ASUS ROG Xbox Ally X Handheld Gaming PC Gets Unboxed Nearly 2-Weeks Ahead of Official Launch

In a plain cardboard box delivered to a Parisian flat is the ROG Xbox Ally X, a shiny black slab of gaming goodness that ASUS and Microsoft have been teasing for months. The delivery label says September 30, 2025, 16 days before the real October 16 launch date. For one Redditor, this is an early Christmas present.

Amazon France gets most of the blame here. Pre-orders started just 5 days earlier, on September 25, and sold out fast at major stores. The high-end Ally X, $999, has a beefed up version of ASUS’s original ROG Ally: an AMD Ryzen AI Z2 Extreme processor, 24GB of RAM, 1TB SSD and an 80Wh battery that can last 3 hours of intense gaming without running out of juice. The standard ROG Xbox Ally, $599, has a Z2 A processor, 16GB of RAM and 512GB of storage. Both have a 7-inch 1080p screen that refreshes at 120Hz, curved grips like Xbox controllers and a full screen interface for portable use. Gamers bought them up, imagining smooth Game Pass integration on the go.

Then came the mistake, which could have happened when warehouse workers in a French fulfillment centre misread the dates or labels. The r/ROGAllyX subreddit was the first to light up. User Technical_Fun77 shared photos of the unopened parcel, timestamped with a delivery confirmation that screamed error. “ROG Xbox Ally X has already arrived at home! “Thanks to Amazon for the early arrival almost three weeks before the official release,” they wrote, before going into a brief review that highlighted both the device’s promise and its flaws. The post was taken down hours later, possibly because ASUS or someone got nervous, but screenshots and quotes spread like digital contraband.

Technical_Fun77 used the device for several hours, playing Forza Horizon 5 and Cyberpunk 2077 at 1080p on medium-to-high settings. When AMD’s FSR upscaling kicked in, frame rates ranged between 70 and 80 fps, a minor improvement – maybe 5 to 10 frames – over the non-Xbox ROG Ally. Battery life was acceptable at 17 to 25 watts, allowing for more than 3 hours of playtime in performance mode, with the fans whispering rather than roaring. Weight was 715 grams and the weight distribution felt right, with the grips fitting the hands like a well-worn controller. The joysticks were clicky, like an Xbox One pad, and solved one of the biggest problems with portable gaming.

ROG Xbox ALLY X
Doom the Dark Ages

1080p upscaled (FSR 50% 540p base res)
Ray Tracing enabled
Custom low-medium settings
FSR Frame-gen enabled.

~70fps in this scene.

~26w total (~18w TDP) but good news is we see the system self balancing power.

My YouTube video tomorrow. pic.twitter.com/v6gh6uhpkh

— Cary Golomb (@carygolomb) August 22, 2025

Even the tester was impressed with the audio, which was dual speaker and had spatial audio. “It feels like the sounds are all around my head,” Technical_Fun77 said. “I almost didn’t need headphones.” The Armory Crate software, which now has full screen mode for Xbox, was lightning fast to navigate menus – no lag on button inputs and seamless transitions between libraries like Steam and Game Pass. Sleep and resume was better than a simple Windows handheld but not as smooth as the Steam Deck.

The box only included the handheld, a 65W charger in some regions (but French customers reported it was missing), quick start instructions and warranty papers. No stands or docks, just the essentials in a package that can be taken abroad. On October 3, a French dev named Dervichter confirmed that the charger was missing for European devices and labeled the ports – two USB-C slots, a headphone jack and microSD expansion – for easy access.
[Source]