Since the original ASUS ROG ALLY launched in 2023, ASUS has come a long way, with design and performance increases in the ROG ALLY X, and more recently the ROG XBOX ALLY X.
This latest launch for the ASUS ROG XBOX ALLY X20 celebrates the 20th anniversary of the ROG gaming brand.
Launching today, the ROG XBOX ALLY X20 was available for pre-order for $2,499 – as well as being available in a limited edition Premium bundle which includes a pair of ROG XREAL R1 Edition 20 Gaming AR Glasses and Pelican Protector case with a price of $4,499.00.
This latest generation ROG XBOX ALLY X20 brings an upgraded 7.4-inch Full HD OLED Nebula HDR display that’s brighter and supports faster refresh.
The ROG XBOX ALLY X20 also improves the gameplay experience, introducing TMR (Tunnel Magnetoresistance) joysticks which essentially eliminate stick drift, and a transforming D-pad and smoother, more ergonomic face buttons
There have also been design improvements to mark that 20th anniversary model, with a limited-edition translucent black chassis with gold accents, as well as a light-up Xbox logo.
The larger, brighter OLED display and improved controls are a big drawcard, but with almost $1,000 price difference between the original and the ROG XBOX ALLY X20, is it worth the jump?
After using the ROG XBOX ALLY X since it launched, I got to jump in and use the ROG XBOX ALLY X20 for two weeks, and here’s how it went.
The ASUS ROG XBOX ALLY X20 is larger than the original, mostly to accommodate the larger OLED display. It retains the same redesigned triggers and bumpers, as well as the Xbox controller-like feel when holding it. There’s also the same dual USB-C inputs on the top rail along with the volume rocker and fingerprint enabled power button.
The design team has kept the essence of what made the last one great, but also taken the opportunity to make the handheld a little special for the 20th anniversary with that translucent black shell which shows off the internals.
The case again has the XBOX ROG letters stamped into the case, which also has what looks like stylised circuits embossed across, which complements the visible internals.
The gold highlights on the buttons beside the display are similarly a nice touch, with ASUS going a little further with a gold accented light around the thumbstick, as well as on the fans and other internal components which you can see through the translucent case – with a nice gold ROG 20th anniversary sticker on the rear.
Also making an appearance is the new Xbox button which lights up with a glowing green. While the Xbox button ostensibly launches the Xbox Game Bar, giving you access to all your Xbox friends, settings, Game Capture and more, it also has a special Armoury Crate SE tab for accessing settings, and the Home tab also has links to other digital storefronts you have installed – Steam, GOG, Epic etc.
Also on the rear are the two Macro buttons, programmable for whichever game you need.
On a more practical front, the new TMR (Tunnel Magnetoresistance) joysticks are excellent. The joysticks on the original ASUS ROG Xbox Ally X are good, but these feel a little better – a little less ‘mushy’. That’s not to say the originals are bad, these just feel a little better.
The new 8-way D-pad offers more options for gamers playing different genres.
The D-Pad morphs when you lift and rotate the pad, switching between 4-way and 8-way configurations. It’s not really something I’ve found to be an option I need, but it’s common to find gamers using the D-Pad for 2D platformers and it adds incremental controls where there weren’t any before and that’s always a good thing.
The biggest, and one of the more noticeable upgrades is the new 7.4-inch Full HD OLED Nebula HDR display.
The display is larger, but also offers broader VRR range support now kicking in from 30Hz to 120Hz. It’s also better for contrast ratio, now ramping up to 1,000,000:1 showing off those 0 nit blacks you only get with an OLED.
The new panel offers a peak HDR brightness of 1400 Nits, while also ramping up the regular peak brightness to 600 nits (up from 500 on the previous panel). It looks better in daylight, though still better suited to playing indoors.
As with the original, you can also output to larger displays including monitors or TV. Using either of the USB Type-C ports on-board the handheld supports DisplayPort 2.1 (with FreeSync support), and it was as easy as plugging in a simple USB-C dock to connect using HDMI, and adding in a wireless keyboard and mouse to do some couch gaming.
On the audio front, the ASUS ROG XBOX ALLY X20 supports spatial audio, with Dolby Atmos.
ASUS use Smart Amplifier Technology on their 2-speaker system to boost the audio quality and power using an in-built digital signal processing (DSP) system.
It sounds both clear and loud for what is a relatively small system and as usual, there’s Bluetooth (5.4) support for wireless headphones, or a headphone jack at the top of the unit to plug in wired options.
The ASUS ROG XBOX ALLY X20 still runs on the same platform as the original, with an AMD Ryzen AI Z2 Extreme, 24GB DDR5 RAM and 1TB M.2 Gen4 SSD. There have been some tweaks to the platform to make gaming on the handheld a little smoother and faster.
Performance wise, it handles much like the original, including running similar 3DMark results across the board.
Games run well, with performance modes giving fast fps with good detail. There’s a lot of tweaking you can do with games, but suffice to say I didn’t feel there was any issues with performance. They felt fluid, and quick – even when I loaded up all Find the Needle with so many assets I thought it would crash.
Another great update to the ROG X20 is that it can now use faster MicroSD Express cards. The port has backwards compatibility with standard microSD card, though UHS-II cards run at UHS-I speeds.
You’ll have to go and buy a new MicroSD Express card to get the faster speeds, you will get faster throughput speeds for gaming from the card.
The old saying goes, “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” and so the ASUS ROG XBOX ALLY X20 also uses the same 80Wh battery included in the original, as well as including the same 65W charger.
Despite the larger display, battery life on the ROG XBOX ALLY X20 remains similar to the previous edition/ The new 7.4” OLED panel seems to offer improvements in power consumption netting some good gaming time on just the battery. Four hours in Find the Needle, three in the Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 and just a little more for Crimson Desert before the dreaded low-battery alerts started kicking in.
The standby time is excellent. Something ASUS and Microsoft worked on with the original ROG XBOX ALLY X. You can simply put it down, and come back even 24 hours later to a battery almost where you left it.
In terms of charging, the 65W charger does extremely well, getting just over 40% charge in half an hour, with a full charge taking 116 minutes, with that last 10% taking the longest.
The handheld runs Windows 11 Home version 25H2 out of the box, with the Microsoft XBOX launcher a key component of the experience.
The OS includes support through to October 2027. You’ll also receive newer feature updates before end of life, with OS Service updates delivered fairly regularly.
There’s not a lot of apps installed on the ASUS ROG XBOX ALLY X, with the main “extras” simply tools for your new gaming handheld.
Tools include AMD Adrenaline which offers easy to use driver updates as well as performance control and monitoring. You also get the Dolby Settings to configure your Atmos and Vision, audio/video settings.
The full-screen Xbox experience launched with the original ROG XBOX ALLY X, and it’s back for the ALLY X20 greeting you by default when you switch it on.
Of course Armoury Crate – ASUS ROG’s gaming performance software found across all their gaming devices.
Armoury Crate is a very well put together app that lets you check and change settings, lighting effects on the RGB across the handheld. You can switch between performance modes, update hardware drivers and loads more.
In the initial ROG ALLY launches, Armoury Crate was your launcher, however with the ROG XBOX ALLY X20 it’s all about Xbox.
The ASUS and Microsoft partnership is in full swing on the ROG XBOX ALLY X20 with the shiny new lightup Xbox button, as well as the XBox Full Screen Experience welcoming you at boot each time.
For any new players, or even existing Xbox players, there’s a 2 Month Xbox Premium Game Pass subscription giving you access to over 200 games.
The Premium subscription is normally worth .95 per month, and also includes some limited Cloud Gaming as well as access to the 200 games. It’s worthwhile noting any changes to your Xbox subscription as you’ll be charged as a valid payment method is required to take advantage of the offer.
The ASUS ROG Xbox Ally X20 adds in the larger, better quality display I lamented was missing from the original, as well as adding in the TMR joysticks, effectively eliminating stick drift, and a new eye-pleasing design which all works together to bring a more keenly refined gaming handheld to gamers.
The major sticking point for the ROG Xbox Ally X20 is the price. At
The design team has kept the essence of what made the last one great, but also taken the opportunity to make the handheld a little special for the 20th anniversary with that translucent black shell which shows off the internals.
The case again has the XBOX ROG letters stamped into the case, which also has what looks like stylised circuits embossed across, which complements the visible internals.
The gold highlights on the buttons beside the display are similarly a nice touch, with ASUS going a little further with a gold accented light around the thumbstick, as well as on the fans and other internal components which you can see through the translucent case – with a nice gold ROG 20th anniversary sticker on the rear.
Also making an appearance is the new Xbox button which lights up with a glowing green. While the Xbox button ostensibly launches the Xbox Game Bar, giving you access to all your Xbox friends, settings, Game Capture and more, it also has a special Armoury Crate SE tab for accessing settings, and the Home tab also has links to other digital storefronts you have installed – Steam, GOG, Epic etc.
Also on the rear are the two Macro buttons, programmable for whichever game you need.
On a more practical front, the new TMR (Tunnel Magnetoresistance) joysticks are excellent. The joysticks on the original ASUS ROG Xbox Ally X are good, but these feel a little better – a little less ‘mushy’. That’s not to say the originals are bad, these just feel a little better.
The new 8-way D-pad offers more options for gamers playing different genres.
The D-Pad morphs when you lift and rotate the pad, switching between 4-way and 8-way configurations. It’s not really something I’ve found to be an option I need, but it’s common to find gamers using the D-Pad for 2D platformers and it adds incremental controls where there weren’t any before and that’s always a good thing.
The biggest, and one of the more noticeable upgrades is the new 7.4-inch Full HD OLED Nebula HDR display.
The display is larger, but also offers broader VRR range support now kicking in from 30Hz to 120Hz. It’s also better for contrast ratio, now ramping up to 1,000,000:1 showing off those 0 nit blacks you only get with an OLED.
The new panel offers a peak HDR brightness of 1400 Nits, while also ramping up the regular peak brightness to 600 nits (up from 500 on the previous panel). It looks better in daylight, though still better suited to playing indoors.
As with the original, you can also output to larger displays including monitors or TV. Using either of the USB Type-C ports on-board the handheld supports DisplayPort 2.1 (with FreeSync support), and it was as easy as plugging in a simple USB-C dock to connect using HDMI, and adding in a wireless keyboard and mouse to do some couch gaming.
On the audio front, the ASUS ROG XBOX ALLY X20 supports spatial audio, with Dolby Atmos.
ASUS use Smart Amplifier Technology on their 2-speaker system to boost the audio quality and power using an in-built digital signal processing (DSP) system.
It sounds both clear and loud for what is a relatively small system and as usual, there’s Bluetooth (5.4) support for wireless headphones, or a headphone jack at the top of the unit to plug in wired options.
The ASUS ROG XBOX ALLY X20 still runs on the same platform as the original, with an AMD Ryzen AI Z2 Extreme, 24GB DDR5 RAM and 1TB M.2 Gen4 SSD. There have been some tweaks to the platform to make gaming on the handheld a little smoother and faster.
Performance wise, it handles much like the original, including running similar 3DMark results across the board.
Games run well, with performance modes giving fast fps with good detail. There’s a lot of tweaking you can do with games, but suffice to say I didn’t feel there was any issues with performance. They felt fluid, and quick – even when I loaded up all Find the Needle with so many assets I thought it would crash.
Another great update to the ROG X20 is that it can now use faster MicroSD Express cards. The port has backwards compatibility with standard microSD card, though UHS-II cards run at UHS-I speeds.
You’ll have to go and buy a new MicroSD Express card to get the faster speeds, you will get faster throughput speeds for gaming from the card.
The old saying goes, “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” and so the ASUS ROG XBOX ALLY X20 also uses the same 80Wh battery included in the original, as well as including the same 65W charger.
Despite the larger display, battery life on the ROG XBOX ALLY X20 remains similar to the previous edition/ The new 7.4” OLED panel seems to offer improvements in power consumption netting some good gaming time on just the battery. Four hours in Find the Needle, three in the Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 and just a little more for Crimson Desert before the dreaded low-battery alerts started kicking in.
The standby time is excellent. Something ASUS and Microsoft worked on with the original ROG XBOX ALLY X. You can simply put it down, and come back even 24 hours later to a battery almost where you left it.
In terms of charging, the 65W charger does extremely well, getting just over 40% charge in half an hour, with a full charge taking 116 minutes, with that last 10% taking the longest.
The handheld runs Windows 11 Home version 25H2 out of the box, with the Microsoft XBOX launcher a key component of the experience.
The OS includes support through to October 2027. You’ll also receive newer feature updates before end of life, with OS Service updates delivered fairly regularly.
There’s not a lot of apps installed on the ASUS ROG XBOX ALLY X, with the main “extras” simply tools for your new gaming handheld.
Tools include AMD Adrenaline which offers easy to use driver updates as well as performance control and monitoring. You also get the Dolby Settings to configure your Atmos and Vision, audio/video settings.
The full-screen Xbox experience launched with the original ROG XBOX ALLY X, and it’s back for the ALLY X20 greeting you by default when you switch it on.
Of course Armoury Crate – ASUS ROG’s gaming performance software found across all their gaming devices.
Armoury Crate is a very well put together app that lets you check and change settings, lighting effects on the RGB across the handheld. You can switch between performance modes, update hardware drivers and loads more.
In the initial ROG ALLY launches, Armoury Crate was your launcher, however with the ROG XBOX ALLY X20 it’s all about Xbox.
The ASUS and Microsoft partnership is in full swing on the ROG XBOX ALLY X20 with the shiny new lightup Xbox button, as well as the XBox Full Screen Experience welcoming you at boot each time.
For any new players, or even existing Xbox players, there’s a 2 Month Xbox Premium Game Pass subscription giving you access to over 200 games.
The Premium subscription is normally worth $17.95 per month, and also includes some limited Cloud Gaming as well as access to the 200 games. It’s worthwhile noting any changes to your Xbox subscription as you’ll be charged as a valid payment method is required to take advantage of the offer.
The ASUS ROG Xbox Ally X20 adds in the larger, better quality display I lamented was missing from the original, as well as adding in the TMR joysticks, effectively eliminating stick drift, and a new eye-pleasing design which all works together to bring a more keenly refined gaming handheld to gamers.
The major sticking point for the ROG Xbox Ally X20 is the price. At $2,499, the ROG Xbox Ally X20 represents an extremely premium gaming option, where as the similarly specced – but smaller screen ROG Xbox Ally X is priced at a more pleasing $1,799 – a stark $700 difference.
Is the larger, better display, improved controls and 20th anniversary design and control improvements worth the $700? If you’re after the pinnacle of gaming on the move, and have pockets deep enough, then this is the gaming handheld for you.
Daniel has been talking about, learning about and using tech since he was able to toggle switches and push buttons. If it flashes, turns on or off or connects he wants to use it, talk about it and learn more about it. Like this article? Buy me a coffee!
Is the larger, better display, improved controls and 20th anniversary design and control improvements worth the 0? If you’re after the pinnacle of gaming on the move, and have pockets deep enough, then this is the gaming handheld for you.
Daniel has been talking about, learning about and using tech since he was able to toggle switches and push buttons. If it flashes, turns on or off or connects he wants to use it, talk about it and learn more about it. Like this article? Buy me a coffee!
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