Asus Confirms the ROG Xbox Ally X Will Launch in October

The archetypal handheld Xbox is astir present – rather, the archetypal Xbox-branded third-party handheld gaming PC is – arsenic Asus has announced that the ROG Xbox Ally and Xbox Ally X volition merchandise connected October 16th. Spooky!

Earlier this month, a retail leak suggested preorders for the ROG Xbox Ally and Ally X would commencement connected August 20th. Alas, the institution says pricing and preorder details are inactive to come. That’s fair; who knows what breathtaking caller tariffs volition person been announced by October? Both machines volition travel archetypal to the US and different regions similar Europe, Asia, and the Middle East, and aboriginal to much places wherever existing ROG Ally handhelds are sold now.

These are the archetypal handheld gaming PCs designed successful performance with Microsoft arsenic Xbox-first machines, with a minimal mentation of Windows and a built-in Xbox app that should mean gaming without each the muss and fuss of mean portable Windows gaming machines. Asus promises that if a crippled has been labeled “Handheld Optimized,” you shouldn’t request to dive into settings astatine each to get the crippled moving arsenic smoothly arsenic it can.

Minimal oregon not, this being a Windows instrumentality means you tin besides play games from different places similar Steam and Epic Games, and successful fact, the Xbox app leans into this, facilitating importing them alternatively of pretending they don't exist. The ROG Ally bid has already earned IGN’s prime for champion Windows handheld gaming PC, truthful if Asus and Xbox person done their occupation well, the Xbox Ally X should beryllium a cinch to instrumentality implicit the title.

To recap, present are the specs you tin expect: The ROG Xbox Ally X volition battalion an AMD Ryzen AI Z2 Extreme APU – enabling features similar Automatic Super Resolution – a 16-core GPU, 24GB of RAM, 1TB of onboard SSD storage, an 80Wh battery, and a 50 TOPS neural processor. (That’s 10 much than is required for a machine to beryllium considered a section AI model-friendly Microsoft Copilot Plus PC.) Meanwhile, the lower-end ROG Xbox Ally volition travel with a Ryzen Z2, 16GB of RAM, a 512GB SSD, and a 60Wh battery. They’ll some person 7.0-inch, 120Hz 1080p displays with adaptable refresh complaint and AMD FreeSync to assistance easiness surface tearing.

For much Xbox gear, cheque retired our guides to the Best Xbox Headsets and Controllers.

Wes is simply a freelance writer (Freelance Wes, they telephone him) who has covered technology, gaming, and amusement steadily since 2020 astatine Gizmodo, Tom's Hardware, Hardcore Gamer, and astir recently, The Verge. Inside of him determination are 2 wolves: 1 that thinks it wouldn't beryllium truthful atrocious to commencement collecting crippled consoles again, and the different who besides thinks this, but much strongly.