Sweary peripheral experts Dbrand sent me the Asus ROG Xbox Ally/Xbox Ally X version of their Project Killswitch case yesterday. I squeezed my Xbox Ally X into it. It was great. Sturdy. Form-fitting. Protective and grip-enhancing in one. Everything that makes the original Killswitch one of the best Steam Deck accessories, wrapped snugly around 800 quid of Windows handheld.
It also annoys me, a little bit. Not the skin and cover themselves. More the fact that it’s so important that they exist, as neither ROG Xbox Ally models – costly as they can be – bother to include a carrying case in the box. Nor does the original Ally and Ally X, or the Zotac Zone, or the MSI Claw 8 AI+, or the Lenovo Legion Go and Legion Go S. Give me a case, you plastic jerks. Give it!
I feel quite strongly that we should start demanding cases, even simple sleeves, to come nestled in the boxes of any future handheld PCs. Their continued absence has long felt like a dereliction of hardware-producing duty on the part of device makers, because unlike thumbstick grips or mountable power banks or those stickers that make it look like the circuitry is falling out, cases are neither a supplementary aid nor an aesthetic personalisation. They’s integral to what portable PCs are, and what they need to be: portable.
Granted, it’s not like any of them will fit in your pocket. But eventually, anyone who owns a handheld will rightly want to take it further afield than their khazi, and physically grasping it for the entire excursion is asking for trouble. That means a bag, which means a case. No case? Unless you fancy wrapping your expensive games machine in a T-shirt (which I may have done once), it’s not safely going anywhere. And at that point, never mind questions of whether the included accessories are stingy – you’ve paid for mobility that you can’t even take advantage of.
It also reflects poorly on Asus, Lenovo et al. that the only major handhelds that get this right, the Steam Deck and Steam Deck OLED, are two of the most affordable. Yet you still get a perfectly serviceable hard case with the even the most basic Deck, while the Deck OLED is bundled with a genuinely excellent dual-purpose case that can either be packed as a slim, almost sleeve-like vessel or contained within another, larger case for doubled protection. Luxury alternatives like the Killswitch can still make sense as upgrades, especially if you want to absolutely minimise bulk, but either way it only ever needs to be an option. With the ROG Xbox Ally and its peers, that luxury – or at least, something like it – is a necessity, which only makes it more galling when owners need to foot a separate bill.
Honestly, I’d take a big sock. A glorified oven mitt. Anything, in the box, that would let handhelds do what they were made to do – not just Velcro straps for the power cable or pointless, portless stands made out of cardboard and disappointment.
