Sure thing, here goes:
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Alright, so here we are again with another gizmo from Microsoft. Or wait, kind of? It’s like they teamed up with Asus or something. And boom, we have the ROG Xbox Ally. The Xbox Games Showcase was buzzing with this. Big, chunky grips and all, pulling that classic Xbox controller feel. Seriously, who thought of this mash-up?
Anyway — hold on — what I’m saying is, Asus listened. They chewed on the feedback from the OG ROG Ally folks and, bam, we have this new thing. It’s half ROG Ally, half Xbox controller. And they’ve slapped on some crazy impulse triggers. Gives you that haptic feedback. Not sure what that really means, but sounds fancy, right?
Now, Asus is all about telling us how comfy and immersive these babies are. Except, they’re thicker and weigh more. I mean, if I wanted a workout, I’d hit the gym. And those joysticks? Same deal as before, except for this snazzy new Xbox button sitting near your left thumb. Game Bar is a thing now — apparently, more useful on handhelds. I didn’t expect that!
Oh, and not to forget, AMD decided now’s a great time to drop some processors or whatever. The ROG Xbox Ally X is rocking this crazy Ryzen AI Z2 Extreme chip that’s supposed to be all the rage. I can’t even with those specs: 8-core, 16 threads, a whole pile of RDNA doohickeys. Something about 50 TOPS of AI compute power. Your guess is as good as mine. But yay, tech, right?
Around the edges, the I/O ports kind of look like last year’s model, though they’ve got this upgraded USB 4 deal. Battery life should be snug, too, with an 80Wh pack. Longer than most handhelds? I’d hope so!
Oh, and the budget-friendly version? Yep, there’s a toned-down ROG Xbox Ally with a, let’s say, modest Ryzen 2 A processor. 4 cores, a handful of graphics cores — solid but chill.
No fancy changes with the screen tech, so same 7-inch size as the ROG Ally X. Bright, fast, and all that jazz, though. Pricing? Still in the dark but, hey, holidays are when we’ll see these in places like the US, UK, and a bunch of other places. Just not here yet.
Catch ya later on the next tech rollercoaster. Until then, keep hitting that follow button on Tom’s Hardware or wherever!
