Microsoft's new Xbox full-screen experience does not improve the gaming performance
Gaming handhelds are getting more popular, but they also show that Windows 11 is very hard to use with a touchscreen. Setting up your new Windows handheld can be a painful process on the small screen and you will probably be quite frustrated before you can actually start playing games. The ideal solution so far was attaching the handheld to an external screen with USB-C power supply and connected input devices, so you could simply set it up like a regular PC and not use the touchscreen at all.
Microsoft acknowledges this issue and cooperated closely with Asus to launch the new Xbox full-screen experience that we tested during our review of the new ROG Xbox Ally X handheld. The handheld will automatically launch into the Xbox app (or Asus' Armoury Crate SE as an alternative) and it was optimized for the handheld controls. It is now also possible to install other game launchers (like Steam, Ubisoft, EA, GoG, Epic, etc.) directly from the Xbox full-screen mode. The corresponding games will be shown in the Xbox app as well and can be launched from here.
In general, the new Xbox full-screen mode is a success and improves the handling, but it is still "just" a new mode, which is still sitting on top of the familiar Windows operating system. Unnecessary background services are deactivated, but this is already done by the familiar Game Mode as well. We did not notice any performance advantages for the new Xbox full-screen mode, either.
The new Xbox full-screen experience is definitely a step in the right direction. It can also be handy to switch to the desktop mode and use all the features of Windows. However, we are not sure that many users will actually do that. For the future, we would like to see more optimizations for the Xbox full-screen mode, so it is not just another layer on top of Windows. It will not be an issue if you have to restart the device if you want to use the full desktop mode, for example.
This could also improve the gaming performance, which should be the main focus. In our review of the Lenovo Legion Go S, we noticed a significant performance advantage between the Windows and SteamOS version. SteamOS managed to get much more out of the AMD Ryzen Z2 Go (between 30-35 %), which is a significant difference. You can obviously install SteamOS (available for the Ally X) or Bazzite as well, but this will limit the game selection.
Please see our review of the new Asus ROG Xbox Ally X for more information on the new Xbox full-screen mode.
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