Microsoft and Asus have opened preorders for their new handhelds, the Xbox Ally and Xbox Ally X. In the U.S., the base Ally is priced at $599, while the higher-end Ally X is priced at an eye-watering $999.

Both devices will begin shipping on October 16th. In the United States, the Ally X will be sold exclusively at Best Buy, the Microsoft Store, and the Asus Shop. The standard Ally will have wider availability, including Amazon, Best Buy, Walmart, Microsoft, Asus Shop, and Ant Online.

At first glance, the pricing is steep for handhelds. The base Ally costs $150 more than a Switch 2 and $100 more than the Xbox Series X launched for in the U.S. In Europe, the weaker model is priced the same as an Xbox Series X.

However, Microsoft and Asus aim at a different audience: PC gamers who want a handheld experience. To that end, the new Allys run a custom build of Windows that hides traditional desktop and Explorer interfaces. The system frees up memory for games and lets you navigate via controller only.

The hardware inside differs significantly between models. The $999 Ally X uses a more powerful chip (AMD Z2 Extreme), with 8 Zen 5 CPU cores and 16 RDNA 3.5 GPU cores, targeting a 15–35W TDP. The base Ally uses a new Ryzen Z2 A chip, with 4 Zen 2 cores and 8 RDNA 2 cores, in a 6–20W envelope.