Sure, here it goes:
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Oh man, so here we are with Microsoft finally dipping its toes into the handheld pool, right? Kind of. They teamed up with Asus (surprise!) for this, uh, ROG Xbox Ally thing. It’s their big reveal at this Xbox Games Showcase event. You know, what caught my eye? Those chunky grips. They look like ripped-off Xbox controller handles. Seriously.
And get this, Asus and Microsoft are doing a mash-up, a Frankenstein. Half ROG Ally, half Xbox. Makes you wonder if they just glued a controller onto a screen. They took feedback (from who, exactly?) and cranked out this updated pattern with haptic triggers. Fancy way to say “it vibrates,” I guess.
Asus is all “Hey, these are our most ‘immersive’ handhelds ever.” Right. Immersive like wearing a heavy backpack, I bet. They’re beefier than the old ROG Ally and that chunky Steam Deck. The joystick’s the same, but now there’s this Xbox button near the left joystick. Woohoo. It opens Game Bar or something. Thrilling.
There’s all this buzz about AMD too, with new processor jazz going on. The ROG Xbox Ally X gets the Ryzen AI Z2 Extreme chipset. Wait, the Extreme, really? 8-core CPU, 16 RDNA 3.5 graphics cores, and some other technical stuff. Blah blah blah, let’s just say it can handle your games without melting. Oh, and bonus, it has a 1TB SSD and Wi-Fi 6E. Bluetooth 5.4 too, if you’re into that.
Ports? Same old, except now one of the USB-C ports is supercharged to USB 4. And the battery—a beefy 80Wh unit. You could probably fry an egg on it—bet it lasts longer than most of the competition, though.
Now, for those not wanting to drop a ton of cash, there’s the ROG Xbox Ally sans the X. Budget-friendly, they say. It houses the le snore Ryzen 2 A processor. Slower memory, smaller storage, yawn. At least the display’s decent, still 7 inches and 1080p. I mean, if it ain’t broke, right?
Software-wise, it boots up into an Xbox world but runs Windows 11 underneath, so you can, like, install whatever you want: Steam, Epic Games, even Minesweeper if that’s your jam. There’s also some ROG Armoury Crate Special Edition thing. Custom widgets and settings on the fly. Whee.
Pricing? Yeah, no idea. But it’s supposed to hit shelves during the holidays in all the usual suspects: US, UK, Korea, you name it. Probably wherever you can spot the original ROG Ally too.
And hey, if you’re into keeping up with all this tech madness, Tom’s Hardware on Google News might be worth a follow. Or not. Whatever floats your boat.
