Using the ROG Xbox Ally X20 confirms it got the most critical upgrade required
An OLED was the obvious choice
Despite some pretty big traditional computing launches from Qualcomm (with the affordable Snapdragon C) and Nvidia (with the very much unaffordable RTX Spark chipset), it's actually been gaming handhelds that have stolen the show at Computex in Taipei this year.
I've been roaming the halls in snatched bursts between wall-to-wall hands-on sessions, and everywhere you look, there are PC gaming handhelds that go at least slightly and sometimes far beyond what their predecessors managed. Asus has perhaps gone for the most incremental approach out of those I've tested, but that doesn't really undermine the quality of the ROG Xbox Ally X20.
With its name nodding to the 20th anniversary of the ROG brand this year, this refreshed and upgraded version of the ROG Xbox Ally X brings one big change to the table – an OLED display. I wasn't the only reviewer to point out that this felt like an omission at the older device's lofty price point, after all.
The real impact of that anniversary is on the handheld's design, which has a smoky, transparent black look that is really quite lovely in person. I found the first Xbox Ally X a little underwhelming in design terms, between its solid black colour and those unavoidable protruding grips. I'm almost a little confused by how just changing the finish results in such a surge in my appreciation, but the new version really is a success.
It also incorporates some other nice tweaks, including an Xbox logo that now glows green (a certified Nice Touch™), face buttons that are a little easier to activate and slide between, and slightly (subtly) better joysticks. Those are now TMR for even more precision and impressive drift resistance. Finally, the D-pad is changeable – you lift it and twist to change it between four and eight-direction modes, a slick system that works nicely.
Let's be real, though – this machine is all about that new screen, and the good news is that it's a great success. It's not just that it's an OLED – it's also a bit bigger, at 7.4 inches instead of simply seven on the dot. That might not sound like much, but one of the other small flaws with the last handheld was that its screen looked a little small for the device's size, so every little helps.
The change to OLED, meanwhile, is a clear and obvious improvement. The last display was great for an IPS panel, but missed out on HDR and didn't have the inkiness that you get with OLED. Now both of those benefits are present, and the showreel that ASUS was running at its booth underlined the difference they make..
Colours are super punchy, contrast is excellent, with motion clarity to match. 1,400 nits of peak brightness also means that it's great in bright situations – like a crowded showfloor.
It's a huge improvement, all in all, although the constantly shifting sands of the PC handheld market mean that it's a little scary to estimate what sort of price bump it'll carry with it. Given the Xbox Ally X launched last year at £799 / €899 / $999, I'd say there's no way this version comes in at less than £1,000.
That, in turn, comes with another caveat – there's no processor upgrade here, so you're still getting an AMD Ryzen AI Z2 Extreme. Don't get me wrong: that chip is a banger, and until this week, it looked like the most powerful portable gaming experience you could realistically hope for.
Now, though, the Intel Arc G3 series is here, and it looks like it'll power some jaw-dropping machines coming to the market imminently. With power consumption stats in particular that really seem to hit AMD where it hurts, the future-proofing side of things might be a little complicated for the ROG Xbox Ally X20.
That all adds up to a fairly fascinating launch, even before you consider the fact that Asus is currently pushing people towards an "anniversary bundle" that will include plug-and-play Xreal R1 Edition 20 AR glasses – a curious choice given they're a display replacement for a device with a shiny new display.
I'll leave those glasses to another article, but taking the ROG Xbox Ally X20 on its own, it's almost impossible to get a sense of how it'll fare without knowing its price. It feels like a good summary of where the PC gaming handheld market is at more widely – some amazing stuff is afoot, but the wider question of affordability undermines things to a critical degree.
The proof might be in the pudding closer to the ROG Xbox Ally X20's release. I'll hopefully be able to test it in more detail when it's ready to hit the market, so keep your eyes on T3 ahead of that point.
