Here's how the Asus ROG Ally X’s battery life compares to the ROG Ally — we tested both

When Asus announced the Asus ROG Ally X this summer, the thing that caught our eye was the handheld's 80Wh battery capacity. That's double the 40Wh battery you'll find inside the regular Asus ROG Ally, which is one of the top PC gaming handhelds you can buy — albeit in spite of meager battery life. The addition of a larger battery was much needed on the ROG Ally X, and it was a welcome change even though it made the handheld thicker.

But the specifications only tell part of the story — how does the ROG Ally X's battery life compare to the regular ROG Ally in the real world? Although the ROG Ally X has a bigger battery, it also has a higher performance threshold and more available memory. That means it could, in theory, draw more power than the ROG Ally. I've spent the better part of two months using the ROG Ally X and ROG Ally side-by-side to try and figure that out. Plus, I put these handhelds to the test with a real-world experiment and a synthetic benchmark. Here's what I learned.

How the two handhelds fared in a real-world test

I played GTA Online until each handheld ran out of power

To start, I challenged these two handhelds to play Grand Theft Auto: V Online until each of their batteries ran out of juice. I chose this game for a few reasons. Even though it's an older title, it still puts some pressure on each ROG Ally model to produce quality graphics and high frame rates while on battery power. Additionally, it's an online game, which means the handhelds need to transmit data back and forth over Wi-Fi. It's precisely the kind of game an ROG Ally user might want to play while on battery power, so I wanted to know how it fared.

For the test, I stuck with the default settings. Each handheld was set to the Turbo performance mode, which has a TDP of 25W. Grand Theft Auto was set to its default graphics settings for the ROG Ally and Ally X, in fullscreen view. I started a stopwatch when starting the game, and disconnected from power. When each handheld hit 20% battery remaining, they automatically lowered their brightness, but I bumped it back up to the maximum for the duration of the test. The stopwatch was stopped when Windows threw up a low battery warning, and this occurred at around 5% or 6% remaining.

You'll see in the chart below that the ROG Ally was able to play GTA for just shy of a full hour on battery power. By comparison, the ROG Ally X lasted for nearly two hours, which is a bit less than double the playtime of the regular ROG Ally. It was a pretty impressive performance for the Asus ROG Ally X, since its battery size — twice as large as the ROG Ally — actually translated to twice the playtime in real-world usage.

The results track with what I've experienced using the Asus ROG Ally for about a year. While playing AAA gaming titles, you won't get even a full hour of gaming from your handheld. For that reason, I never play the ROG Ally without a power cord or power bank connected. Meanwhile, the ROG Ally X's nearly two-hour long performance is more than enough to satisfy most of my gaming sessions — they usually last about an hour and a half.

How the two handhelds fared in a synthetic test

I ran 3DMark: Time Spy until each Asus ROG Ally handheld ran out of power

A typical synthetic battery life test for, say, a phone or a laptop would typically include a mix of web browsing, video playback, and gaming. However, these are gaming handhelds we're talking about. You're probably going to use the Asus ROG Ally and Ally X for high-level gaming 95% of the time, if not more. That's why I had to rethink the typical playbook. For this synthetic test, I loaded up 3DMark Time Spy — a benchmark designed to push gaming PCs to their graphical limits — and ran it over and over until each handheld ran out of charge.

The consistency of the benchmark seemed to allow both handhelds to last longer. The regular ROG Ally lasted over an hour, and the ROG Ally X doubled that. Paired with the real-world test, it's safe to say that you'll get an hour of gaming out of the ROG Ally and around two out of the ROG Ally X. However, one thing worth noting is that the performance of both handhelds dipped significantly when their battery life dropped under 30%. In the Time Spy benchmarks, the final scores were consistent through the duration of the test until battery life crossed the 30% threshold, where they dropped by a few hundred points.

That's what makes the extra battery of the ROG Ally X so important — even if performance suffers as battery life gets low, you'll still have about two hours of gaming time before that point is reached.

What I've learned using the Asus ROG Ally X for two months

This handheld's battery life is the real deal, but you'll have to stomach its high price

These tests of the Asus ROG Ally and ROG Ally X confirm what my anecdotal experiences over the last two months led me to suspect: the ROG Ally X is the real deal when it comes to battery life. Our performance testing of the handheld showed that it's significantly faster and more powerful than the regular ROG Ally, putting up higher and more consistent frame rates. Surprisingly, that doesn't seem to have impacted the ROG Ally X's efficiency or battery life in the slightest. It has a battery that's double the size of the ROG Ally, and the ROG Ally X indeed lasts twice as long.

Aside from these specific tests, I've spent countless hours gaming on both handhelds. The ROG Ally X's battery life is comparable to (or better than) the Steam Deck, and it's more than enough for my needs as someone who only games on handheld devices. Still, at $800, you'll need to ask yourself whether the higher price of the ROG Ally X is worth it for the battery life alone. As much as I'm frustrated with the low battery life of the ROG Ally, I have gotten by with the handheld and a power bank just fine. I personally don't think I can justify the ROG Ally X price tag, no matter how good the battery life is.

• The best

  

  Asus ROG Ally X

  Dimensions

  11.02 x 4.37 x 1.45 inches (280mm x 111mm x 36.9mm)

  Weight

  1.49 pounds (678 grams)

  Chipset

  AMD Ryzen Z1 Extreme Processor (8 cores/16 threads, up to 5.10 GHz boost)

  RAM

  24GB LPDDR5 7500 MHz

  Storage

  1 TB M.2 2280 NVMe PCIe G4x4 SSD

  Wireless Connectivity

  Wi-Fi 6E & Bluetooth 5.2

  The upgraded Asus ROG Ally X brings some welcome improvements to the original PC gaming handheld. It features a sleek redesigned chassis, faster RAM, more base storage, a much bigger battery, and improved joysticks over the first-gen ROG Ally. It also has a nice 120Hz 1080p display with AMD FreeSync Premium for smooth gaming.

  $800 at Best Buy $800 at Asus

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• Good alternative

  

  Asus ROG Ally

  Dimensions

  11.02 x 4.37 x 0.83-1.28 inches (280 x 111 x 21.2-32.4mm)

  Brand

  Asus

  Weight

  1.34 pounds (608 grams)

  Chipset

  Up to AMD Ryzen Z1 Extreme (8 cores, 16 threads)

  RAM

  16GB LPDDR5

  Storage

  Up to 512GB SSD

  The Asus ROG Ally is a handheld gaming PC that's seeking to be a major rival to Valve's Steam Deck. It runs on Windows and comes with AMD Ryzen Z1 processors. It also has a sharp Full HD display and a 120Hz refresh rate.

  $500 at Best Buy (Ryzen Z1) $650 at Best Buy (Ryzen Z1 Extreme) $650 at Asus

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