As we speak, Microsoft and Asus are formally opening preorders for the ROG Xbox Ally and ROG Xbox Ally X at $599 and $999 respectively within the US. They’re $799 CAD and $1299 CAD in Canada, €599 and €899 in Europe, £499 and £799 within the UK, and $799 AUD and $1599 AUD in Australia. They each ship October sixteenth.
There’s a number of alternative ways to take a look at these costs. For those who’re used to console pricing, Microsoft’s first Xbox handhelds will not be low-cost! Even the vanilla white Xbox Ally prices $150 greater than a Change 2, which was itself criticized for value, and it prices $100 greater than a much more highly effective Xbox Collection X did at launch within the US, Microsoft’s new Xbox value hike however. In Europe and the UK, the weaker of the 2 Allys prices the identical as an Xbox Collection X.
However you possibly can’t play that Xbox in a passenger seat. And in the event you’re a PC gamer, or need to be, issues look a bit rosier. These “Xbox” handhelds would be the first with a brand new construct of Home windows that hides the desktop and Explorer shell, frees up gobs of reminiscence in your video games, and (hopefully) permits you to navigate solely by controller.
Handhelds have sadly been getting pricier and pricier anyhow, to the purpose flagship ones now value as a lot as gaming laptops. At $999, the Xbox Ally X would possibly examine properly to the $999 MSI Claw 8 AI Plus or the $1,349 Lenovo Legion Go 2 that provides the identical AMD Z2 Excessive chip you’ll discover right here — significantly as a result of my colleagues and I agree the brand new Allys have one of the vital snug designs we’ve held. (In abstract: Prongs rock.)
Simply know you’re getting a wildcard in the event you go for the $599 Ally, because it incorporates a never-before-seen Ryzen Z2 A processor that’s rather more just like the chip within the Steam Deck. As a substitute of 8 Zen 5 CPU cores and 16 RDNA 3.5 GPU cores designed to run between 15 and 35 watt TDP, you’re getting 4 Zen 2 CPU cores and eight RDNA 2 GPU cores designed to run between 6 and 20 watts for decrease efficiency gaming.
We’re planning to have critiques of the Xbox Ally and Xbox Ally X within the coming weeks.
Microsoft says they’ll be out there in Australia, Belgium, Canada, Czech Republic, Denmark, Egypt, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hong Kong, Hungary, Indonesia, Eire, Italy, Japan, Mexico, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Republic of Korea, Romania, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Slovenia, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Taiwan, Thailand, Turkey, Ukraine, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom, United States, and Vietnam — and can moreover come to Brazil China, India, Luxembourg, Malaysia, Philippines and Switzerland.
