Asus teased a video of the ROG Ally on April Fool’s Day, but it turned out to be the real deal! This has got fans excited as a potential competitor for the Steam Deck which is selling like hotcakes across the world. Valve has also announced that they would be selling the Steam Deck in Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and Hong Kong.
What do we know about the ROG Ally so far?
Asus claims that the Ally has twice the performance of the Steam Deck with the fastest AMD APU to be ever launched. Now, these are bold claims but if they do tend to perform as advertised. it would disrupt the handheld console industry. Other specs include a 7-inch 1090p display with a 120hz refresh rate, which as twice as fast as the Steam Deck!
How much will the Ally cost?
The pricing and the battery life aren’t clear yet, but according to rumors, the pricing could start from as low as $649. Now the base variant of the Steam Deck starts at $399 which is cheap compared to the other handhelds such as Ayaneo 2 or the GPD Win 3 which costs over $1000 for the high-end model. Valve makes most of its money through its Steam Store which sells games and software, so it can afford to take a loss from its console sales. Meanwhile, Asus has also partnered with Microsoft which brings Windows 11 to the Steam Deck as well as the Game Pass. Microsoft might be helping Asus out with the Ally which could possibly bring the price of the device much lower than anticipated.
What are the specs of the ROG Ally?
The Rog Ally weighs just 608 grams, which is much lower compared to the 669 grams of the Steam Deck. It also has only 2 buttons on the back compared to the Steam Deck and it also misses out on the trackpads. It will come with 16 GB of RAM and if the rumors are true, a custom Zen 4 APU will be powering the device.
- CPU: Custom AMD APU
- GPU: AMD Radeon RDNA 3 graphics
- Screen: 7 inch 1080p display, 120HZ, 500 nits peak brightness
- RAM: 16 GB LPDDR5
- Dimensions: 28cm x 11cm x 1.2cm
- Weight: 608g
- IO: Micro SD card slot, 2.5mm jack, USB-C, ROG eGPU port
The ROG Ally will be air-cooled by 2 fans compared to the one on the Steam Deck. Dave2D, a recognized YouTuber, showed us a demo of the device which proves that the Ally is 17 decibels quieter than the Steam Deck, which is an impressive feat!
The device comes with a fingerprint scanner, a Micro SD card slot, a 3.5mm jack, a USB-C port as well as a port that lets you connect Asus’ external ROG XG eGPU so that you can gain extra performance by connecting an external graphics card. Asus is selling the eGPU along with an RTX 4090 for $1999, so we can hope that the bundle which includes the eGPU as well as the ROG Ally would be priced reasonably.
When will Asus launch the Ally?
According to Asus and some tech Youtubers, the ROG Ally will be released in the Summer of 2023. We’re expecting more information on this, but it looks like Asus will unveil the ROG Ally at Computex which takes place on May 30. Asus also tweeted that the Ally might release sooner than expected, so they have definitely gotten our hopes up!
Where can I buy the ROG Ally?
BestBuy has a sign-up page that will let you know when the ROG Ally is available for sale if you live in the United States of America or Canada. Asus also announced via a tweet that they would be selling it worldwide which is amazing news for fans across the world. Again, we don’t have a confirmation of the price yet but expect the base variant to cost around $649.
