I was somewhat cold on the Asus ROG Xbox Ally X when I reviewed it last fall, and for good reason. The software layer was not good, and game performance on Windows comes with compromises that are hard to ignore for the $1,000 price tag. A year later, I feel much more sympathetic as RAMageddon spikes hardware prices across the gaming ecosystem. It’s in that context that Asus has chosen to reveal the price of its new Xbox Ally X20 that comes with an OLED screen: $1,300.
A year ago, my eyeballs would have jumped out of their sockets like a Looney Tunes character at a $1,300 price tag. But after a year of using the ROG Ally X, watching the price of every other option balloon, and desperately wishing the Switch 2 had an OLED option, it actually feels like a reasonable upgrade, all things considered. In addition to the OLED display, the Xbox Ally X20 has TMR joysticks and a new D-pad. It’s translucent black with some gold flourishes on the shell. Otherwise, it’s the same specs inside the machine.
OLED options are few and far between in the PC gaming handheld market. The closest competitor to the new Xbox Ally X20 is the Lenovo Legion Go 2, which also has an OLED screen, comes with detachable controllers, and has more RAM. That device is $1,350. There’s also the Steam Deck OLED, which used to be $650 and is now $950. It offers a much more seamless, console-like experience but has significantly lower specs than the Ally X.
Depending on what you want out of a PC gaming handheld, the Xbox Ally X20 still might lose out to these other devices in various categories, but the margins are getting much thinner as everything gets more expensive. Suddenly, the premium version of a premium handheld doesn’t feel so overpriced. The real selling point of the Ally X is still being able to combine the benefits of Game Pass with the breadth of Steam, so for those uninterested in the Xbox ecosystem, it’s a nonstarter.
But if Microsoft can actually deliver a streamlined, performance-improving version of Windows for gaming at some point, the Xbox Ally X20 could have a claim to being the best PC gaming handheld around.