Last night during the Xbox Showcase, Microsoft and Asus took the covers off two new Xbox-themed handheld consoles – the ROG Xbox Ally and ROG Xbox Ally X.
If you’re familiar with Asus’ last handheld affair, these won’t look too foreign. The only major physical difference we can see is the contoured Xbox controller-style grips. There’s also a dedicated Xbox button that will launch Microsoft’s Game Bar overlay, to go along with the Armory Crate button.
The secret Xbox sauce lies in the new ‘Xbox full screen experience’ which Microsoft says is “optimized specifically for handheld gaming.”
Take your Xbox anywhere
The two new consoles are colour-coded to make telling them apart easier. Good thing they have distinctly different grips from the non-Xbox Allys, or there would be even more confusion to deal with.
The black version is the more impressive of the two. It’s got what AMD reckons is its most powerful and most efficient handheld chip yet in the Ryzen AI Z2 Extreme. That’s paired with 24GB of LPDDR5X-8000 RAM and a 1TB M.2 2280 SSD.
The white model scales things back with an AMD Ryzen Z2 A chip, supposedly based on the older (albeit less-powerful) chip in the Steam Deck, with 16GB of LPDDR5X-6400 RAM and a 512GB M.2 2280 SSD. Both the ROG Xbox Ally X and non-X feature the same 7in 120Hz VRR-enabled 1080p display as the previous ROG Allys.
Their specs put these new Allys within arms’ reach of the old ones, but both companies are hoping the new Xbox full-screen experience is better than trying to navigate Windows with joysticks – an experience that made us regret having opposable thumbs.
With rumours suggesting Microsoft has paused work on a first-party handheld console, we’re interested to see if these new Xbox-flavoured Allys are what Windows-based handheld gaming devices need. And if not, there’s always SteamOS or Bazzite.
There’s no word on local pricing or exact availability, although Microsoft and Asus have indicated a launch in time for ‘the holidays’. We’re taking that to mean a November/December 2025 release. Unfortunately, South Africa isn’t on the list for the first round of shipments, so we might have to wait until early 2026.
