So this new competitor on the Handheld market has come from ROG (ASUS), since the middle of October 2025. It’s branded with the Xbox mark everywhere (actually mostly for marketing purposes) and it comes with an unusual gamepad-like shape. There are two versions, and we were lent both of them by ASUS for our review. There’s the white one and the black one, and they have different specs, the black one being the most powerful one, and gets a “X” suffix in the name.

So you might wonder, why are we reviewing a Windows-based handheld? There’s two reasons. First it’s important to be aware of what the competition actually does, and even more so since this console is released with an improved, customized Xbox experience instead of the regular Windows 11 desktop. Second, it was an opportunity to install Bazzite on that new piece of hardware, and see how things work and how they perform. But first, let’s start at the beginning, and see what this hardware brings on the table.

Hardware

Unboxing

The packaging is very similar for both of them: you get very large rectangular shaped boxes, either in black or in white depending on the version. The box is much bigger than what the Steam Deck comes with. This is a hint as to how large the units actually are. Inside the boxes, there are nothing much apart from the unit themselves, a small piece of paper with bare minimum instructions with a QR code, and a small stand (made of cheap material) to make your unit easier to fit vertically if needed.

Specs

As mentioned earlier, the specs differ for each model. It’s not just cosmetic differences. This is what you get:

Without going into too much detail, the white model has a Z2 APU, which is pretty much in the same category as the Steam Deck, albeit more powerful. The black model sports a Z2 Extreme chip, which is somewhat similar to the previous Z1 Extreme APU that was available on the ROG Ally X released in 2024. You also get more RAM (24GB versus 16GB) and a larger battery for the Z2 Extreme model. This makes the black model a little heavier, but it’s not that noticeable when you have the units in hand.

If you are wondering what impulse triggers are (just like me), the official answer from ROG is:

The ROG Xbox Ally X also features impulse triggers for more detailed haptic feedback in supported games. Just like on Xbox controllers, these triggers allow for more nuance and immersion.

What happens under the hood is that the triggers contain some motors to give you some feedback based on your trigger action. For example in shooting games that use it, you could feel the recoil of the gun through the trigger.

Note that the movement detection of the trigger (the sensor) is also Hall-Effect based on the XBox Ally X, so the impulse feedback is just an add-on versus the non-X model.

So to sum things up, the key differences between both models are the following:

• The Xbox Ally X comes with a much faster APU (with more RAM and much faster RAM)
• A bigger battery capacity
• Slightly heavier weight for the Xbox Ally X
• USB 4 with Thunderbolt 4 compatibility on the Xbox Ally X

The USB 4 spec is not a small detail, since it allows the Xbox Ally X to be paired with an external GPU (eGPU) easily. This means you can turn your Xbox Ally X into a powerful console to game on a 4K TV screen. That’s probably not going to be a common use case, but this is an important detail, if you were considering such a setup.

The Z2 extreme chip can use higher TDP modes so it requires a larger battery to sustain better performance for the same amount of time. So in fact you are not going to play for much longer on the Xbox Ally X than you would do on the Xbox Ally: simply, you will be able to play games with better settings or better framerates. For games that can run with very little power, however, you should be able to play for longer on the Xbox Ally X.

The AI Z2 Extreme chip is the main driver for the 400 USD difference in cost. It’s a much more powerful processor than the Z2 A which is pretty much a budget processor for handhelds. The Z2 A has only half of the GPU cores (8 vs 16) and those are older GPU cores too (RDNA 2 vs 3.5). On the CPU side, same story: half of the CPU cores (4 vs 8) and much older version (Zen 2 vs Zen 5).

So now the next question is, is the Z2 A processor an upgrade vs what you can find in the Steam Deck that uses an AMD Van Gogh processor? This table should help answer the question.

It’s fairly clear: the Z2 A is basically a slightly upgraded version of the AMD Van Gogh, that runs at a slightly higher CPU clock, but otherwise shares very similar specs. The biggest difference comes from the RAM speed it can use, with is significantly higher on the AMD Z2 A. This was already one of the reasons why the Steam Deck was performing way better than expected before its release, and the Z2 A builds further on that.

The Z2 A can also run at 20W TDP, 5W higher than the Steam Deck. Is that a big deal? Not sure on paper, since we already know that on the Steam Deck, the performance response in games is very noticeable between 3 and 10 W TDP, but very much flattens out between 11 and 15W in most scenarios.

Since the Steam Deck and the ROG Ally are sold at a similar price point, it’s a good idea to pit them against each other.

Lastly, a remark about the looks: apart from the color, there is no telling that the Xbox Ally X is a much more expensive piece of hardware. It would have been nice to have some kind of visual cue that this is a premium device, not just a different colored shell.

Shape and Portability

ROG is well known for the quality of their design (and somewhat unusual choices, with the previous ROG Ally having sharp angles) and these units are no exception. While I initially did not really like the idea of a gamepad shaped handheld, I have to admit it’s not as absurd as it seemed, once you play with it.

It does feel very good in hands and may alleviate the slightly extra weight you have to deal with. However, one of the biggest disadvantages is the size of the unit. If you plan to travel with such devices, you’ll need a bag with quite a bit of space. So it’s a portable gaming machine, and we are now very far from things that could fit in your pockets.

Another flaw of this design is the fact that the unit cannot stay flat on a surface. The way they designed the unit makes it tilt forward when you put it on a table. There are times (especially when using the desktop mode) where you want to make sure it’s flat in front of you, and this is a big problem here.

This could have been fixed by having the triggers protruding a little more on the other side to make it stand flat. This what most gamepads do, by the way. Such a strange decision. This also explains why most promotional material of the Xbox Ally shows it floating in the air, never laying down on a table or surface. Because it looks bad.

Quality of Controls

Some very good choices made here, and some less convincing ones. First, the analog pads are good (and have RGB lights if you care about that), respond well, but seem to have slightly less directional travel than the Steam Deck’s one. Not a big difference and you get used to it in no time.

When I first saw the D-pad, I thought Oh my, this is going to the cheapest piece of shit D-Pad for sure. Turns out I was completely wrong about that. It looks cheap, but it actually works very well for 2D fighting games. I may even prefer it to the Steam Deck’s one.

The regular A, B, X, Y buttons are very good and respond very well. Nothing specific to report.

The triggers are excellent. Because the unit has much more depth, you get full-sized triggers and high-quality ones at that. The shoulder ones have a very nice click when you press them, and the larger triggers L2 and R2 are of superb quality.

At the back of the unit you get two triangular buttons as 2 extra back buttons, and while I never used them in any games I tested, they feel a bit awkward. I’m not a fan either of the Steam Deck’s ones, but those might be even worse: their shape and position is not great.

The volume up and down buttons are OK, but they are not placed at the right spot. On the Steam Deck it’s very easy to move your fingers while holding your hands on your trigger or shoulder buttons. Here, it’s just too far! And I have big hands. You need to move your hand away from the triggers to be able to reduce or increase the sound. This is a bad design decision, especially for something that you will use fairly often.

Finally, there are 6 extra buttons on the face of the unit, 2 of them that can be used for Start / Select functions, and 4 others for interface related actions.

Too bad, there’s still no trackpads on this device. I wonder why most manufacturers decide to skip on them. Granted, most games are made with gamepads in mind these days, but I really enjoy the trackpads to play FPS and RTS on the go, on the Deck. And if you use the desktop now and then, having a trackpad is a good alternative to connecting a mouse.

USB ports: The advantage

Having 2 USB ports from the get-go is a super nice feature. This means you don’t need a dock for the Xbox Ally: a simple USB-C to HDMI adapter will do the trick - and the other port can be used for charging when connected. If you have a full battery, you can use the other USB-C port to connect a USB-A keyboard to it (super cheap adapters exist for USB-C to USB-A). Pair it with a Bluetooth mouse and you have a whole computer that can be used with a monitor, almost for free.

Of course, if you need a lot more ports for some reason, you can buy a dedicated dock. JSAUX has already released a dock that works with it, as well as most other handheld PCs:

So if you have such needs, there’s probably an easy way to convert this machine into a regular computer.

Temperature control and fan noise

Good job overall. You will hear the fans once in a while, but they remain fairly quiet, except when there’s some a lot of heat to be removed - they will go into turbine mode then. This actually happens when using Bazzite, usually when waking up from sleep on the Xbox Ally X. More on that later.

Thanks to the efficient fans, the temperature control on the unit is usually pretty good. The Steam Deck can definitely get warmer than that. And we don’t get some kind of high pitch fan noise like on the earlier versions of the Steam Deck. ROG is a hardware company: they are not amateurs in that space.

Accessing Internals

You need to remove 8 screws (one of them will remain attached to the cover) to get to see what’s inside the machine. 4 of them are fairly long and three of them are very small, so you can’t mistake them. The screws are X shaped (of course for an Xbox!) and you can use a regular screwdriver. They come off very easily.

However, removing the cover is much harder. Not difficult, but you will need a guitar pick to progressively go around the unit place by place to unclip the cover. The beginning is OK, but as you to get to the side and the gamepad-like shape it will make you sweat a little.

Be very careful, once you are able to unclip the cover, do not rip it off like a victorious 2001 Space Odyssey monkey, as the mainboard is attached to the back cover with a small flat cable. And for a good reason: this cable connects to the back plate buttons I mentioned before. No need to remove this one to access the internals, though, it’s long enough to allow for a wide opening. Probably not a coincidence, it was designed that way.

Once you are in, you will see the dual fan setup that is characteristic of ROG handhelds, as well as the heat pipe that transfers heat from the AMD APU to the dual fans. It’s very clean design.

The part I like the best is the battery. The battery is a rectangular block (4 cells) that is screwed, not glued (Valve, please learn from this), which means the battery can be removed very easily and replaced safely without setting your house on fire become someone cheapened out and glued things that require heat to remove something that is very sensitive to heat. Also, nobody had the strange idea to attach cables over the battery either, it’s completely isolated. Very clean.

Moving to the APU: it benefits from a very clean and well-designed heatsink.

But the great decisions did not stop there. The NVME drive is in a 2280 format, which means you can easily replace it and expand it. Such drives are much cheaper than the 2230 format ones that you need for the Steam Deck. Currently a 2TB 2230 drive (the cheaper ones at least) costs about 150 USD, while the same capacity on a 2280 drive costs between 110 and 120 USD in terms of lowest pricing available. The 2280 format is used everywhere from desktop to laptops and this makes it much cheaper than the more unusual 2230 version.

Replacing the SSD and restoring the unit to its default state is very easy too: the BIOS contains a factory reset function that works online and connect to Wifi, and will restore partitions on any drive with the default Windows startup install.

I have to say, if you care about expanding your unit at a good price, and keeping for a long time (changing the battery later one too), this design is a clear win.

The Windows 11 Experience

Is this Really an Xbox?

While it’s advertised as an “Xbox”, it’s actually not a Xbox. It’s a regular PC. It is co-developed with Microsoft Gaming and features a special Xbox full-screen experience right when you boot-up. So you don’t really land in a typical Windows 11 desktop. This console-like user interface is made to work well with handhelds and to use gamepad controls. It provides access to the Xbox Game Pass service as well as the game library from different stores, making the experience feel more like a console. But it does NOT run any Xbox native games, while the Xbox games that are available on Game Pass with a PC version will work through the PC version on this console.

Before you can even play…

The initial startup experience of the Xbox Ally is arguably its weakest point, transforming the excitement of a new shiny device into a frustrating, hour(s)-long ordeal. Turning the device on initiates a series of mandatory updates, consuming a significant chunk of time before you can even begin the setup process. This initial hurdle is compounded by a layered and confusing configuration sequence. Users are first subjected to the standard Windows-related online sign-ins and preference questions, only to be immediately followed by a separate set of Xbox-specific sign-ins and interface preferences.

Once finally past the setup, the system sends the user directly into the Xbox Game Pass interface, which is indeed console-like. The device dedicates two physical buttons to the Xbox interface, signalling its core integration. However, beneath this Xbox layer lies a third proprietary interface, Armory Crate SE from ROG, which manages critical device settings, requiring yet another separate installation to unlock full functionality. In total, a user can expect to spend approximately one hour navigating these updates, sign-ins, and triple-layered interfaces before the handheld console is finally ready to install and launch the first game.

Phew.

Default Interface

The Xbox interface is not bad. If you come from SteamOS you will need a bit of time to get adjusted to it, but there are many practical shortcuts that show up very quickly once you press the dedicated buttons.

The face buttons enable you to quickly select very useful shortcuts:

• Change the resolution of the screen on the fly between 720p, 900p and the native 1080p. This is pretty cool and instant.
• Change the TDP settings (between three values, silent, performance and turbo). SteamOS has much more granular control of TDP in that regard.
• Change volume, microphone settings.
• Enable AMR RSR (i.e. FSR) regardless of the application used. This is like using ProtonGE on Linux.

You can also connect controllers via Bluetooth, and it kind of works, but it’s more annoying than on Linux. Here on Windows your controller may be recognized on the Xbox interface and on the Steam interface, but not recognized in game (at least on Steam). For it to work on Steam, you need to go in the controller settings and enable Steam input, and select the controller to be used. Since I hardly use Windows for gaming, I took a while to find this out. Maybe it’s just me.

By default the Xbox interface lets you access Game Pass, and install games from there. It comes with a 3 months free trial for Game Pass (as long as you register your payment details), which is a nice little gift if you are a first-time user and intend to use Game Pass from there on. I’m not sure how many end users would be concerned by that though - most people who buy this device are probably PC gamers in the first place, and most likely Windows PC gamers - and a lot of them would already be using Game Pass.

The interface already has by default a Steam icon available. When you click on it, it will try to launch Steam, and if Steam is not installed, it will install it automatically. Pretty cool. Once Steam launches, it goes by default in its desktop interface, which is not ideal. So I customized it to launch in Big Picture Mode, and now it’s a little closer to SteamOS when you do that. I have to admit it gets a little confusing when you have so many windows running in parallel: so you end up using the shortcut Xbox key + A, to switch between open windows to make sure you are on the right one.

I did not try GOG or Epic Games, but I would assume they work in a similar way. Steam is clearly treated as an important feature on this device despite the fact that this is an Xbox branded machine. You gotta bend your knee to the king, I guess.

So the new Xbox interface is certainly a step-up versus the default Windows 11 desktop experience you had previously with such handhelds. It’s got a large number of usable shortcuts and you can also customize the placement of widgets. I still prefer SteamOS, probably because I am more familiar with it, but it’s now fairly equivalent in terms of what you can expect to do with it.

Returning to desktop: instant

So the Xbox interface is just a full screen-window that is layered on top of the Windows 11 desktop. It’s a hack? Yes, it’s a hack. You can see through this once you try returning to the Windows 11 desktop: you can simply slide back to the Windows 11 desktop bar by using a gesture with your finger at the bottom of the screen. Then, you can see the whole Windows 11 desktop in its full glory.

As a matter of fact, they haven’t really developed a real new interface for Windows - this is just the regular Windows 11 desktop running with a full-screen interface loading up first. I don’t have any big problem with that: you can switch to the desktop in no time, which is practical if you need it. But this means that there’s probably not much optimization to be found vs the previous models running a regular Windows 11 desktop.

Sleep: Somehow broken?

Despite all the firmware updates the device endured, in my few weeks of testing, I had a serious issue with the sleep mode on Windows. You hit the power button once as the unit is operating, and you expect the device to go in sleep / hibernation mode. But several times, I was unable to make it recover from sleep. Tapping once, tapping several times to power button quickly, pressing all buttons, trying the touch screen, nothing managed to wake up this device. I also tried unplugging, and plugging in the power cord, to see if that would trigger it to wake up again, but nothing worked. This did not happen every single time, but at least 3 or 4 times. This calls for a hard reboot (pressing the power button for 10 seconds). I thought that sleep and hibernation was mainly a problem with hardware support on Linux, and I am absolutely aghast to see that it happens on a commercial Windows handheld like this one. And a branded Xbox on top of that!

Bazzite on the ROG Ally and ROG Ally X

Installation

Installing Bazzite requires the following:

• Shrinking the partition on Windows (since we want to make the device dual boot)
• flashing the Bazzite ISO image on an external USB drive
• Disabling Secureboot
• Booting on the USB drive (and skipping the bitlocker warnings if you have some)
• Customizing the Bazzite installation (for dual boot purposes) especially the partition tool - this is the most complex step (but you just need to follow the guidance)
• Specifying your user name and password (or keep bazzite user as is)
• Connecting to your Wifi network
• Letting the installer do its thing (takes about 20 mins)
• Rebooting
• After booting into Bazzite, get the key (via a terminal command) so that you can enable SecureBoot
• Go back into the BIOS, enable SecureBoot, and select Bazzite as the first drive to boot on

We will do a separate article on this topic, most likely. Not too complex, but it takes maybe 30 minutes of your time, and requires a keyboard attached so you need an adapter or a dock to connect a USB-A device properly.

Experience

Once you are in Bazzite things are very smooth. It feels like SteamOS, you boot directly into the Big Picture Steam interface with Gamescope used when gaming, with the proper controller mappings. The Xbox button is mapped to a specific Bazzite menu where you can change the TDP in just a few seconds. Very practical.

You also have a bunchj of other options, to control the RGB lights, to update, revert to a previous Bazzite version, and a lot more. It gives you a lot of control, and that’s even before you mess with the terminal.

Bazzite vs Windows 11

Bazzite offers clear advantages versus Windows 11. Windows 11 may boot up slightly faster, but if you take in account loading the Xbox interface before you can actually reach your library, Bazzite is faster from boot to game.

Windows 11 sometimes has sleep/hibernation issues. During my week of usage of the Xbox Ally X, at least twice I was confronted with the device being unresponsive, not able to wake up from sleep. The only solution was a hard reboot. On Bazzite, with the Xbox Ally X, no such issue occured. But for some reason on the current Bazzite build, when you wake up the device from sleep, it sometimes trigger the fans to rotate at maximum speed, something that lasts for 30 seconds or so. I did not see this issue on the Non-X version. However, Bazzite on the Xbox Ally (non-X) had problems with sleep initially, and after checking Bazzite’s Github issues it was a known problem, that was fixed by the staging version of Bazzite. After updating to the dev version of Bazzite, the sleep issue was gone. For Windows 11, I checked online and while I did find users complaining of the same problem (can’t wake up from sleep), I could not identify an actual fix.

Bazzite is usually superior in performance when it comes to running Windows games (!). This seems like a bad joke but it’s true. Sometimes the difference is minor, in some other games more significant, but overall the trend is usually the same: games perform on average better on Bazzite than on Windows. There are some exceptions though: I noticed that Witcher 3 performed actually way better on Windows, and I am not entirely sure why this game is so different.

The Xbox interface is honestly not bad, but SteamOS has out of the box more customizations possible, and allows you to save configurations per game. This may be possible with Armory Crate too, but it was not obvious how to do that.

The killer feature of Bazzite/SteamOS is the “Resume game from sleep” functionality. It works just like on the Steam Deck - you can just hit the power button with one click, go do something else for a while, and come back and resume the game exactly where you left it by hitting the power button once again. On Windows 11, it’s still something that’s apparently not possible. Which is maddening!

On the other hand, Windows 11 has a different set of killer features too: you have the native Game Pass integration, and games with anti-cheat will work on the platform. That’s it.

At the end of the day, it really boils down to what games you intend to play on the device. A good middle ground would be to dual-boot Bazzite and stay on Bazzite most of the time, unless you really need Windows for a specific game (or for Game Pass). Bazzite has a button to boot back into Windows to make the process painless. I must admit, Bazzite is really well-designed and feels like a plug’n play OS after the install is done.

Gaming performance Comparison

Xbox Ally X: Windows vs Bazzite

I tested quite a few games using both Windows and Bazzite, so here’s what you can expect with actual numbers.

Here are a few short video clips to demonstrate some of the differences.

God of War is a very impressive game, and this device can run it at the Original graphics settings at a very good frame rate, which is fairly impressive. And this is in an area that I have picked for lower framerates (complex geometry). So you can defintely run this game at 60 FPS most of the time, with a slight but clear advantage for Bazzite in performance vs Windows.

Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 works well enough to sustain a stable framerate at medium settings, with a slight advantage on Bazzite. At Medium settings with Xess set at Ultra quality, the game looks fantastic on 7 inches. You can tweaks some settings to get in the 40 FPS, and you can certainly hit 60 FPS if you lower the settings and potentially go to 720p.

Cyberpunk 2077 is a classic game for benchmarks. Here at Medium settings, when walking in environments, we can get between 40 and 50 FPS, with a fairly clear advantage in terms of performance for Bazzite.

So it looks like Bazzite is always better right? I don’t want to lie to you, there are exceptions. Witcher 3 is one of them, and for some reason is runs way better on Windows than on Bazzite. And we talking about a fairly substantial difference here. At the same time, this device is running Witcher 3 at High settings and beyond 60 FPS, which is fantastic!

Adding more TDP does increase the framerate in most games, and for some of them the added TDP helps tremendously to achieve higher framerates. In Cyberpunk 2077 the effect is very clear.

In a nutshell, the performance enveloppe of the Z2 Extreme is quite impressive, and you will be able to reach 60 FPS on some demanding AAA games somewhere between Low and Medium settings without having to tweak things too much. And Bazzite should help you get there more often than not.

XBox Ally: Windows vs Bazzite

once again I tested several demanding games on the non-X version of the device.

We see pretty much the same pattern at play here. But even more pronounced in favor of Bazzite on the Z2 based hardware.

Atomic Heart shows a huge difference in performance at the same settings between Bazzite and Windows.

Kena runs well enough at Medium settings on Bazzite to stay above 30 FPS, while the same can’t be said about Windows. Once again here, a fairly subtantial difference in performance. Note on the Steam Deck, this game runs clearly below 30 FPS in this kind of environment at 720p, at low settings, so we have another proof, that on Bazzite which is akin to SteamOS, the Xbox Ally hardware shines compared to the performance you would get on the Steam Deck, and at a higher resolution (1080p) on top of that.

The same thing we have seen about Witcher 3 earlier on the Xbox Ally X remains true here. This game runs much better on Windows 11 for some reason.

As you can see from the figures where both the Performance and Turbo modes are tested, there is virtuall no difference in performance. You may see at most 1 or 2 FPS up, but it could be a placebo effect as well. So the Turbo mode, on the Xbox Ally, seems to be completely useless.

One more thing, I confirmed in several games that the performance of the device according to the TDP rating follows a fairly strange pattern. If you go anywhere lower than 9W TDP (something that you can control with fine granularity on Bazzite), you get horrible framerates and performance, which seems like a low-power mode of some sort. And the funny thing is that there is no meaningful difference between 3W and 9W: it’s almost flat in that range. Then once you reach 9W, suddenly the performance jumps up massively, reaching a new threshold. At once again, a similar pattern appears, where the increased TDP above 9W does not seem to bring much performance increase. You will get a few more FPS just above 9W but it flattens out very quickly.

The Steam Deck presented a similar behavior above 8W typically, with some slight impact up to 11W, but a flat performance between 12 and 15W. However, the Steam Deck had much more of a linear performance response between 1W and 8W. Not so much here. So it would make sense to keep things at 3W for 2D games, and 9W for 3D games - this way you save on the battery while benefiting from the best performance of the machine.

In terms of overall performance profile, the non-X variant of the Xbox Ally seems to be well suited to run fairly demanding AAA games at around 30 FPS, as long as you are willing to compromise on the level of graphical details. Once again Bazzite will help to reach better framerate in most (but not all) games.

Overall conclusion

The Xbox Ally X hardware is VERY capable. Most of the games that struggle currently on the Steam Deck run way better on this machine, at framerates that are smooth enough. If you apply FSR and max-TDP, as well as lower screen resolutions, you can probably get to 60 FPS for many of them, at very decent settings. Expedition 33, for example, is clearly a game that can now be properly enjoyed on this device, while it was borderline playable on the Steam Deck (between 20 to 25 FPS at super low details with Xess). Whether or not the upgrade warrants the 1000 USD pricetag is a different story. At 800~900 USD it would be a much better price-point, almost a no-brainer. At this price, it will probably make a lot of people think twice, until things change.

The concerns about the battery life from the initial ROG Ally are now mostly gone, you can definitely game for more than 2 hours on this device even for demanding games at pretty much full power.

Since the Steam Deck 2 is not likely going to be released for a while, gamers looking for an upgrade may find a good home with this device. It’s definitely a big step-up vs the Steam Deck, and since Bazzite works pretty much out of the box there is no reason for Linux gamers to avoid it.

The Xbox Ally (non-X) model is a good deal as well. At a price point which is not far from the Steam Deck, you get slightly better performance, a very similar weight, and internals that can be easily upgraded. Just the fact that you can buy a 2280 NVME on the XBox Ally is a clear selling point. It makes this unit cheaper if you upgrade for a 2TB NVME compared to what it would cost on the Steam Deck. If I were to buy a handheld now at around 600 USD, I would probably go for the Xbox Ally version instead of a new Steam Deck. I have seen Bazzite in action, I have witnessed the performance in games, there’s not a strong good reason to prefer the Steam Deck unless:

• you don’t like the shell design
• you absolutely need the trackpads
• you want an OLED screen

Those are valid reasons to still prefer a Steam Deck. But the combo Xbox Ally + Bazzite will increase the number of games you can actually play and enjoy in portable format, thanks to its better performance profile. Ultimately, you have to decide based on your own needs.

On the matter of the shell and its overall shape, I must admit I was not convinced by the gamepad shape of the device - it looked a little ridiculous. But after a few weeks in hand, I got used to it, and it felt strange to go back to the Steam Deck - like… wait, why is it so thin?

In any case, if you decide to go for one of these devices, I would recommend ditching Windows for Bazzite. Worst case, you can still dual-boot if you want to keep Windows for a few games that don’t work on Linux. If it were just me, I would simply remove Windows completely and enjoy Bazzite. The experience is way better and actually console like. And instant sleep works, too, and I can’t imagine living without that.

Now, if only ROG would offer Bazzite or SteamOS as an OS option for their devices, that would be perfect. Probably not going to happen for a Xbox branded product - but that would be great if their non-Xbox line-up could benefit from it. It’s very unlikely, as Microsoft usually forces OEM to be loyal to their OS in order to remain in good standing.

Not sure what it will take to break this OS monopoly, but Linux Gaming has arrived, it’s better, it’s faster, and it’s obvious for anyone who dares to look. We are certainly not the only ones who have noticed, now we will see if manufacturers end up doing anything about it.

Note: Many thanks to ASUS / ROG Japan who were kind enough to lend us the units for proper testing.