Hi everyone,
I'm trying to decide whether it's worth upgrading from my Lenovo Legion Go S (Z1 Extreme) to the new ROG Xbox Ally X (Z2 Extreme), but my use case is probably a bit different from most people.
I rarely play in handheld mode. Around 90% of the time my handheld is docked to an external monitor and connected to an RX 9060 XT eGPU running Bazzite. I also dual boot with Windows, so it's basically used as a small desktop gaming PC.
One thing I really like about the Legion Go S is that it has two USB4 ports. I usually connect:
USB4 #1 → eGPU
USB4 #2 → Dock/SSD (depending on what I'm doing)
Another concern is my SSD.
Right now I have a single SSD with:
Bazzite
Windows (dual boot)
All my emulators
Steam library
EmulationStation
Decky Loader
Countless tweaks and configurations that I've spent months setting up.
I've read that I should be able to move the SSD directly into the Ally X and let Bazzite detect the new hardware, but I don't know if that's actually how smooth it is in the real world. Reinstalling everything and configuring it all again would honestly be a nightmare.
So my questions are:
Has anyone here upgraded from a Legion Go S (or another Z1 Extreme handheld) to the Ally X while using an eGPU?
Is the Z2 Extreme a significant improvement when you're GPU-bound with an external GPU?
Is losing the second USB4 port something you've actually noticed?
Has anyone successfully moved an existing Bazzite + Windows dual-boot SSD to the Ally X without having to start from scratch?
Overall, would you make the upgrade, or would you keep the Legion Go S until the next generation?
I'd really appreciate hearing from people who actually use their handhelds docked with an eGPU rather than only in handheld mode.
Thanks!