Should you upgrade from the ROG Ally to the ROG Ally X?

With the announcement of a successor to the ROG Ally in the form of the ROG Ally X, existing Ally owners may be confused about whether to upgrade their handhelds. Unfortunately, despite a ton of quality-of-life improvements, the Ally X does not make much sense for existing Ally owners, especially since the device uses the same Z1 Extreme chipset.

Read on to learn more about the two devices, and whether you should ultimately upgrade to the Ally X.

Note: This article is subjective and reflects the author’s opinions.

---

The ROG Ally X should be a skip for existing ROG Ally owners

The ROG Ally (Image via ASUS)

The ROG Ally X brings with it an improved battery life, among other minor upgrades. Unfortunately, these features do not warrant enough of a reason for an existing Ally owner to upgrade their device.

Here is a comparison of the two devices (in terms of their specifications):

Specification	ROG Ally	ROG Ally X
CPU	AMD Ryzen Z1 Extreme (8c/16t)	AMD Ryzen Z1 Extreme (8c/16t)
GPU	AMD Radeon 780M	AMD Radeon 780M
RAM	16 GB	Above 16 GB, likely to be 32 GB
Battery	40 Whr	50 Whr or above
Display	7-inch native landscape 1080p VRR capable display	7-inch native landscape 1080p VRR capable display
Operating System	Windows 11 + Armory Crate SE	Windows 11 + Armory Crate SE

As seen in the table above, the two devices are nearly identical, save for differences in RAM and battery. The ROG Ally X lacking display refresh is extremely disappointing. This is even more so when taking into account that the Steam Deck had a major refresh in the form of a gorgeous 90 Hz OLED display, placing it as the king of handheld gaming PCs once again.

While the Ally’s display is in no way incompetent (or even mediocre), this seems like a missed opportunity on ASUS’s part, given that they have previously made OLED VRR display-capable laptops.

The ROG Ally X features the same display as the ROG Ally (Image via ASUS)

The boost to RAM capacity is, however, a welcome addition (given that the APU can consume up to 8 GB of the same). It should provide much-needed breathing room for modern AAA games with asinine VRAM requirements.

Finally, the improvements to battery life are also a major bonus, given that the base ROG Ally has a poor battery life - a side effect of its powerful Z1 Extreme processor. Averaging around an hour and a half of gameplay in modern titles is quite disappointing, especially when we compare it to the Steam Deck OLED’s efficiency.

While these upgrades may seem tempting, realistically speaking, existing ROG Ally users are unlikely to notice a major difference when shifting to the ROG Ally X. The changes are too mediocre to warrant an upgrade, and gamers would be better suited to hold on until a true successor arrives, as opposed to a disappointing mid-gen refresh.

Stay tuned for more updates on Sportskeeda.