Microsoft and Asus have been working collectively over the previous 12 months to create not one, however two new ROG Xbox Ally handhelds. Each of those Xbox Ally gadgets, a part of the Undertaking Kennan effort I reported on earlier this 12 months, embrace a brand new full-screen Xbox expertise on Home windows that’s designed to be extra handheld-friendly and conceal away the complexity of Home windows to concentrate on gaming as an alternative.
The white ROG Xbox Ally is designed for 720p gaming, and the extra highly effective black ROG Xbox Ally X targets 900p to 1080p gaming on the go. Like the present ROG Ally and Ally X, the brand new Xbox Ally and Xbox Ally X share the identical 7-inch 1080p display, full with a 120Hz refresh fee and VRR assist.
The Xbox Ally makes use of a beforehand unannounced AMD Ryzen Z2 A chip, mixed with 16GB of LPDDR5X-6400 RAM and 512GB of M.2 2280 SSD storage. The Xbox Ally X upgrades the chip to AMD’s Ryzen AI Z2 Excessive processor, 24GB of LPDDR5X-8000 reminiscence, and a 1TB M.2 2280 SSD.
All of those specs make them similar to Asus’ present Home windows-powered handheld gaming PCs at coronary heart, however there are some much-needed adjustments to the software program aspect that might make the Home windows handheld expertise lots higher.
“We all know that to take this handheld expertise to the following degree, we can’t do that alone,” says Shawn Yen, vp of shopper at Asus, in a briefing with The Verge, admitting that some players have discovered it “irritating and complicated” to navigate Home windows with joysticks and button till now.
Microsoft and Asus have been collaborating carefully on these two new Xbox Ally gadgets over the previous 12 months, and Yen says Microsoft and Asus “share a joint obsession” on these new handhelds.
That joint obsession contains Microsoft making good on its promise to mix “one of the best of Xbox and Home windows collectively,” because of a brand new Xbox full-screen expertise on Home windows that’s designed particularly for handhelds. Not solely can the Xbox Ally gadgets boot on to this interface, however the firms declare you possibly can simply get again to it utilizing a brand new devoted Xbox button on these handhelds, very similar to an Xbox console.
Microsoft doesn’t load the complete Home windows desktop or a bunch of background processes on this full-screen Xbox expertise, placing Home windows firmly within the background and releasing up extra reminiscence for video games. As a substitute, you launch straight into the Xbox PC app, which incorporates your whole PC video games from the Microsoft Retailer, Battle.internet, and what Microsoft calls “different main storefronts.”
This aggregated gaming library means you’ll see video games from Xbox, Recreation Cross, and all of your PC video games put in from Steam, Epic Video games Retailer, and elsewhere in a single interface, very similar to what the GOG launcher presents. Earlier this week, we began seeing elements of this unified library seem within the Xbox PC app, and Microsoft says you’ll have the ability to entry your full Xbox console library by way of Xbox Cloud Gaming or Distant Play to an Xbox console.
The concept is that you must have the ability to seamlessly launch any recreation you personal, whether or not it’s truly put in in your handheld, streaming out of your Xbox Collection X over house Wi-Fi, or streaming from the cloud, although we have now but to attempt that ourselves.
Microsoft has additionally made some further tweaks to the Xbox PC app and Recreation Bar to make this all extra handheld-friendly, together with the power to log in by way of the Home windows lockscreen together with your controller, no touchscreen faucets required. You’ll additionally have the ability to use this handheld-friendly Recreation Bar interface to simply launch apps like Discord, or alt-tab between apps and video games, or regulate settings with out having to fiddle with the touchscreen. You possibly can learn all about all of the Home windows adjustments in my deep dive have a look at this new Xbox PC expertise proper right here.
These two Xbox Ally gadgets even have Xbox-like contoured grips. It’s as if Microsoft and Asus have taken an Xbox controller and squeezed a display between the grips, much like what Sony did with its PlayStation Portal. The grips have been designed like this to make it simpler to wrap your palms across the total controls, so that you entry all of the buttons and triggers.
The Xbox Ally X even has impulse triggers like all fashionable Xbox controllers, so that you’ll really feel issues like terrain of roads throughout racing video games or the affect of bullets in a shooter, all because of the haptics on the triggers. Asus can also be utilizing a USB-C 4 connector that helps Thunderbolt 4 on the extra highly effective Xbox Ally X, providing the opportunity of connecting a strong exterior GPU to it, alongside a single USB-C 3.2 port and a UHS-II microSD card reader. The Xbox Ally makes use of two USB-C 3.2 ports as an alternative.
Microsoft and Asus aren’t offering any benchmarks or an actual sense of efficiency for these handhelds but, and each use chips we haven’t examined. However apparently, they seem like specializing in battery life this time round.
“For this era an important factor to us is effectivity. Effectivity is our new superpower,” says Yen. “The video games will have the ability to play cooler and quieter, and on the similar time give you an extended battery life for gameplay.” AMD instructed us in January that the Z2 Excessive can be each its strongest and most effective handheld chip but, whereas the Z2 A is rumored to be based mostly on the Steam Deck’s much less highly effective however battery-sipping Van Gogh-based chip.
Importantly, the Xbox Ally is utilizing a 60Wh battery, 50 p.c bigger than the pack that shipped within the authentic ROG Ally, whereas the extra highly effective Xbox Ally X makes use of an 80Wh battery, tied with the Ally X and the most important yow will discover in a handheld at this time. The Home windows tweaks may additionally enhance battery, with Microsoft claiming it’s already seeing one-third of the drain when these Xbox Full Display screen Expertise methods are idle and asleep.
In order for you additional efficiency, you’ll additionally have the ability to dock these Xbox Ally gadgets to Asus’ XG cellular machine that provides up an RTX 5090 laptop computer GPU to overtake how video games play on these handheld gadgets.
These new Xbox Ally handhelds will launch through the vacation season later this 12 months, and Microsoft and Asus are planning to share pricing and preorder info within the coming months.
