Microsoft and Asus announce two Xbox Ally handhelds with new Xbox full-screen experience
Microsoft and Asus have been working together over the past year to create not one, but two new ROG Xbox Ally handhelds. Both of these Xbox Ally devices, part of the Project Kennan effort I reported on earlier this year, include a new full-screen Xbox experience on Windows that's designed to be more handheld-friendly and hide away the complexity of Windows to focus on gaming instead.
The white ROG Xbox Ally is designed for 720p gaming, and the more powerful black ROG Xbox Ally X targets 900p to 1080p gaming on the go. Like the existing ROG Ally and Ally X, the new Xbox Ally and Xbox Ally X share the same 7-inch 1080p screen, complete with a 120Hz refresh rate and VRR support.
The Xbox Ally uses a previously unannounced AMD Ryzen Z2 A chip, combined 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 Extreme processor, 24GB of LPDDR5X-8000 memory, and a 1TB M.2 2280 SSD.
All of these specs make them very similar to Asus' existing Windows-powered handheld gaming PCs at heart, but there are some much-needed changes to the software side that could make the Windows handheld experience a lot better.
'We know that to take this handheld experience to the next level, we cannot do this alone,' says Shawn Yen, vice president of consumer at Asus, in a briefing with The Verge, admitting that some gamers have found it 'frustrating and confusing' to navigate Windows with joysticks and button until now.
Microsoft and Asus have been collaborating closely on these two new Xbox Ally devices over the past year, and Yen says Microsoft and Asus 'share a joint obsession' on these new handhelds.
That joint obsession includes Microsoft making good on its promise to combine ' the best of Xbox and Windows together,' thanks to a new Xbox full screen experience on Windows that's designed specifically for handhelds. Not only can the Xbox Ally devices boot directly to this interface, the companies claim you can easily get back to it using a new dedicated Xbox button on these handhelds — much like an Xbox console.
Microsoft doesn't load the full Windows desktop or a bunch of background processes in this full screen Xbox experience, putting Windows firmly in the background and freeing up more memory for games. Instead, you launch straight into the Xbox PC app, which includes all of your PC games from the Microsoft Store, Battle.net, and what Microsoft calls 'other leading storefronts.'
This aggregated gaming library means you'll see games from Xbox, Game Pass, and all your PC games installed from Steam, Epic Games Store, and elsewhere in a single interface much like what the GOG launcher offers. Earlier this week we started seeing parts of this unified library appear in the Xbox PC app, and Microsoft says you'll be able to access your full Xbox console library through Xbox Cloud Gaming or Remote Play to an Xbox console.
The idea is that you should be able to seamlessly launch any game you own, whether it's actually installed on your handheld, streaming from your Xbox Series X over home Wi-Fi, or streaming from the cloud, though we have yet to try that ourselves.
Microsoft has also made some additional tweaks to the Xbox PC app and Game Bar to make this all more handheld-friendly, including the ability to log in via the Windows lockscreen with your controller, no touchscreen taps required. You'll also be able to use this handheld-friendly Game Bar interface to easily launch apps like Discord, or alt-tab between apps and games, or adjust settings without having to fiddle with the touchscreen. You can read all about all the Windows changes in my deep dive look at this new Xbox PC experience right here.
These two Xbox Ally devices also have Xbox-like contoured grips. It's as if Microsoft and Asus have taken an Xbox controller and squeezed a screen between the grips, similar to what Sony did with its PlayStation Portal. The grips have been designed like this to make it easier to wrap your hands around the entire controls, so you access all the buttons and triggers.
The Xbox Ally X even has impulse triggers like all modern Xbox controllers, so you'll feel things like terrain of roads during racing games or the impact of bullets in a shooter, all thanks to the haptics on the triggers. Asus is also using a USB-C 4 connector that supports Thunderbolt 4 on the more powerful Xbox Ally X, offering the possibility of connecting a powerful external GPU to it, alongside a single USB-C 3.2 port and a UHS-II microSD card reader. The Xbox Ally uses two USB-C 3.2 ports instead.
Microsoft and Asus aren't providing any benchmarks or a real sense of performance for these handhelds yet, and both use chips we haven't tested. But interestingly, they appear to be focusing on battery life this time around.
'For this generation the most important thing to us is efficiency. Efficiency is our new superpower,' says Yen. 'The games will be able to play cooler and quieter, and at the same time offer you a longer battery life for gameplay.' AMD told us in January that the Z2 Extreme would be both its most powerful and most efficient handheld chip yet, while the Z2 A is rumored to be based on the Steam Deck's less powerful but battery sipping Van Gogh-based chip.
Importantly, the Xbox Ally is using a 60Wh battery, 50 percent larger than the pack that shipped in the original ROG Ally, while the more powerful Xbox Ally X uses an 80Wh battery, tied with the Ally X and the largest you can find in a handheld today. The Windows tweaks may also improve battery, with Microsoft claiming it's already seeing 1/3rd the drain when these Xbox Full Screen Experience systems are idle and asleep.
If you want extra performance, you'll also be able to dock these Xbox Ally devices to Asus' XG mobile device that offers up an RTX 5090 laptop GPU to overhaul how games play on these handheld devices.
These new Xbox Ally handhelds will launch during the holiday season later this year, and Microsoft and Asus are planning to share pricing and preorder information in the coming months.
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