OPINION: The Xbox Ally X handheld is too rough for me right now, but I see the vision — and I'm still extremely excited for Xbox's next-gen

I’ve had my Xbox Ally X for a little over two weeks now, and I’ve found myself using it quite often at night while in bed, with a TV show running in the background as I casually play something like Slay the Spire or Spider-Man: Miles Morales.

In this specific use case, the handheld is great, and I can see precisely what Xbox was aiming for. It fits that relaxed, low-effort gaming window perfectly.

Unfortunately, the install process and what I’ll just call the general “jank” have given me a bitter first impression. At this point, I feel only a major update will address my concerns.

The first boot up

I felt like a kid on Christmas morning when I first got my Xbox Ally X. I was excited to open it the moment it arrived, which was around 10 AM on a Monday morning.

My plan was simple. Install every update first. I turned the Xbox Ally X on for the first time and was greeted with the familiar Windows setup process. I had already seen plenty of reviewers complain about this, so I knew what to expect, but it still takes the console feel away straight away.

I don’t want to be pedantic or nitpicky either, but it really does take you out of the experience. When I mentioned I booted up around 10 AM, that was deliberate, because it took me until 7 PM to update everything and install two games to play. I highly doubt my gigabit internet was the issue here.

When all is said and done, though, and you can finally use the device to play games, it is pretty fantastic. It is powerful, and it has not struggled with anything I have thrown at it. Even ARC Raiders, which was only recently released, runs at over 100 FPS.

If you want to stay within the Xbox App ecosystem, you will feel quite welcome. The Xbox App does have its issues, though. Whenever you boot the device from a shutdown, the app feels laggy and unresponsive, and installing games and having to accept Windows prompts again takes you out of the experience.

The Xbox Fullscreen Experience is promising, but the Xbox App is what is holding it back from becoming something special. Luckily, it seems as though we may be due for some kind of refresh next year.

I’d also be remiss if I didn’t mention that the Wi-Fi on my Xbox Ally X was completely broken for an entire week. I ended up troubleshooting it myself and eventually fixed the issue, which led me to put together a handy Xbox Ally X Wi-Fi troubleshooting guide for anyone who might run into the same problem.

Gaming outside of the Xbox App

As you might have guessed when I mentioned Spider-Man: Miles Morales earlier, I do use Steam. The Xbox App has an aggregated library, so your Steam, Epic, and other storefront games appear inside it, but the actual experience leaves a lot to be desired and has a fair bit of what I would call jank.

Ironing things out aside, I’d also like to see the ability to add your own games and apps to the Xbox App, something that Steam already offers.

I have had a Steam account for over 13 years and have built up a library of more than 600 games, so naturally I want to use that library on my Xbox Ally X. Installing those games means going to the Windows desktop and installing Steam, which is fine, and then installing everything through Steam, which is also fine.

The issues start when you need to restart the device to get back into the Fullscreen Experience. Once you are back in, you realise you have to install a Game Bar widget if you want reliable access to Steam (or go to the apps section of the Xbox App). Then, when you launch a Steam game via the Xbox App, the process is long and a bit tedious. When a game finally boots through the Xbox App, it works perfectly, but when you exit, it kicks you back into Steam rather than the Xbox App.

Then we get to multitasking in the Fullscreen Experience. Swiping up from the bottom brings up all your currently open Windows, which is supposed to be easy to navigate with LB and RB, with X to close an app or game, and A to jump back into something.

For me, the LB and RB navigation doesn’t always work. Pressing either often sends me back to the first item I selected, which means I have to tap the screen to move to the next Window. You only see half of each one, and while this issue does not happen every time, it happens enough to notice.

Yet I am still excited for the future of Xbox

I know I have just ranted about my personal experience with the Xbox Ally X, and yes, it has been enough for me to advise people to hold off on buying the device. That is probably not what anyone wants to hear before Christmas and the festivities, but it is my honest takeaway.

Even so, I am still excited about the idea of an Xbox PC. If Xbox can fix the problems I have mentioned and streamline the whole experience, we could be in for something special. That treat may cost an arm and a leg with how things are going, but it's a treat all the same.

I have been with Xbox since the original. While it is easy to doom on Xbox right now because of Microsoft’s decisions, I want an ecosystem of devices that can play my Xbox library and give me access to the endless supply of PC games without feeling janky.

Powerful handheld 💪

ASUS ROG Xbox Ally X: $999.99 at Best Buy

The Xbox Ally X can be ordered at Best Buy, but currently, orders placed aren't expected to arrive until Jan 2, 2026. This devices has an AMD Ryzen AI Z2 Extreme chip with 24GB RAM, and 1TB SSD. It can be used to play everything from casual games to compatible AAA games.

Windows Central review: ⭐⭐⭐⭐ 1/2

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If Xbox can deliver that, it will absolutely keep me as a consumer. I don’t want to say goodbye to my nearly 20-year-old Xbox account, and I don’t care much for many PlayStation games, as they often fall into the same third-person action-adventure formula that stopped working for me after being disappointed by Uncharted 4.

For now, I am choosing to have a little faith that Xbox can deliver what I want from a console, despite my experiences with the Xbox Ally X, because I can feel and see the same vision that Jez sees whenever I am on the device, despite feeling like I’m a beta tester.

All that said, with the 25th anniversary of Xbox next year, we might not have to wait much longer to see what Xbox is cooking.

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