At last, we have pricing for the long-awaited ROG Xbox Ally and ROG Xbox Ally X. So, get ready to prostrate your wallet, because even the basic ROG Xbox Ally is 600 bucks. Yeah, really. The top-spec ROG Xbox Ally X, meanwhile, is $1,000. Sorry, what?

Lest you have forgotten, the basic ROG Xbox Ally runs AMD’s “new” AMD Ryzen Z2 A chip. Entirely contrary to the implications of the “Z2” branding, this is a very elderly SoC indeed.

The Z2 A rocks four AMD Zen 2-era CPU cores and eight RDNA 2 graphics compute units. Sounds familiar? It sure does, because those are exactly the same details as the Van Gogh APU (Aerith) in OG Steam Deck circa 2022 and also the die-shrunk version of the same chip in the Steam Deck OLED (Sephiroth).

Of course, Valve has just cut the price of the basic 256 GB LCD Deck to a mere $319. So, that’s twice the price for precisely no additional gaming performance, if you go with the ROG Xbox Ally. Great.

For the record, in the UK, that’s £499 for the ROG Xbox Ally and £279 for the Deck. Doesn’t look much better, does it? Microsoft and Asus, the latter being the hardware partner who makes the ROG Xbox Ally, would no doubt argue that you’re getting a higher-res 1080p display than the Deck’s 720p, and that it also runs at 120 Hz refresh instead of 60 Hz.

It’s a tough call as to whether the $600 Xbox Ally or $1,000 Xbox Ally X is the worse deal. (Image credit: Microsoft)

But it’s still LCD, not OLED, and frankly, given the modest performance of the AMD Ryzen Z2 A, all that 1080p-ness and 120 Hz flexing is probably for naught. Anything demanding ain’t gonna run at 1080p and 120 Hz on this thing.

Then there’s the whole Xbox-skinned Windows 11 versus Steam. Time will tell, but I suspect that’s no contest, and it’s the Microsoft platform that’s not in the running. At least you get a 512 GB SSD on the ROG Xbox Ally, I suppose.

I’m not sure the ROG Xbox Ally X is much better. Sure, it runs the AMD Ryzen AI Z2 Extreme chip, which is AMD’s latest APU for handhelds. But it’s actually the now-familiar AMD Strix Point APU, which isn’t a huge step from its predecessor on account of being based on the same TSMC N4 silicon.

Personally, I’d argue we’re going to have to wait for AMD to release a 3nm handheld APU before we get a really worthwhile performance step. All of which means that’s $1,000 for pretty mediocre gaming performance.

I’d far rather chuck $319 at a basic Steam Deck, go in with very modest expectations and have them met than pay $1,000, rightly anticipate a high-end experience and be disappointed. As for paying $600 for the non-X model, that’s a complete non-starter. What are Microsoft and Asus thinking?

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