Asus is celebrating 20 years of Republic of Gamers (ROG) with an update to its Xbox Ally X handheld—and no, it’s not just a special edition re-skin. First and foremost, the ROG Xbox Ally X20, as it’s being called, is bringing OLED to the party. While the first Xbox Ally X had a 7-inch IPS touchscreen, the ROG Xbox Ally X20 has a slightly bigger OLED panel that spans 7.4 inches. It’s the same 1080p resolution with a refresh rate of 120Hz, too, but this time around, the display reaches 1,400 nits of brightness compared to the previous 500 nits.
While the slightly larger OLED screen is probably the star of the show, there are some other notable upgrades, too. TMR joysticks from GuliKit also make an appearance, which use magnets and are far more resistant to drift than the mechanical joysticks inside the original Xbox Ally X. Hardware-wise, there are some other changes, though mostly aesthetic. The shell, for example, is now translucent, which is fun and kind of retro, and the D-pad can transform from a four-way to an eight-way for fighting games.
If you weren’t a fan of the “Library” button, that’s now also gone and replaced by an action button that can take screenshots and record video with a press. Inside, things are the same—the ROG Xbox Ally X20 is using an AMD Ryzen AI Z2 Extreme processor, 24GB of high-speed LPDDR5X RAM, and 1TB of storage.
Though the Xbox Ally X20 sounds like a solid upgrade all around, there is some bad news: you can only buy it in a bundle with the ROG Xreal R1 AR glasses that cost an eye-watering $850. The original ROG Xbox Ally X costs $1,000. Asus hasn’t released any pricing on how much the bundle will cost, but if I were you, I’d start saving up now for whenever official preorders start.
