Have you ever sat in a massage chair and received a deep, intense tissue massage while playing a handheld? Thanks to the Xbox booth at PAX 2025, you can now say that. Whether it was to reassure people about the Xbox Game Pass price increase or just a gesture of goodwill, the Xbox booth was packed with all the ways you can play on Xbox without needing an Xbox-branded console.
The big ticket item was the ROG Xbox Ally X. This is a new portable console branded Lenovo Legion, essentially a Legion Go 2 brand with Xbox buttons and haptic triggers native to the console.
It’s super lightweight and feels much lighter than the original Lenovo Legion Go console. I was able to play a few rounds of Forza Horizon 5 while getting a much-needed intensive PAX massage on my shoulders and back.
The console itself features a 7-inch display with a 1080p 120Hz FHD display and is finished in Corning Gorilla Glass Victus. On the console itself, you can use the typical Xbox ABXY button configuration, and the Xbox button provides instant access to the Game Bar. In addition to this, you can use customizable widgets to really make ROG Xbox Ally X your own.
At 715g, the ROG Xbox Ally X feels perfectly balanced in your hand. There wasn’t any noticeable heat coming from the handheld unit itself, which was the complete opposite of the Lenovo Legion First Generation. Forza Horizon 5 runs like a dream, the gameplay is so smooth I couldn’t believe how well the controls handle racing on this device.
It was amazing that a graphics-intensive game like Forza could run and look great on a handheld device. I can’t wait to use the ROG Xbox Ally X more and see how the rest of my Xbox library performs on it.
Thank you to Xbox for inviting us to their booth and giving us the opportunity to experience the ROG Xbox Ally X firsthand.
