THIS WAS BEFORE THE PRICE HIKE MADNESS FROM THE LENOVO SIDE, WHEN IT WAS STILL SOMEWHAT COMPARABLE.
RE-post with zero AI editing, as redditors resonate better with walls of text apparently, like u/SneakyDeakyJr! Cheers!
TLDR: I've decided on keeping the Xbox ROG Ally X because of very important HANDHELD factors like comfort/ergonomics and battery. Both of them bought brand new from Best Buy in Canada. Pricing as of this writing; Legion Go S: ~1270 CAD , XBOX ROG ALLY X: ~1750CAD (tax in). I'm a 5"10 guy which means I have pretty average sized hands. So keep these stats in mind while reading this review.
Legion Go S
Pros; I would say this device's screen is the main selling point. It looks awesome and is more immersive, I'll give it that. The comfort grips on the side are more than enough to not hurt your hands or feel restrictive in any way. The addition of having triggers that can actuate deeper or shallower is a nice feature and I actually much preferred using it with the shallow mode. SteamOS is a definite win on this device. and it is, in my opinion, objectively a better experience for handheld gaming in general over Windows 11, period. It LOOKS and FEELS nice to hold. Performance was pretty good. Not much to say here, still rocking a Good chip with the Z1E.
Cons; The battery life is definitely rough. I'm reading some reviews online saying that the Z1E chip doesn't help because it’s less efficient, but with the smaller battery size it's definitely felt. And even though for the most part I game at home, more than once I would finish a ~two hour session and have 10% left. Whilst running only pretty old games like Halo Master Chief Collection and Fable Anniversary. So you canimagine any modern AAA title would probably last you an hour, maybe. Keep in mind I ran these games at a 1440x900p resolution, not even native 1980x1200. Feeling the need to be tethered to a wall even at home was honestly pretty underwhelming, and I can't even imagine on the go.
ROG XBOX ALLY X
Pros; Comfort, ergonomics, and battery. Definitely top things you will notice the difference of. And although the Legion Go is a comfortable device, this one takes the cake pretty easily. When playing on a handheld device I've found that comfort and ergonomics are no joke. They really matter. Keep in mind my average sized hands. I just literally play better on this device because of the way the layout is and how it fits my hands. Battery is at least twice as good because of the chip inside being more power efficient and the fact it is almost twice as big.
Cons; The screen. Yep, you knew it was coming. The screen is smaller for sure. But do not let that dissuade you from at least giving it a try in store or something. I found that once I actually got gaming and stopped thinking about the screen, it didn't matter as much as I initially thought. Win11- Yes, it is a doozy. Overall I'd say a worse experience than SteamOS, but this con is honestly very easily circumvented if you're a little tech savvy. Either you deal with it and optimize your machine once, takes about one or two hours max, and then you never interact with the Windows system again and get gaming. OR - you completely wipe it and just install SteamOS on it, now that Valve has supported it officially. I feel like if I don't use the Xbox features at all, like Game Pass and whatnot, in the future (All of my games live on Steam, pretty much), Then I would hands down wipe thisWin11 and install SteamOS on it.
But when it really came down to it and I sat down and started gaming, the overall package the ROG Xbox ally X offered was just, in my opinion, superior. It is the device I feel like will last me for the next few years to come. Just thought I'd try to help some of you out, reading a bunch of reviews for a long time just like I did before actually trying them both. I know this is very subjective, but these were my thoughts and I hope they helped you make your decision.