better than IPS and there are many arguments for and against both

-          The base Steam Deck has a 40Wh battery, the Steam Deck OLED has a 50Wh battery and the ROG Xbox Ally has a 60Wh battery and the ROG Xbox Ally X has an 80Wh battery. This I feel is misleading as I am sure the chipset in the ROG Xbox Ally X is more power hungry, and it has a 1080p screen so although the battery seems double the capacity it may not actually be double the usage. The Steam Deck also has many settings that extend the battery life while playing which I hope the Xbox Ally devices have as well, but I cannot find this detailed anywhere

-          The weight and connections are similar with the weight being around 1.4lbs and both having USB, audio jacks and microSD.

Overall, the ROG Xbox Ally is quite a bit more powerful than the Steam Deck. The base Xbox Ally is a similar price to the 512GB Steam Deck OLED but offers a reported 30-40% upgrade in FPS performance due to the newer chipset but draws more power which is offset by the larger battery.

The Xbox Ally X is about 40% more expensive than the 1TB Steam Deck OLED in Pounds (50% in Dollars sorry USA) and you get a reported 40-50% increase in power and performance. The battery is 60% larger and you get a reported 30-50% playtime based on the game. The Xbox Ally X has a 1080p screen with 120Hz, whereas the Steam Deck 1TB OLED has a 1280x800 screen set to 90Hz.

I tried to simplify the data down to the basics but even then, it seems overwhelming for what is for all intense and purposes, basic information. I love the Steam Deck, and it was great when it came out, but like a child who has outgrown their bicycle with training wheels, I feel I need more from my handheld device. I wish Valve would release the next Steam Deck, but I feel even if they did it would still be an underpowered device that sticks to their very specific brief as before. I still don’t think it would compete with the ROG Xbox Ally X and all the other more ’serious’ handhelds, because I don’t think this is Valves aim or their intention. In February the Steam Deck turns 4 and it is showing its age, but irrespective of that it still plays games with amazing efficiency and ability. This is down to Valve’s attention to detail and engineering. I played through Stellar Blade on my base 512GB LCD version of the Steam Deck. Granted it was on a lower resolution, and the game was well optimised for lower end systems, but I am constantly amazed at how well it runs games.

If people are deciding which device to buy, I think I would advise working down the list from what can you viably afford and then into what you would like the device to do. There is always the FOMO we all suffer from, and we are also easily swayed one way or another from a decision. Everyone’s value is different, and I would value it out for yourself. Also, there is no reason to buy anything immediately and time can either cool the jets or reaffirm our decisions. I will be buying this even thought this is expensive and I will have to forgo other things to get it, but I feel this is more the device I wanted when I first bought the Switch in 2018 and then the Steam Deck in 2022.