Microsoft and Asus have announced the ROG Xbox Ally and ROG Xbox Ally X handheld gaming systems, but companies have yet to confirm the price or release date for the two systems. The announcement said it would be released later this year, but courtesy of the Leaker extas1s, the new report shows that pre-orders for both devices will begin in August and then launch in October.
Read Also:
As the extas1s pointed out, the low-power ROG Xbox Ally is expected to cost around 599 euros. Leaker claims it supported the details of handheld pricing with two different Europe-based retailers. Meanwhile, the more powerful ROG Xbox Ally X is expected to cost 899 euros. This will match the pricing with Asus’s own Rog Ally X.
Previously, Whitson Gordon, senior manager of marketing content for gaming, revealed that price and power usage are two main reasons why both the Rog Xbox Ally and the Rog Xbox Ally X don’t have an OLED display. Rather, both systems are equipped with a 7-inch 1080p 120 Hz LCD display with variable refresh rate capabilities.
“We did R&D and prototyping with OLED, but when we put VRR into the mix, that’s not where we want to be when we’re willing to give up on VRR,” says Gordon. “I draw that line in the sand now. If there’s no changing refresh rate on the display, if it’s not a 2025 gaming display, then as far as I’m concerned, it’s a must-have feature, and with VRR, OLEDs are currently drawing a lot more power than the LCDs we currently use.
Furthermore, we explain that this decision ultimately came to maintaining pricing for both systems at a reasonable level. Because buyers tend to get handheld gaming systems as secondary makien, Gordon pointed out that both handhelds have a much higher price tag when using an OLED display.
“That’s all I can say about price,” Gordon said. “You have to match your expectations with what you’re doing here and with what you’re doing. Adding 32GB, OLED, Z2 Extreme, and all those extra bells and whistles will be much higher than the price range you’re used to with your allies, and the majority of users will be willing to pay that kind of price.”
Shortly after its announcement, Microsoft and Asus released a video in which the companies spoke about the various features of the Rog Xbox Ally and Rog Xbox Ally X. The video also shows an early hardware prototype of a handheld gaming system built inside a cardboard box.
The ROG Xbox Ally runs on an AMD Ryzen Z2A chip and comes with 16 GB of LPDDR5X-6400 RAM and 512 GB of storage. Meanwhile, the ROG Xbox Ally X runs on an AMD Ryzen Z2 Extreme chip and comes with 24 GB of LPDDR5X-8000 RAM and 1 TB of storage. Both systems run on Windows.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4wpdijzg6ug