The Asus ROG Ally X is the best a Windows gaming handheld has ever been. It’s got the most comfortable grip, the smoothest gameplay, and the longest-lasting battery — three of the elements that make a PC gaming experience truly portable for me.
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Asus ROG Ally X review: the best Windows gaming handheld by a mile
/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/25542982/247200_Asus_ROG_Ally_X_Review_LEDE_DSC02347_SHOLLISTER.jpg?ssl=1 "Asus ROG Ally X review: the best Windows gaming handheld by a mile")
Most of this is no surprise: It’s smooth because Asus makes the only handheld that pairs AMD’s powerful Ryzen chips with a variable refresh rate screen, which better syncs up with your game. It’s got longer battery life because Asus now stuffs an 80-watt-hour pack in there, the biggest we’ve seen in a handheld to date. The battery’s so big, you can keep that AMD chip humming at higher power levels for higher framerates.
But what might surprise you is this: the Ally X is the first handheld I can recommend alongside my gold standard for handhelds: the Steam Deck OLED. That is, if you’ve got a few extra bills burning a hole in your pocket, don’t mind wrestling with Windows, and trust that Asus has actually learned its customer support lesson.
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My ROG Ally X review unit arrived just before I went on vacation — the perfect opportunity to test its massive 80Wh battery. As of today, I’ve spent more than 24 hours playing actual games on the Ally X.
At first, the battery life didn’t seem like anything special. When I navigated the Japanese high school demon drama of Persona 3 Reload at maximum brightness in the car and on the beach, I got 2.5 hours per charge. That’s not enough to last the drive from Northern California to Southern California, at least not without an external battery. I did get an entire additional hour in Dave the Diver compared to the Lenovo Legion Go, but my total runtime of 3 hours, 19 minutes still paled in comparison to the Steam Deck OLED’s total of 4 hours, 42 minutes.
But when I fired up more demanding games, the Ally X pulled far ahead. I got nearly an entire extra hour of Armored Core 6 (2h59m) and an extra half-hour of Shadow of the Tomb Raider (2h41m) at 720p and medium spec, using the Ally X’s default power mode. That’s the best I’ve seen handheld for games that intensive!
1/25
Then, I played two full hours of one of the most demanding PC games currently in existence: Alan Wake II.
Technically, the ROG Ally X is the first handheld that even begins to meet Alan Wake II’s system requirements. It wants 16GB of system memory and 6GB of VRAM, and it’ll throw errors at launch if you’re short; on the original ROG Ally and Steam Deck OLED, which have to share 16GB between system memory and GPU, the game is a choppy mess.
But the ROG Ally X has a full 24GB of shared memory, and it shows! At a 540p render resolution, upscaled to 1080p with AMD’s FSR 2.1 tech, I could actually delve through the game’s lush, eerie forest without wanting to throw my handheld against the wall. The game did dip as low as 29fps in combat, but I saw a smooth 35–45fps just running around.
It felt playable enough that I finally sat down and beat the game on Ally X — and I had enough battery to do so for two full hours using the Ally X’s 25W “Turbo” mode.
As you can see in my comparison screenshots, the game’s only running 5fps faster on the Ally X when Saga’s standing still over this corpse. But when we’re playing a game that would dip below a smooth 30fps if not for that boost — on a handheld with VRR and Low Framerate Compensation that works right down to 30fps — it makes all the difference in the world.
In game after game, benchmark after benchmark, the Ally X produces the smoothest gameplay I’ve seen from any handheld, even in the valleys and caves of Shadow of the Tomb Raider where the Legion Go technically produces more frames per second. That’s because Asus’ screen is dynamically working to smooth things out. (Even the Steam Deck OLED’s brighter, more colorful, and faster-responding OLED panel can’t match it there.)
Speaking of benchmarks, Alan Wake II isn’t the only game where the Ally X pulls ahead. Despite having the same AMD Ryzen Z1 Extreme chip as the original ROG Ally, the faster memory, more efficient cooling, and power tweaks make their mark.
Tested at 720p low, save Dirt Rally at 720p ultra. Ally X tested with 15W custom TDP, 17W “Performance”, 25W “Turbo”, and 30W “Turbo” AC modes.
While you should note that the Ally X now defaults to a new 17W “Performance” mode rather than 15W, I’m getting better numbers in almost every game with the newer handheld, regardless of wattage.
See how Returnal is now hitting 38fps in my 720p benchmark in the 25W “Turbo” mode, up from 33 with the original Ally? Like Alan Wake II, I bet that means it’s finally enjoyable on a handheld.
But again, power is only half the performance story. A year ago, the original ROG Ally drained its 40-watt-hour battery pack at 40–50 watts in Turbo mode, meaning you’d get less than an hour of gameplay if you ran the Ally that fast away from a charger. With the Ally X, I’m draining an 80-watt-hour battery pack at 33–40 watts in Turbo mode, generally giving me two full hours in a worst-case scenario.
I’m not even seeing any slowdown as the battery reaches empty — it’s good all the way down to the 3 percent mark, when it puts itself in hibernation, and I can begin playing again at full speed almost as soon as I plug into the wall.
Even configured to its lowest wattage of 7W TDP, the Ally X isn’t as power-hungry as the original. Balatro gave me over eight hours of magic roguelike poker at 50 percent brightness, by draining under 10 watts the whole time. So far, my best result was total battery drain of 7 watts in Slay the Spire, down from 9 watts with the OG Ally. At that rate, the Ally X should be able to play for 10 entire hours before shutting down.
I’m not going to rehash everything I already told you about the ROG Ally X in my early hands-on — there are so many substantive little changes they deserve their own story, and I’ve already written that one. But I suspect you may have three distinct questions that deserve answers here:
- How are the revised ergonomics and other physical changes?
- Can Windows really be so bad that you’d choose a Steam Deck with worse performance?
- Why trust Asus when it dodged our SD card reader defect questions and its customer support reputation is in the toilet?
I find the ROG Ally X so much more comfortable to hold than the original, despite its additional weight. The meatier grips, triggers, and pebble-shaped omnidirectional back buttons no longer have any protrusions to get in the way. The joysticks and bumpers feel tighter and more premium, the face buttons have a deeper (though noisier) throw, and the D-pad has gone from meh to quite decent — though I am already getting an annoying squeaky sound when I press the down arrow. The fan is also genuinely quiet, not that it was an issue with the original.
It’s also nice to have twin USB-C ports for charging and peripherals, even if I haven’t yet been able to hook up a Thunderbolt eGPU (Asus tells me there’s a driver issue with AMD eGPUs at the moment).
But I vastly prefer the Steam Deck’s symmetrical analog sticks, which always lie right under where my thumb naturally lands, instead of the Ally’s offset right analog stick that makes me uncomfortably shift my grip. I miss the larger screen I get on other handhelds and their less cramped 16:10 aspect ratio.
And I cannot stand that Windows still cannot reliably make a gaming handheld Go the Fuck to Sleep and reliably wake up again. The Nintendo Switch does it perfectly, and the Steam Deck does it nearly perfectly, but I couldn’t keep track of the number of times Windows decided it could no longer recognize my fingerprint on the sensor or black-screened my game, or the Ally X simply woke up again the moment I set it down, or Asus’ Armoury Crate settings app simply forgot my choices (like whether to turn on my joysticks’ RGB lights) on wake.
I’m happy to say that Armoury Crate has actually improved tremendously over the past year — the game launcher now intelligently sorts my games, lets me easily map buttons and gyro controls for fine aiming, and seamlessly downloads updates (including BIOS updates) without navigating to a website or separate app.
But it’s nothing compared to the ease of use of SteamOS and its compatibility with generations of older PC games thanks to community support — and Windows itself is more of a pig than ever. I spent nearly 45 minutes waiting for mandatory updates and clicking through unwanted offers for various Microsoft products before I could use the Ally X for the first time.
Did I get a joystick-navigable virtual keyboard or PIN screen or a pre-mapped Alt-Enter shortcut for my trouble? Nope — instead, Asus added a Copilot shortcut, there’s a copy of Outlook sitting on my taskbar, and OneDrive is on by default. The only mercy is that Microsoft Teams doesn’t launch on startup this time.
As far as the whole SD card situation, Asus has only told me that it’s not the same reader as the old one that it won’t admit has an issue — it’s the one it uses on laptops. That’s somewhat reassuring, I guess. I haven’t yet had issues playing games from SD after a week of play, in case you’re wondering.
The ROG Ally X doesn’t check all the boxes I personally need in a handheld. The one-two punch of performance and battery life is tempting, but not tempting enough to steer me away from a $549 or $649 Steam Deck OLED that will play my legacy library of Steam games more easily, then reliably go to sleep when I want to put it away. The customer support controversy is just one more reason to hesitate.
But if you must have Windows or play the latest games on the go, the Ally X is the best Windows handheld yet. I hope it normalizes bigger batteries and VRR screens, and I hope Asus will seriously consider a SteamOS version, too. I hope to test it with Bazzite, an unofficial SteamOS clone, later this year.
Photography by Sean Hollister / The Verge
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Bluesky will be getting “communities,” which will function as smaller spaces where you can “go deeper and hang out with people who care about the same stuff” sometime this year, according to head of product Alex Benzer. They will be built on the decentralized AT Protocol that underpins Bluesky, with Benzer saying that “it’s a new structure for everyone” that’s part of the “Atmosphere” (a shorthand for the AT Protocol ecosystem).
Benzer listed out a “few ideas we have in mind so far” in a thread. “On Bluesky, you’ll be able to create communities, join them, post in them, and get updates,” Benzer says. “The core features on Bluesky stay simple. The magic comes from communities also existing on the open web. This means you can truly customize them and add features with other Atmospheric apps and tools.”
Communities will get a handle that “doubles as a URL,” and if you go to that URL, you’ll “land on a custom homepage for the community,” according to Benzer. “Builders can also host a completely custom experience there instead.” There will be three privacy levels for communities: public, invite-only, and private. And each community would have its own feed, Benzer says.
Benzer’s thread follows Bluesky COO Rose Wang saying last week that the company wanted to move away from being a “public square” and that it was “very inspired by companies like Reddit.” Meta’s Threads is currently testing a communities feature, while X announced in April that it would be shutting down its own take on communities.
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Amazon is getting ready for Prime Day, and you can bet scammers are, too. In fact, I received a fake Amazon email that looked like an account recovery warning. It claimed there was unusual activity on my account and pushed me to “Sign In to Verify.”
That kind of message can make anyone uneasy. It certainly did for me. After all, who wants to lose access to an account right before a major sale? Then came the part that really stood out: the email said I might need to upload a document to confirm my account.
That was the giveaway. A real deal can save you money. A fake Amazon email can cost you your login, your payment details and even your identity.
Here’s how this scam works, the red flags that exposed it and the steps you should take before clicking any Amazon account warning.
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A fake Amazon account recovery email is targeting shoppers ahead of Prime Day, using urgency and document requests to steal sensitive information. (Photographer: David Paul Morris/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
Fake Amazon email warning before Prime Day
The timing made this phishing email more convincing. With Prime Day coming up, many people are already watching for Amazon emails. They may be checking delivery updates, deal alerts and order confirmations. That creates the perfect opening for a fake account warning.
The email used the same tricks you see in many phishing scams. It claimed there was account trouble, used urgent language and pushed me toward a sign-in button. That is exactly what scammers want.
Screenshot of scam fake Amazon email (Kurt “CyberGuy” Knutsson)
They want you to react before you inspect the message. They want you to sign in before you think through the request. And in this case, they wanted me to believe a document upload was part of a normal Amazon account check.
Amazon phishing scam red flags
This fake Amazon email had several warning signs. First, it landed in my junk folder. That alone does not prove fraud, but it should make you cautious.
Second, the subject line sounded awkward. It said, “Account Recovery: Sign-in and Verify your Amazon account.” That wording felt stiff and a little off.
Third, the greeting was generic. The email said “Dear Customer” even though it claimed to be about my Amazon account. That alone does not prove the email is fake, but it adds to the concern.
Fourth, the message created urgency. It claimed the account was on hold and that orders or subscriptions had already been canceled.
Fifth, the sender display name said “Amazon,” while the address appeared as account_update@amazon.com. That may look official at first. Still, scammers can spoof sender names or make email addresses look convincing.
Under the yellow “Sign In to Verify” button, the email also says, “Don’t share it with others.” That may sound protective, but in this context, it felt like another attempt to make the fake warning seem official.
The biggest warning sign came from the document request. The email said I would have the option to upload a document with the required information to verify the account.
That should stop you cold. Scammers may be after more than your Amazon password. They may also want your driver’s license, passport, address, phone number or payment details.
Screenshot of fake Amazon email sender address (Kurt “CyberGuy” Knutsson)
Why fake Amazon account emails fool shoppers
This scam works because it hits a very real fear. Most people do not want to lose access to an online shopping account. That concern grows when a big sale is about to start. If you are planning to buy something on Prime Day, an account warning can feel urgent.
The email also borrowed Amazon’s familiar look. It used the Amazon name, a logo area and a yellow sign-in button. It also included a footer that appeared to show an Amazon.com link. That can make the message feel safer than it really is.
Here is the problem. The visible link text in an email can mislead you. A link can appear to point to Amazon while sending you somewhere else. It can also pass through tracking links, redirects or look-alike pages. That is why you should avoid signing in through any account warning email.
120,000 FAKE SITES FUEL AMAZON PRIME DAY SCAMS
Scammers are impersonating Amazon with convincing account alerts designed to capture login credentials, payment details and personal documents. (Photographer: Michael Nagle/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
What happens if you click a fake Amazon link
If you click the link, you may land on a fake Amazon sign-in page. It may look close enough to fool you. Once you enter your email and password, scammers can try to access your real Amazon account. They may check your saved payment methods, shipping addresses and order history.
They may also try that same password on other websites. That becomes a bigger risk if you reuse passwords.
The document request adds another layer of danger. If a fake page asks for your ID, scammers could use that information for identity theft, account takeovers or other fraud. That is why one quick click can turn into a much bigger mess.
Ways to stay safe from fake Amazon emails
A fake Amazon email can look convincing at first, so the best move is to slow down and use these simple checks before you click, sign in or share anything.
1) Do not click the sign-in button
Skip buttons like “Sign In to Verify,” “View details” or “Restore access.” Open the Amazon app or type Amazon.com into your browser yourself.
2) Check Amazon’s Message Center
After signing in directly, go to Your Account > Message Center. If the alert is real, you should see a matching message there.
3) Watch for pressure language
Scammers often say your account is locked, your orders were canceled, or you must act right away. That pressure is designed to make you click before thinking.
4) Never upload ID through an email link
If an email asks for a passport, driver’s license or other document, stop. Contact Amazon through the app or website before sending anything.
5) Use a password manager
A password manager can help you spot fake login pages. If the page is fake, your saved Amazon password usually will not autofill. Check out the best expert-reviewed password managers of 2026 at CyberGuy.com.
6) Turn on two-step verification
7) Use strong antivirus software
Install strong antivirus software on your computer, phone and tablet. Good security software can help detect malicious links, phishing pages, malware and other threats before they do damage. This is especially important if you clicked a suspicious link or downloaded anything from a fake email. Security software should back up your smart habits, not replace them. Get my picks for the best 2026 antivirus protection winners for your Windows, Mac, Android and iOS devices at CyberGuy.com.
8) Use a data removal service
Scammers often build more convincing attacks with information they find about you online. That can include your name, address, phone number, relatives, old usernames and other personal details from people-search sites and data brokers. A data removal service can help remove your personal information from many of those sites. That makes it harder for scammers to personalize phishing emails and identity theft attempts. Check out my top picks for data removal services and get a free scan to find out if your personal information is already out on the web by visiting CyberGuy.com.
9) Report the suspicious email
Forward suspicious Amazon emails to reportascam@amazon.com. Then delete the message from your inbox or junk folder.
JANUARY SCAMS SURGE: WHY FRAUD SPIKES AT THE START OF THE YEAR
Cybersecurity experts warn consumers to avoid clicking links in Amazon account warning emails and verify alerts directly through Amazon. (David Paul Morris/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
Kurt’s key takeaways
Prime Day is a great time to find real deals, but it is also a busy season for fake Amazon emails. Scammers know shoppers are checking delivery updates, watching for discounts and hoping nothing gets in the way of a good buy. That is what made this email so sneaky. It used a familiar fear at the perfect moment: losing access to your account right before a major sale. The safest move is to slow down before you click. Do not trust the button. Do not trust the sender name alone. Open the Amazon app or type Amazon.com into your browser and check your account yourself.
Have you ever received an email that looked official enough to make you click, and what finally made you stop? Let us know by writing to us at CyberGuy.com.
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HOW TO DETECT FAKE AMAZON EMAILS AND AVOID IMPERSONATION SCAMS
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Anthropic just released Claude Fable 5, calling it the most powerful AI model it has ever made widely available and praising its skills in biology, among others. But the model won’t answer basic biology questions — the kind you’d expect a high schooler to handle. Instead, it hands off the query to the former flagship model, Claude Opus 4.8.
It isn’t because Fable doesn’t know the answers. It’s because Anthropic won’t let it, by design.
Fable is a public-facing, Mythos-class model, a family so capable at cybersecurity tasks Anthropic said it was too dangerous to release publicly. But while Anthropic has spent much of the extended Mythos rollout warning about cybersecurity, it is biology where Fable’s guardrails are the most obvious — and most limiting.
When I tried the model, it refused to answer a range of basic biology questions, many that felt about as far away from any plausible safety risk as any question could be. It would not respond to “tell me about cell membranes” or answer “what are mitochondria,” that famous powerhouse of the cell. It refused to explain “what is a prion,” the proteinaceous particles behind mad cow disease, or “how mRNA vaccines work.”
“We made this tradeoff so customers could benefit from the model’s capabilities sooner without the risks.”
The restrictions applied to ordinary and objectively rather harmless medical queries too. Fable would not answer “what causes hay fever,” explain how asthma medicine works, explain how antibiotic resistance arises, or tell me what Ebola is and how it spreads. Some of my basic queries occasionally got through, with Fable answering questions like “what is cancer” and “what is DNA.” When Fable refused, Opus 4.8 generally answered perfectly well.
Anthropic says the broad biology filters are an intentional choice and are deliberately conservative, with bioweapons the primary concern. “With the launch of Claude Fable 5, our first Mythos-class model, we believe models now have a greater ability to accomplish real-world scientific tasks and for malicious actors to potentially use our models for highly risky biological research,” spokesperson Paruul Maheshwary told The Verge. “We have always used classifiers to block our models from helping with bioweapons-related requests. To deploy Fable 5 safely, we believe it was necessary to be overly conservative with our safeguards so they block most queries tied to biology work.”
Anthropic has previously highlighted four key areas where it would throttle Fable’s responses for safety: chemistry, biology, cybersecurity, and distillation, a technique for training smaller AIs using the outputs of larger ones. The company has accused Chinese rivals like DeepSeek of using distillation on its models on an “industrial” scale.
While I could not meaningfully test distillation, Fable seemed more willing to answer questions about chemistry and cybersecurity. For example, it gave a basic overview of the explosive TNT, though withheld synthesis instructions “for obvious reasons.” It readily answered questions on the use of chlorine gas as a chemical weapon, common password threats, and nuclear fusion and fission, as well as explaining how to secure an iPhone from hackers. It still limits: Fable deferred to Opus when I asked it about sarin gas, a highly toxic nerve agent. Fable and Opus both refused the prompt “how to make anthrax,” and Claude paused the chat entirely. That made sense. The mitochondria prompt refusal seems like a false positive.
“We made this tradeoff so customers could benefit from the model’s capabilities sooner without the risks,” Maheshwary explained, adding that Anthropic is working hard to improve its detection and reduce the false positives. “We intend to make Mythos-class models available without these safeguards to the broader biology and life sciences community so these capabilities can be used to accelerate biomedical research and drug discovery.”
Anthropic did not answer questions about whether this kind of restricted release will become the new norm for future models.
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