SGF 2025

Microsoft commits to pushing its console branding everywhere, extending to handheld PCs from Asus

To keep costs down, the Xbox Ally X retains the original Ally screen – an LCD unit, with a 120Hz refresh rate and 500 nits of peak brightness. The low-end model uses a 60Wh battery, with 80Wh for the Xbox Ally X variant, but no details have yet been provided for lifespans in continuous use. On the input side, impulse triggers are included on the Ally X, giving it the same kind of haptic-feedback qualities as dedicated Xbox controllers

Opening on a clinically lit chamber,its plain grey walls suggesting some kind of scientific facility, music with accentuated drums suggests that we are about to witness something important. A transparent cuboid is suspended in mid-air. Now there are hands holding it and it’s beginning to change shape, angular edges melting away as it reconfigures into a more palm-friendly form. A new controller, perhaps? No – an entirely new videogame console, which no one tuning into the Xbox Games Showcase on June 8 was expecting. Yes, everyone knew that Microsoft had a handheld Xbox in development, but was it really ready to show it off? Yes, it turns out that it was. Except it wasn’t an entirely new videogame console, after all, but a reconfigured version of Asus’s ROG Ally line of handheld PCs. Using the same basic form factor as the original models, but fattened and reconfigured to feel more like a traditional Xbox controller in the hands, a key difference is the addition of a dedicated Xbox button, intended to operate in much the same way as it does on a typical console.

Following on from Microsoft’s Series strategy, the Xbox Ally variant (16GB memory and 512GB storage) will be joined by an Xbox Ally X model (24GB and 1TB) when it launches later this year. The more powerful option, running AMD Ryzen AI Z2 Extreme silicon compared to the base model’s modest Z2A, will offer the expected increase in resolution and framerates, but pricing for either variant has yet to be revealed. Given that Asus’s existing Ally X retails at £799, it feels unrealistic to expect anything less for an Xbox Ally X, which would make it £300 more expensive than the official going rate for an Xbox Series X, although it would be no surprise to see it launch closer to £1,000. (With the basic ROG Ally model retailing at £449, it’s reasonable to expect the low-end Xbox Ally to arrive at around the £500 mark.)