Kernic

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The ASUS ROG Xbox Ally X Instead of GeForce Now

· by Kernic
Category: Gaming

GeForce Now unfortunately doesn't fit my mobile lifestyle. The connection on the go is too poor and unstable. A device that can run games locally is needed. The new gaming handhelds are a good option, especially the ASUS Xbox ROG Ally X, right?

GeForce Now not for on the go after all

I’m on the road a lot. Every week I spend more than ten hours on the train. Additionally, one evening at my parents’ place away from my PC. Nevertheless, I naturally want to be able to game away from home.
A few months ago, I considered getting a gaming notebook and decided against it. Instead, I chose Nvidia’s game streaming service GeForce Now. Actually sounds like a fair deal. For a bit more than 20 euros per month, you can play many of your purchased games from anywhere in high quality – streaming makes it possible.

The “actually” is less about Nvidia and more about the internet itself. On the train, you have two options to get online: via the mobile network or via Deutsche Bahn’s Wi-Fi. The mobile network is significantly faster, but also much more variable. I find it strange that especially when entering and stopping at the Mannheim and Karlsruhe train stations, there’s virtually no mobile network available.
The Wi-Fi is more reliable and rarely has complete dead zones. However, it’s far from fast enough for GeForce Now.

But the internet isn’t reliable in other places either. I’m writing this post right now at the campsite in southern Italy via my smartphone’s hotspot. There’s supposedly Wi-Fi here, but I haven’t managed to connect to it in a week. And the two to three out of four bars of 5G are probably just marketing. Peak speed: 7 Mbit/s with a ping of almost 95 ms. Regularly worse. GeForce Now is little to no fun with that.

Local sunshine instead of distant clouds

The experiment with the cloud has failed, at least on the go. I have to be honest, gaming on a MacBook, even with a mouse, just doesn’t feel that good. I could, which I haven’t tried yet, take a controller along. But then I still have to set up the notebook and connect to the internet. Plus, my games simply don’t work under macOS.

The alternative is therefore to have a device that can run games locally. I don’t want to lug around another notebook and it’s not optimized for gaming either. So a gaming handheld. Here you can choose between devices with Windows and devices with SteamOS. The latter is based on Linux and is supposedly more optimized. Windows is more flexible. I personally have no preferences, especially since SteamOS or Bazzite can now be installed on many Windows devices.

The search for devices wasn’t actually that difficult, I thought at first. Valve, MSI, Lenovo, and ASUS are the big providers on the market. MSI Claw and Lenovo Legion are too big for me, Steam Deck and Legion Go too weak, and so only the ASUS ROG Ally X remained, and I was about to buy it. Then I got the idea that the devices are all almost a year old, and I searched for announcements of new generations.

Microsoft and ASUS are working together

Little new on the market. MSI just released a new Claw with Intel APU and Lenovo announced a new one with a new AMD APU. But both are too big again. Valve is waiting and saying nothing at all. That leaves ASUS. Lo and behold: a new gaming handheld was announced, with the new AMD AI Z2 Extreme. Not a revolution, but still 20-30% more performance with the same power consumption. It would actually be a shame not to wait for that, wouldn’t it?

I’m uncertain, but I’ll wait anyway. Why uncertain? The new handheld from ASUS will be called ASUS ROG Xbox Ally X and comes from a collaboration with Microsoft. Xbox-style grips are supposed to make it more ergonomic, but also thicker. Plus, it gets an Xbox interface and the Windows on the device is optimized. Actually, that sounds good. Finally, an interface that fits a handheld, and more performance for games. But how does it work with Steam? I haven’t used the Xbox Store at all so far and don’t plan to. It would also be interesting for me whether I could install SteamOS or Bazzite on it if I wanted to.

Then there’s the price: 899.00 € is announced or speculated. The price isn’t entirely certain yet. The ASUS ROG Ally X is currently available online for 729.00 €, so 19% cheaper, and it will certainly be reduced in price again with the release of the new device. The additional performance is therefore directly reflected in the price. At least one to one. But as I said, I’m waiting for the release, watching reviews, and then I’ll decide. But with high certainty, it will be an ASUS device.

In any case, I’m looking forward to being able to game on the go, even when the internet isn’t so fast or stable.