Asus’ ROG Ally was the first attempt by a major brand to compete with Valve’s Steam Deck. It was beefy and interesting, but it had three major flaws: it ran Windows on a tiny touchscreen, it had unremarkable ergonomics, and it had painful battery life.
Asus ROG (Republic of Gamers) Ally X, which was Announce It’s scheduled for release on June 2, and its specifications appear to have leaked, indicating at least a fix to battery life. Games website VideoCardzstarting the leak reveal with the phrase “no more rumours”, indicates that the ROG Ally
A leaked image from VideoCardz, apparently from Asus marketing materials, of the ROG Ally
The battery and memory have changed dramatically. The 80Wh battery, up from 40, somehow adds just 70g of weight and about 5mm of thickness to the complementary device. By increasing the RAM from 16GB to 24GB and making it LPDDR5, the ROG Ally There’s also a second USB-C port, with USB4 speeds, which should help a lot with docking, charging while playing with accessories, and, I guess, Linux hacking.
How do you feel about it? Only Sean Hollister at The Verge knows this, outside ASUS employees. The sequel has lost the weird sharp corners on the back, and more of your hand now rests around the back, without the back buttons being accidentally triggered so easily. All the triggers and buttons appear to have received some feedback-based upgrades in terms of durability and feel.
If Asus gets closer to the $800 price tag (that It was also leaked), it can compete with the Steam Deck OLED in features and flash, if not library and polish. But as I said before, perhaps somewhat defensively, bring up the flashier laptops.
The expanding remit of laptop gaming means that more developers are targeting these systems, both in specs and just in accessibility. More demand for new types of mobile devices makes the entire field more interesting and competitive. Microsoft, fully aware of this evolving market and thinking about a more cloud-based and less Xbox-focused gaming future, can only make Windows better on mobile because the bar is so low right now.
All of this gives me more games to play on the couch while I cook rice, whether or not the machine I’m holding has more RAM, faster, and better USB-C ports than my gaming PC.
“Typical beer trailblazer. Hipster-friendly web buff. Certified alcohol fanatic. Internetaholic. Infuriatingly humble zombie lover.”