Alright, so here’s the thing. Microsoft’s been tinkering with this Project Kennan handheld thingy, and now it’s kinda morphing into something like the ROG Ally 2 series. Or so the whispers and rumors say—thanks to the folks at 91mobiles and, uh, some mysterious internet handle, Huang514613 at X. What’s going on is Asus is cooking up two versions of this ROG Ally 2 lineup. Picture this: one in black flaunting an Xbox Button, and another in white with some vanilla specs for the everyday gamer.
Now, Project Kennan—yeah, it’s been floating around officially for ages, but specifics? Those were as rare as unicorns until now. Suddenly, some smarty-pants dropped model ID numbers, and, well, things just took off. They got tangled up with listings from the US FCC—fancy talk for, like, official stuff, right? Anyway, we’re looking at differences that echo the OG ROG Ally. You got AMD’s Z1, which has, like, 4 CUs, and then the Z1 Extreme flexing with 12 CUs. Price difference? About 100 bucks. Still, Asus is keeping its heart with x86. Why? Compatible with all the nerdy software and gaming stuff we love.
That Xbox Button on the black model? It’s like, “HELLO, I’m part of Project Kennan!” But hold up, don’t expect some crazy custom Operating System for handhelds. Nah, it’s probably just plain ol’ Windows 11. The button’s likely your gateway to the Game Bar, just like your PC best friend. We’re all waiting with bated breath (or maybe just mild curiosity) for the official word on any snazzy features or tweaks Microsoft’s cooked up.
Now, zooming under the hood, the buzz is that Project Kennan is packing AMD’s Ryzen Z2 Extreme chip. Think eight cores (3 Zen 5 and 5 Zen 5c) / 16 threads, which in layman’s terms means fast. Similar vibes as the Ryzen AI 7 Pro 360 but packing more punch with a 16 Compute Unit iGPU (Radeon 890M). It chomps down on power between 15W-35W, can hang with 64GB of LPDDR5x-8533 memory, has room for a 2TB NVMe SSD, and slurps up 100W charging juice. Oh, and the display? A touch-friendly 7-inch LCD, probably IPS, clocked at 120 Hz. For the geeks who just need to know.
The white model? It’s like a mysterious stranger in a novel, sporting an APU we haven’t seen before. Code name: “100-000001835.” Kinda catchy, right? It’s got 16GB of RAM, that same 7-inch 120 Hz display, but, surprise! Only 65W charging. The freshest data suggests this thing’s onboard APU is dubbed Aerith Plus—possibly a sibling or refresh of AMD’s Von Gogh that the Steam Deck runs on.
The leak experts claim this AMD APU, part of the Z2 series and called “Ryzen Z2 A”—wow, a mouthful—has four cores with a TDP (basically, power range) from 6W to 20W. As for its architecture and GPU? We’re just as clueless, but hey, Computex is around the corner, so AMD/Asus might finally spill the beans.
So, if you’re the kind of person who keeps tabs via Google News, maybe hit up Tom’s Hardware for the latest and greatest—y’know, just click that Follow button or whatever they want you to do nowadays.
