Microsoft is doing something interesting by making its stake in the burgeoning handheld PC market, by making one of their own, sort of. The ROG Xbox Ally and ROG Xbox Ally X is a collab between Asus ROG and Xbox that isn’t just another yearly refresh: there’s new software made just for these two devices (which will later roll out to other Windows 11-based handheld PCs) in the form of the Xbox Full Screen Experience. Xbox FSE, for short.
This feature stems from the one drawback of playing games on Windows 11: it’s bloated. So many apps and background tasks are run when you have the full desktop experience that it takes away resources from your PC that could’ve been used to run games better. And with handheld PCs, such resources are precious. So what if a Windows 11 handheld PC can boot up with a stripped down version of Windows so that it can feel like a console?
It’s a good idea, but as it is right now after a week using an ROG Xbox Ally, I reckon it’s still not good enough.
So here’s the standards that we should set. The platonic ideal of a handheld PC is that it works seamlessly like a console. Getting to your games should be quick. Managing your storage shouldn’t be a hassle. Fluid and slick UI that works with just the controller, all laid out in an intuitive manner. All the features you need is there, presented well, and easy to get to. No lag on button inputs.
In a lot ways, the Xbox FSE is sort of there. The Xbox App (which looks like your regular old Xbox PC app, rather than, you know, looking like a Xbox console UI) can be operated entirely with the embedded controller on the Ally. Button presses feel snappy (usually). You can go browse your games library or browse the Xbox Store (or is it Microsoft Store since it’s on Windows? This company and their naming schemes) with relative ease. There’s a search bar at all times, though I find it annoying that should you accidentally highlight it (which you will do on the regular) half the screen is then filled with game suggestions, blocking vision. A challenge to new handheld PC players not to trigger the search bar’s suggestion.
But the Xbox App doesn’t host all the features and settings you need to adjust and tinker with, like how a console UI would have. Settings, your storage of media captured when gaming and many other features have to be accessed via the Xbox Game Bar rather than on the Xbox App itself. Sure, it’s accessible easily with the Xbox home button on the device, but it’s still not part of the same unified UI. And it does makes sense having them be agnostic, as the features on Xbox Game Bar can work on other PC game launchers, and the Xbox App the device defaults to happens to just be another PC game launcher.
The Game Bar can be customised (including the ability to remove the Copilot tab), and it does have volume, brightness, Wifi and Bluetooth settings accessible from there. But most of the settings you need to tinker with, including Storage and Display, will require you to go into Windows 11’s Settings app, which isn’t fully built with controller inputs in mind.
The Windows 11 login screen can be set with a PIN number which can entered using controller input, where each of the nine numbers are assigned to button on the controller with button glyphs appearing. However, logging in can still have friction. You wake up the device, press any button to go the insert PIN Number screen, but then you have to press A to highlight the text box and then input your PIN. It’s one button press too many. Plus, the login screen can look wonky at times, the profile picture and text box not properly centered. Since this is the login screen, you don’t have access to the Game Bar, which you might need if you want to change your input style. The ROG Xbox Ally allows you to switch from gamepad inputs to desktop inputs, in which the controller mimics the controls of a mouse and keyboard setup. If you didn’t lock the screen while in gamepad controls, Windows doesn’t allow you to change that at the login screen, so you have to punch in the numbers through the touchscreen.
On the same topic, any textbox highlighted isn’t centered or focused when the virtual keyboard appears, which usually means you have to type what you need to type blind, as the keyboard obscures the textbox. Logging in to other PC launchers is a lot more work than expected. The virtual keyboard can’t handle Epic Game Store’s 2FA verification code where you have to input the digits in seperate text boxes, for example.
These are minor niggles, but the fact that these little things do impact and disrupt the supposed console-like experience.
On another topic of Windows 11 quirks that prevents a console-like experience, booting games up. Games on the Xbox App (i.e. UWP games, native Microsoft Store Apps) will just boot up normally. But if you install and play games on another launcher, sometimes it needs to install something (which then pops the User Account Control prompt where you must allow the processes to happen), or boot up a seperate launcher before the game boots up proper. On Windows 11 PCs, you can at least know that something in the background popped up as you see the a new item on the taskbar appear and glowing. With the Xbox FSE, you have no feedback whatsoever. Sometimes, it even changes to a previous screen as in booting up a Steam game and suddenly the device brings back the Xbox App screen for some reason. You have to hold the Xbox button/swipe up from the bottom of the screen to bring up the Task Switcher (something like you see on your mobile devices) and check to see the game you launched is somewhere in this gallery.
There’s also a weird quirk to the Xbox FSE: you can boot up the desktop which more or less makes you exit Xbox FSE. But to go back to Xbox FSE, you need to reboot the device. To be fair, rebooting only takes less than a minute, but it’s silly that Windows can unclaw its bloat from just ending tasks so it requires you to reboot so that you can be back in an environment where those processes never got started. You also can’t really tell much of a difference between Xbox FSE or a normal Windows environment other than you don’t have access to the Windows 11 desktop in Xbox FSE. The only tangible improvement is how things don’t feel bogged down. Not to say the Xbox FSE is buttery smooth all around. The boot up sequence is quick, but it still takes a few extra seconds before the Xbox App, Game Bar and other apps to really load up and be functional despite being able to control the UI way before that, ensuring you still can get a stuttering UI experience if you’re impatient enough to give the device a few hot seconds to properly load. One would argue that you shouldn’t be able to control the UI until all the processes are properly loaded up and ready to go. That’s just Windows 11. It’s not robust. Sometimes, I booted up with the Armoury Crate SE App, ROG’s dedicated app for their set of settings, don’t load up properly, or the RGB on the controller not functioning. It could be a driver issue, but that’s just Windows 11 if you ask me.
And my last note on this is the drivers and software. On a console, simply updating firmware is a streamlined process. But to get the ROG Xbox Ally all updated I have to go to the Windows Settings to access Windows Updates, as well as on the Microsoft Store to update the Xbox App, and then to Armoury Crate SE for the BIOS, MCU and graphics drivers. All of these are seperate places that you might stumble from clicking a prompt that says there are new drivers available, somewhere. It’s nice that you’re one click away to find these when the devices says you should take a look at. But finding them yourselves is extra workload that only PC gamers would love.
If the goal for the Xbox Full Screen Experience is to provide a console-like experience, then that means it’s not doing a good enough job to get there. But it is on the right path.
Having Windows 11 basically running in its bare minimum while the Xbox App takes charge is the right idea, but the execution still leaves much room for improvement.
As it is right now about a few weeks after the launch of the ROG Xbox Ally and ROG Xbox Ally X, it’s safe to say that these two fantastic handheld PCs are the guinea pigs for future Windows 11 handheld PCs (and even the next-gen Xbox, which is reported to be Windows-based but will play Xbox console games as well as native PC games unlike the Xbox Allys, which are purely Windows PC devices despite the Xbox name).
Xbox Full Screen Experience: What Needs To Be Improved?
If I were to suggest some changes to the Xbox FSE, it would be these:
- Make storage management a prominent feature, baked into the Xbox App
- Have the Xbox App look and feel in line with the Xbox console UX
- Change how Windows 11 notifications work—allow some notifications (i.e. battery life, game installed) to go through the default “do not disturb mode” which disables most Windows 11 notifications. Or, have them pop through Xbox’s notifications
- Have Xbox FSE focus on any User Account Control prompt that appears
- A notification/indication for the Task Switcher that a new “tab/window has opened in the background (so you know that a game might have launched but is not focused)
- A Windows-level feature where you can switch between controller input to mouse-and-keyboard emulation input for controllers, rather than have OEMs do it. Make it a button combination (or a dedicated button) to switch between them
- Percentage indicator for battery life on the Xbox Game Bar overlay
- The ability to disable Xbox Game Bar when pressing the Xbox button should user wants to use other launchers (i.e. Steam Big Picture)
- Search bar on Xbox App should not be navigable with the d-pad when it’s already assigned a face button to highlight it. Also stop showing ads with the suggested games/app blocking most of the screen when you sometimes accidentally highlighted the search bar
- Have more of Windows Settings feature baked into Xbox App
- Have the textbox focused and in view whenever the virtual keyboard appears (which usually blocks the textbox from being in frame
- Have a smaller, more compact virtual keyboard option for controller use (similar to how the PS4/PS5 does it) that don’t take up too much screen space
- A dedicated button/button combo that can pop out the virtual keyboard, rather than having to use the OEM app to summon it should Windows not detect a textbox is being highlighted (which can happen frequently)
- Option to change the Windows arrow mouse cursor to look like a Destiny cursor (i.e. just a circle) without having to navigate into deep menus within Windows
- Ability to view saved image captures from the Xbox Game Bar full screen without opening Windows Explorer (and thus exit Xbox FSE)
It’s a long, but not exhaustive wishlist of changes, but this is to demonstrate how the Xbox Full Screen Experience isn’t living up to its promise just yet.
There is still a lot of work to be done on Microsoft/Xbox’s side to ensure Windows can support seamless and hassle-free console gaming. But should they figured it out, it will be not only a boon for handheld PC gaming, it’s a major win for Xbox. And Xbox desperately need some wins right now.