ROG Xbox Ally and ROG Xbox Ally X are laptops with a dedicated Xbox shell on Windows that allows you to focus on gaming and covers libraries from various digital stores. When will Xbox Ally be available?
ROG Xbox Ally and ROG Xbox Ally X are laptops with a dedicated Xbox shell on Windows that allows you to focus on gaming and covers libraries from various digital stores. When will Xbox Ally be available?
The white ROG Xbox Ally is designed for 720p gaming, while the more powerful black ROG Xbox Ally X is designed for 900p to 1080p gaming, The Verge reports. Like the original ROG Ally and Ally X, the new Xbox Ally and Xbox Ally X feature the same 7-inch 1080p display with a 120Hz refresh rate and VRR support.
The Xbox Ally uses the previously unannounced AMD Ryzen Z2 A chip and 16GB of LPDDR5X-6400 RAM and a 512GB M.2 2280 SSD. The Xbox Ally X has an even more powerful AMD Ryzen AI Z2 Extreme processor, 24GB of LPDDR5X-8000 RAM and a 1TB M.2 2280 SSD.
This is very similar to previous Asus Windows-based gaming laptops, but Xbox Ally also has important software changes that can make the experience on Windows laptops much better.
In particular, Microsoft has delivered on its promise to bring «the best of Xbox and Windows together» with a new full-screen Xbox on Windows experience designed specifically for portable PCs. Xbox Ally consoles can boot directly into this interface, and users can easily return to it using the new dedicated Xbox button.
Microsoft doesn’t load up the entire Windows desktop or a bunch of background processes in this full-screen Xbox interface, putting Windows in the background and freeing up more memory for games. Instead, the player is immediately taken to the Xbox app for PC, which features PC games from the Microsoft Store, Battle.net, and other stores.
This unified game library means users will be able to access games from Xbox, Game Pass, as well as Steam, the Epic Games Store in a single interface, similar to what the GOG Galaxy launcher offers. Additionally, Microsoft says players will be able to access their entire Xbox console library via Xbox Cloud Gaming or Remote Play on an Xbox console.
Microsoft has also made some additional changes to the Xbox app for PC and Game Bar to make it more portable, including the ability to log in through the Windows lock screen using a controller without having to touch the touchscreen. The Game Bar interface will make it easy to launch apps like Discord, or switch between apps and games using the Alt key, as well as change settings without touching the touchscreen.
Both Xbox Allies look like Microsoft and Asus took an Xbox controller and squeezed a screen between the handles, similar to what Sony did with its PlayStation Portal. The consoles were designed to make it easier for players to grip all the controls and have access to all the buttons and triggers.
The Xbox Ally X features pulse triggers, like all modern Xbox controllers, for added haptic feedback from games. Asus also uses a USB-C 4 connector with Thunderbolt 4 support on the Xbox Ally X, offering the ability to connect a powerful external GPU, as well as a single USB-C 3.2 port and a UHS-II microSD card reader. The Xbox Ally, on the other hand, uses two USB-C 3.2 ports.
There’s no word yet on the Xbox Ally’s gaming performance, but it looks like they’re designed for long battery life. The Xbox Ally uses a 60Wh battery, which is 50% larger than the original ROG Ally, while the more powerful Xbox Ally X uses an 80Wh battery (the same as the Ally X), which is the largest you’ll find in a portable device today.
The new Xbox Ally handhelds will be available later this year, during the holiday season, with Microsoft and Asus planning to share pricing and pre-order information in the coming months.
