pre-order the ROG Xbox Ally and Ally X forward of October 16

Microsoft has lastly revealed how a lot the ROG Xbox Ally handheld consoles will value you, now that they are available for preorder. The ROG Xbox Ally X, which the corporate describes because the “final high-performance handheld” that is “constructed for essentially the most demanding gamers,” will set you again $1,000. In the meantime, the ROG Xbox Ally is “for everybody from the informal participant to the avid fanatic.” That mannequin prices a extra palatable $600.

ASUS + Xbox

Microsoft unveiled the devices throughout the Xbox Video games Showcase at Summer time Sport Fest in June, with the promise that they’d be obtainable by this 12 months’s vacation purchasing season. It was revealed a few months later that the consoles will probably be on retailer cabinets by October 16. Nevertheless, they hadn’t introduced their costs till now.

Microsoft teamed up with ASUS’ ROG division to develop the handhelds. They’re powered by Home windows 11 and allows you to play any Xbox sport you have bought, whether or not you acquire it in your console or your pc, in addition to PC video games from any retailer that you simply set up instantly on the system. You should use it to stream Xbox video games out of your console anyplace in your house or from the Xbox Cloud Gaming service. And sure, you’ll proceed the place you left off while you leap from one system to a different. At launch, Xbox will mark 1000’s of video games as Handheld Optimized or Largely Appropriate to point in the event that they play properly on handhelds.

Specs

Digging into their specs accentuates these variations. The ROG Xbox Ally makes use of an AMD Ryzen Z2 A chip, whereas the ROG Xbox Ally X has a extra highly effective AMD Ryzen AI Z2 Excessive. The usual mannequin has 16GB RAM (6,400 MT/s), whereas the premium model has 24GB (8,000 MT/s).

The ROG Xbox Ally has a 512GB SSD; the ROG Xbox Ally X boosts that to 1TB. Nevertheless, they every have a microSD slot that can assist you retailer extra video games. (They usually each use upgrade-friendly M.2 2280 SSDs.)

The premium mannequin has a bigger battery, measuring 80 Wh. The entry-level model has a 60 Wh one. However that does not essentially imply longer battery life. We’ll have to attend for prolonged testing to know that.

Every variant has two USB-C ports, however (once more) you get a higher-end model within the higher-end mannequin. The Xbox ROG Ally consists of two USB 3.2 Gen 2 ports. The Xbox ROG Ally X has one of these, together with a USB 4 Kind-C port. The latter is extra versatile, supporting Thunderbolt 4, DisplayPort 2.1 and eGPUs.

Every mannequin has a seven-inch 1080p, 16:9 show with a 120Hz refresh fee and 500 nits of brightness. They’re anti-reflective, use Corning Gorilla Glass Victus and help FreeSync Premium.

pre-order

The usual ROG Xbox Ally is extra available. Within the US, you’ll be able to pre-order it from Xbox, Microsoft Store, Asus, Amazon, Best Buy and Walmart. In the meantime, the ROG Xbox Ally X is just obtainable from Microsoft (“offered out” on the time of publication), Asus and Best Buy. Each handhelds are dearer than their non-Xbox counterparts, which vary between $500 and $800.

A SanDisk microSD card designed particularly for the handhelds and a SeaGate SSD that helps Microsoft DirectStorage at the moment are additionally obtainable for preorder.

The units are additionally obtainable around the globe. It’s also possible to preorder the consoles in Australia, Belgium, Canada, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Eire, Italy, Japan, Mexico, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Republic of Korea, Romania, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Spain, Sweden, Taiwan, Turkey, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom, Vietnam, Egypt, Greece, Hungary, Indonesia, Slovenia, South Africa, Thailand and Ukraine.

All these markets, together with the US, are getting the console on October 16. The handhelds will even be obtainable in extra markets sooner or later. These will embody Brazil, China, India, Luxembourg, Malaysia, the Philippines and Switzerland.

ASUS

Pre-order the hand-held forward of its October 16 arrival.

$600 at Amazon