The Steam Deck used to be the go-to x86 gaming handheld, but after a recent ridiculous price increase, it’s hard to recommend. There are options like the Asus ROG Xbox Ally This used to be a lot of money, except that a 16GB/1TB OLED deck now costs $950.
Xbox Ally We have some good news and some bad news – the new Asus ROG Xbox Ally X20 bundle solves both problems. Wait, a bundle? Well, this is bad news.
Asus ROG Xbox Ally X20 bundled with ROG Xreal R1 Edition 20 glasses
The X20 – named to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the Republic of Gamers brand – the ROG Xreal R1 Edition comes with 20 glasses. These glasses create a virtual 171″ display (57° FoV) with a 240Hz refresh rate using a micro-OLED display (1,920 x 1,080px) with a 0.01ms response time. There’s an electrochromic lens that offers three levels of dimming to block ambient light. They can be connected to other devices using a single USB-C cable or using the ROG Control Dock, which features two HDMI 2.0 port and a DisplayPort 1.4.
These glasses are really cool, but they cost $850 on their own (about the same as the Xbox Ally Speaking of which, Asus hasn’t put a price on the ROG Xbox Ally X20 bundle yet.
ROG Xreal R1 specs
Anyway, the upgraded Ally The Variable Refresh Rate (VRR) has been improved and now drops to 30Hz or 120Hz.
The new display is brighter to boot, reaching 1,400 nits (up by 500 nits). It has both VESA DisplayHDR TrueBlack 1000 and Dolby Vision support. As before, the screen is protected by Gorilla Glass Victus with GG DXC anti-glare coating.
The Asus ROG Xbox Ally
As said, the APU is identical to the The APU is coupled with 24GB LPDDR5X RAM and 1TB NVMe SSD (PCIe 4.0, M.2 2280). In other words, there is no performance upgrade here.
Another significant upgrade is the new joystick with TMR sensor – this is new technology replacing the Hall Effect sensor and is resistant to stick drift. The ABXY buttons were also reworked so that they sit flush with the case when you press them. Additionally, the D-pad can be rotated to select between 4-way and 8-way modes.
Asus ROG Xbox Ally X20 now has joysticks with TMR sensors
The device has one USB-C 3.2 Gen 2 with DisplayPort, one USB-C 4.0 (Thunderbolt 4 and DisplayPort 2.1 with FreeSync support), and a 3.5mm headphone jack (Hi-Res Audio). Wireless connectivity includes tri-band Wi-Fi 6E (ax) and Bluetooth 5.4. There’s also a microSD Express slot for fast additional storage (you can always swap out the M.2 SSD, too). Additionally, there are stereo speakers with Dolby Atmos on board.
The new Asus ROG Xbox Ally It packs the same 80Whr Li-Ion battery as before (with 68W fast charging over USB-C).
Still, the X20 brings some great upgrades – but only offering it as part of a bundle is an odd choice. Not only does this make the
You can take a closer look at the Asus ROG Xbox Ally X20 bundle over on the official ROG site.