Asus ROG Xbox Ally and Ally X available for pre-order worldwide – U.S. pricing starts at $599 and $999 respectively

(Image credit: ASUS)

The ROG Xbox Ally and Ally X, the latest handheld consoles developed by Asus and Microsoft, are now officially available for pre-order. The ROG Xbox Ally X is priced at $999, while the standard ROG Xbox Ally comes in at $599. Customers can reserve either of the models by visiting Asus’ or Microsoft’s respective online stores,

Several third party retailers are also taking pre-orders including Amazon, Best Buy, Ant Online, and Walmart. Interestingly, the ROG Xbox Ally X is going to sell exclusively on Best Buy, while the ROG Xbox Ally is open for other retailers.

Customers in the U.S. who pre-order through the Asus Shop will also be enrolled in a sweepstake where they get a chance to win various accessories including the ROG Strix Arion external SSD enclosure, an ROG Raikiri controller, a set of ROG Cetra Wireless earbuds, an ROG Bulwark TV dock/USB-hub or an ROG Xbox Ally 2-in-1 premium case

First showcased in June at Microsoft's Xbox Games showcase, the ROG Xbox Ally and ROG Xbox Ally X adopt large, contoured grips inspired by Xbox controllers, as well as features like impulse triggers and a dedicated Xbox button. The consoles boot into an Xbox-optimized interface which is layered over Windows 11 and offer support for third party game launchers.

The hardware differs significantly between the two as the standard Ally is built around an AMD Ryzen Z2 A chip with 16GB of LPDDR5X-6400 memory, a 512GB SSD, and a 60Wh battery. The more powerful Ally X steps up with the Ryzen AI Z2 Extreme processor, 24GB LPDDR5X-8000 memory, a 1TB SSD, and an 80Wh battery. Both models feature the same 7-inch 1080p 120Hz IPS panel with FreeSync Premium support, Wi-Fi 6E, Bluetooth 5.4, and dual USB-C ports (one of which on the Ally X supports USB 4/Thunderbolt 4).

Both handhelds are also available for pre-order across multiple international markets with pricing set at €599 / £499 / $799 CAD / 1,599 AUD for the standard Ally and €899 / £799 / $1,299 CAD / 1,799 AUD for the Ally X. Pre-orders are live across various countries including Australia, Canada, most of Europe, the UK, Japan, South Korea, Mexico, the Middle East, and parts of Asia, with some markets offering only one of the two models.

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Kunal Khullar is a contributing writer at Tom’s Hardware. He is a long time technology journalist and reviewer specializing in PC components and peripherals, and welcomes any and every question around building a PC.

5 Comments Comment from the forums

ezst036

I am looking forward to the release of these then seeing how their performance and battery life is increased by installing SteamOS.
Reply
thestryker

Not that the pricing is unexpected, but the launch of the original Ally was $600/700 and the X came along at $800 now we're up to $1000. For the extra $200 we're getting a faster chip and memory. It's not going to be 25% faster so I guess buyers are just subsidizing company margins. It's disappointing to me to see this is the direction handhelds are going. One of the draws of the original Ally is that it had the functionality of all the handhelds coming in from Chinese companies but a much lower price (though Asus warranty for as bad as their support is is still better).

Hopefully whenever Valve opts to do another Steam Deck they don't take the same route with the pricing.
Reply
Notton

$600 for a Steam Deck in 2025 is a tough sell.

I mean, sure, the Xbox Ally has a 1080p/120Hz screen, a 60Whr battery, better ergonomics, and an Xbox button, but it also doesn't have...
- OLED screen
- touch pad(s)
Reply
BloodLust2222

thestryker said:
Not that the pricing is unexpected, but the launch of the original Ally was $600/700 and the X came along at $800 now we're up to $1000. For the extra $200 we're getting a faster chip and memory. It's not going to be 25% faster so I guess buyers are just subsidizing company margins. It's disappointing to me to see this is the direction handhelds are going. One of the draws of the original Ally is that it had the functionality of all the handhelds coming in from Chinese companies but a much lower price (though Asus warranty for as bad as their support is is still better).

Hopefully whenever Valve opts to do another Steam Deck they don't take the same route with the pricing.
I guess it depends on how good of a Steam deck you want. Steam was losing money on every Steam Deck sold, All to drive people to their eco-system. My guess a new Deck with the features people want will not be too far from the pricing of these new machines.
Reply
thestryker

BloodLust2222 said:
I guess it depends on how good of a Steam deck you want. Steam was losing money on every Steam Deck sold, All to drive people to their eco-system. My guess a new Deck with the features people want will not be too far from the pricing of these new machines.
Valve may have been losing money on the entry level SKU when it launched, but definitely not the higher SKUs and certainly not the OLED models. With the discounts they've offered the last year on it I highly doubt they're losing much if anything on even the base model now.

The current pricing really points towards AMD and Intel on top of the normal OEM margins since laptops using the same chips as these $1000 handhelds start around the same price despite the CPUs having been on the market for around a year. Comparing the ROG Ally X and the ROG Xbox Ally X is a great exercise in the pricing: the differences are faster APU, faster memory and a different case (and probably cooling) design for an extra $200. That's a 25% price increase and the faster memory and any case differences certainly won't make up much of that which means it's mostly the APU (and whatever additional OEM margin padding there may be).

I don't really think pricing people out of what's already a relatively niche market (much less so thanks to the Steam Deck price of entry) is a good move. It's much like the current state of the video card market, but worse because the market itself is significantly smaller which means people no longer participating may have more immediate ramifications.
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