It’s no secret that Asus is working behind the scenes to deliver its next – and possibly Xbox’s first – handheld console in the form of the ROG Ally 2. We’ve now had our first glimpse at what appears to be two separate editions of the Ally 2, as well as some of the finer key details that Asus has so far been unwilling to reveal.
Xbox’s ambitions to enter the handheld gaming space are arguably an even bigger secret than that of the ROG Ally 2 – until the two worlds collided on 1 April 2025, when the company teased an Xbox-centric follow-up to its ROG Ally and Ally X handhelds. It seems certain now that Xbox has taken a shortcut to get its name into the space with an ‘Xbox edition’, piggybacking off Asus’ hardware with a sprinkle of its own OS to satiate gamers.
Opening Pandora’s Xbox
We’ve got leaked images of two ROG Ally 2 devices, courtesy of @94G8LA on X/Twitter, showing off a white and black shell, though the latter features a dedicated Xbox button, while the white device replaces it with something more standard. From this, we can glean that Asus will sell two different ROG Ally 2 models – one being the official Ally 2 (white), and the other being an ‘Xbox edition’ (black).
As for what’s changing on the outside, it isn’t much. The grips appear to be redesigned, and are now a whole lot chunkier than the previous iterations, lending themselves to being more Xbox-focused than before. You’ll be looking at your games through the 7in 120Hz display, though whether it’ll be bold enough to make the jump to OLED remains to be seen. The Ally X still chugs along with a 1080p IPS LCD screen.
Read More: Asus ROG Ally X review – Again, but better
Interestingly, the Xbox version isn’t just a simple reskin of the proper Ally 2. According to filings on the US FCC website (spotted by 91mobiles, via Digital Trends), the device will officially be titled ‘ROG Ally 2’, and that the Xbox edition is the one you’ll want, even if your wallet can’t quite manage the feat. It rocks AMD’s Ryzen Z2 Extreme CPU (eight cores, 36W) and 64GB of LPDDR5X-8533 memory.
The non-Xbox Ally 2 seems to be the more affordable of the two, featuring an AMD Aerith Plus (four cores, 20W) CPU. We’re still not quite sure of the battery specs, the price of these devices, or why Asus would allow the Xbox edition to overshadow the more traditional model. All will be revealed in good time, quite possibly at Computex 2025, which, judging by previous years, is where we’ll see the ROG Ally 2 land officially.
