How you can pre-order the ROG Xbox Ally and Ally X forward of October 16

Microsoft has lastly revealed how a lot the ROG Xbox Ally handheld consoles will price you, now that they are available for preorder. The ROG Xbox Ally X, which the corporate describes because the “final high-performance handheld” that is “constructed for probably the most demanding gamers,” will set you again $1,000. In the meantime, the ROG Xbox Ally is “for everybody from the informal participant to the avid fanatic.” That mannequin prices a extra palatable $600.

ASUS + Xbox

Microsoft unveiled the devices through the Xbox Video games Showcase at Summer season Recreation Fest in June, with the promise that they’d be accessible by this yr’s vacation procuring season. It was revealed a few months later that the consoles shall be on retailer cabinets by October 16. Nonetheless, they hadn’t introduced their costs till now.

Microsoft teamed up with ASUS’ ROG division to develop the handhelds. They’re powered by Home windows 11 and allows you to play any Xbox sport you have bought, whether or not you acquire it in your console or your pc, in addition to PC video games from any retailer that you just set up immediately on the system. You need to use it to stream Xbox video games out of your console anyplace in your house or from the Xbox Cloud Gaming service. And sure, you can proceed the place you left off while you bounce from one system to a different. At launch, Xbox will mark 1000’s of video games as Handheld Optimized or Largely Suitable to point in the event that they play effectively on handhelds.

Specs

Digging into their specs accentuates these variations. The ROG Xbox Ally makes use of an AMD Ryzen Z2 A chip, whereas the ROG Xbox Ally X has a extra highly effective AMD Ryzen AI Z2 Excessive. The usual mannequin has 16GB RAM (6,400 MT/s), whereas the premium model has 24GB (8,000 MT/s).

The ROG Xbox Ally has a 512GB SSD; the ROG Xbox Ally X boosts that to 1TB. Nonetheless, they every have a microSD slot that can assist you retailer extra video games. (They usually each use upgrade-friendly M.2 2280 SSDs.)

The premium mannequin has a bigger battery, measuring 80 Wh. The entry-level model has a 60 Wh one. However that does not essentially imply longer battery life. We’ll have to attend for prolonged testing to know that.

Every variant has two USB-C ports, however (once more) you get a higher-end model within the higher-end mannequin. The Xbox ROG Ally consists of two USB 3.2 Gen 2 ports. The Xbox ROG Ally X has one of these, together with a USB 4 Kind-C port. The latter is extra versatile, supporting Thunderbolt 4, DisplayPort 2.1 and eGPUs.

Every mannequin has a seven-inch 1080p, 16:9 show with a 120Hz refresh price and 500 nits of brightness. They’re anti-reflective, use Corning Gorilla Glass Victus and help FreeSync Premium.

How you can pre-order

The usual ROG Xbox Ally is extra available. Within the US, you’ll be able to pre-order it from Xbox, Microsoft Store, Asus, Amazon, Best Buy and Walmart. In the meantime, the ROG Xbox Ally X is just accessible from Microsoft (“bought out” on the time of publication), Asus and Best Buy. Each handhelds are costlier than their non-Xbox counterparts, which vary between $500 and $800.

A SanDisk microSD card designed particularly for the handhelds and a SeaGate SSD that helps Microsoft DirectStorage at the moment are additionally accessible for preorder.

The units are additionally accessible all over the world. You can too preorder the consoles in Australia, Belgium, Canada, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Eire, Italy, Japan, Mexico, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Republic of Korea, Romania, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Spain, Sweden, Taiwan, Turkey, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom, Vietnam, Egypt, Greece, Hungary, Indonesia, Slovenia, South Africa, Thailand and Ukraine.

All these markets, together with the US, are getting the console on October 16. The handhelds will even be accessible in further markets sooner or later. These will embrace Brazil, China, India, Luxembourg, Malaysia, the Philippines and Switzerland.