Asus ROG Strix XG16AHP-W Review: A Portable Gaming Monitor for the iPad Air Price

The Asus ROG Strix XG16 Portable Gaming Monitor – now available in India, a year after its international launch – is built for a very specific purpose. To be fair, its name says as much. Not just once, but twice in fact. ROG, or Republic of Gamers, is the moniker Asus uses — as you might have guessed — for devices that first and foremost cater to a gaming audience. Add to that the other important keyword, “portable”. The Strix XG16 is, essentially, a primary or secondary monitor for gaming on the go. Asus will expect you to pair it with the ROG Laptop and keep it within the family. Of course, you’re free to use it with a Steam deck (basically a PC) or a Nintendo Switch (which I mostly did).

But no matter which route you take, its ergonomics get in the way. There are two ways for the Asus ROG Strix XG16 to stand out—either using the built-in kickstand, or with the help of a fancy, adjustable tripod that’s bundled along. You can do Use any camera tripod thanks to the standardized mount on the back, although it doesn’t make sense since you have a special one in the box. It’s a big decision outside India, where Asus sells two variants: one with a tripod and one without (the technical names are XG16AHP-E and XG16AHP-W respectively). In India, Asus is selling only the latter variant. This means that you are forced to pay for the tripod, even if you don’t care about it.

Asus ROG Strix XG16AHP-W Review: Design and Specs

Whether you use a kickstand or a tripod, the Asus Portable Monitor’s footprint is huge. With a wafer-thin kickstand—it tilts from five to 27.5 degrees—the ROG Strix XG16 never really felt at a steady level. I tried using it in the back seat of the car, but no matter what position I put it in. And even when it doesn’t wobble, it’s nearly impossible to get into ideal viewing conditions. (Since the XG16 has an IPS panel and not OLED, viewing angles aren’t great either.) The top half of either display seems to be too far from the bottom half, as you increase the tilt angle. But at lower tilt angles, the 15.6-inch display feels small, as you need to push it away from yourself to reduce viewing angles.

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Asus ROG Strix XG16 Looks Great on the ROG Tripod
Photo Credit: Akhil Arora/Gadgets360

Tripods have their problems. For one, it is quite heavy. Two, it needs as much space as a large monitor. At my daily work desk, the ROG Strix XG16 tripod took up as much space as the built-in stand for my 24-inch Dell monitor. he’s mad. Because of that, the 15.6-inch display looks comical even on a tripod, especially if you use it on the highest setting. And while most monitors have buttons on the front, the XG16 has them placed at the top of the display. Using them was awkward, especially when I had it on a tripod. In the end, there’s no easy way to take it with you. While you can tuck the display into a neat sleeve provided by Asus, there’s no carrying case for the tripod.

Asus ROG Strix XG16AHP-W Review: Performance

When it comes to the gaming monitor aspects, I have no complaints. The ROG Strix XG16 has a 144Hz refresh rate and Nvidia G-Sync support out-of-the-box. I didn’t have a source it could output to, but I tested 120Hz with my PlayStation 5. With all things 120fps, you can’t feel the jump from 60fps. You definitely feel it going from 30fps to 60fps, but it doesn’t when you double it again. Colors are brilliant – in fact, the Asus is so sure of the XG16’s color accuracy that it includes a very neat calibration report sheet in the box. I like this. The ROG Strix XG16 is fantastically tuned right out of the box, though with a little calibration, you can get it to look even better.

And while the Asus Portable Monitor is certainly bright enough for indoor use—I’ve never let it shine above 50 percent—it’s nowhere near as bright to beat the sun in India. To be fair, most displays are not.

Unfortunately, I can’t say the same about the built-in speakers. They just aren’t loud enough, even when the background sound was the noise of rain across an open window. You’re better off connecting to a pair of headphones. The ROG Strix XG16 surprisingly sports a 3.5mm audio jack, in case you still have a pair of old school earbuds lying around. Either way, I’d love the volume buttons on the Asus monitor itself. It’s a pain to dive through the menus and make adjustments each time, so the over-given buttons are awkwardly placed, like I said earlier.

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With the kickstand unfolded, the Asus ROG Strix XG16 takes up a lot of space
Photo Credit: Akhil Arora/Gadgets360

Since it is built to be used on the go, the ROG Strix XG16 packs a 7,800mAh battery, which Asus claims up to three hours of battery life. I didn’t put it through a stress test – 144Hz output at maximum brightness – however, it has little relevance in the real world. What matters more is how it performs in day to day tasks. While watching full-screen live video at 50 percent brightness, the ROG Strix XG16 lost about a fifth of its battery over a period of 45 minutes. Positioned as a secondary monitor at 30 percent brightness and with just one Slack window, the Asus Monitor’s battery went from full to zero in four hours.

Speaking of using it as a secondary display, I found more use for the ROG Strix XG16 in that department than a gaming display. During work hours, I could take my Tweetdeck tab into it and keep tabs on upcoming news while I wrote in a document or watched a TV show I wanted to review on my primary Dell monitor . Other times, I flicked a Wimbledon or Commonwealth Games stream on the ROG Strix XG16 while I could browse the Internet on the second display. And though I don’t edit video much these days, the Adobe Premiere Pro timeline is certainly easier to manage when you can preview and move a bunch of controls to another screen.

But when used this way the ROG Strix XG16 still doesn’t make for the prettiest setup. The ports have been pushed to the left, due to the built-in kickstand on the back and the fact that the monitor can stand on its own. This means that the wire – you always need one cable for the input, and the other for when the battery needs to be charged – out to the left. I’m not too picky about watching cables at my desk, but it’s still not a good look. I tried to hide the cable by placing the ROG Strix XG16 side-to-side with the second monitor, but the position of the ports meant the wires would hit the second monitor. There is no way around it.

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See how the cable interferes when the Asus ROG Strix XG16 is placed next to another monitor
Photo Credit: Akhil Arora/Gadgets360

Decision

More importantly, as a secondary display at home, Asus’ 15.6-inch full-HD offering is just unnecessarily expensive. The ROG Strix XG16 was launched at an MRP of Rs. 60,999, but Asus told me that the price would eventually drop to Rs. 48,999, and it is now selling at less than, Either way, that’s still crazy money – that’s iPad Air money. If you’re in the market for a secondary monitor, you can get a 24-inch full-HD monitor for a third of the price. If you want a gaming monitor with a 144Hz refresh rate, you can get a 27-inch full-HD option for less than half the price. Of course, none of this will help you move forward, as they always need to be plugged in.

But Asus has put itself in such a position. The ROG Strix XG16 is designed for a very narrow use case. Asus has made it explicitly for gamers, which explains the prominent ROG branding. (There’s also a glowing ROG logo on the back of the monitor.) Even for those who find it useful, how often will this happen? Ask yourself, how often do you want a Nintendo Switch display on the go? How many times have you wanted a secondary display for your laptop on the go? And before you answer those questions in your head, think about the cumbersome and non-ergonomic setup it involves.

I don’t believe there are 48,999 reasons.

The Asus ROG Strix XG16AHP-W was launched in India in late June, and first went on sale in early August. It is currently available through Flipkart,