Xbox Ally costs at least 600 Euro
A few weeks before the market launch on 16 October, Microsoft has unveiled the prices for its Xbox Ally handheld PC: The standard variant costs 600 Euro.
(Image: Microsoft)
The prices of the Microsoft handheld Xbox Ally are in line with the pre-release leaks: the standard model costs 600 Euro, the better equipped Ally X costs 900 Euro. Microsoft announced the prices on Friday night, when pre-orders for the handheld PC were also opened.
Microsoft had held back the prices of the Xbox Ally for a surprisingly long time – and only revealed them a few weeks before the release date on 16 October. Based on the previous leaks, the pricing of the handheld is no longer necessarily surprising. It is slightly above the prices that Asus called for its ROG Ally handhelds at market launch.
Ryzen AI Z2 Extreme only in the top model
Asus is building the new Xbox Allys in collaboration with Microsoft. The two partners have also brought AMD on board to provide the necessary gaming performance. However, only the more expensive Xbox Ally X variant uses the latest hardware: It houses the Ryzen AI Z2 Extreme with eight CPU cores (three Zen 5, five Zen 5c) and 1024 RDNA 3.5 shader cores. The Ryzen Z2 A in the standard Xbox Ally only corresponds to the technology level of the Ryzen 3000 from 2019, with four Zen 2 cores and 512 RDNA 2 shader cores.
A 7-inch full HD screen outputs up to 120 frames per second and supports variable refresh rates (VRR). The refresh rate is higher than that of the Steam Deck OLED (90 Hertz), which can improve the fluidity of movement at correspondingly high frame rates. The Ally handhelds have an LC screen with IPS technology.
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Meanwhile, Microsoft has been working on the software. The main result is a new interface for handhelds, into which the device boots by default. This special Xbox interface does not load all the background processes that usually run on Windows. This is intended to save performance and focus the user experience on the core gaming business. Users can use the interface to access a combined library from several game stores, including Steam in addition to the Xbox Store.
The two Xbox Allys can currently be pre-ordered via MediaMarkt and the Asus Store.
(dahe)
