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Looks like the Asus ROG Ally X will get a honking great battery upgradeRefreshed handheld specs spring a leak
Refreshed handheld specs spring a leak
Image credit:Asus
Image credit:Asus
The Asus ROG Ally X, a sort of semi-sequel to last year’sROG Allyhandheld PC, has had its specs spilled over atVideocardz. I’m usually a lot more suspicious of hardware leaks, which are often just out-of-date or otherwise inaccurate info, but I’ve also sat through enough mic-muted prebriefings to know an official slideshow when I see one, and that appears to be exactly what Videocardz got its hands on. Besides, these specs include a gigantic 80Whr battery upgrade (doubling the ROG Ally’s 40Whr capacity), so we can at least file this under “News Jameswantsto be true.”
The next ROG Ally is coming…Watch on YouTube
The next ROG Ally is coming…
It’s not as wide-ranging a refresh as theSteam Deck OLEDwas to theSteam Deck, as the ROG Ally X will apparently keep the same Ryzen Z1 Extreme APU that powered the original model. The display also appears unchanged, sticking with a 7in, 1920x1080 IPS panel with 500cd/m2 peak brightness. But that new battery could be a major improvement, given how quickly the ROG Ally runs out of juice (and how unbefitting that lack of stamina is for a portable device).
The leak also lists a RAM upgrade to 24GB of LPDDR5, running at 7500MHz. Ye olde ROG Ally was no memory slouch, packing 16GB of LPDDR5 at 6400MHz, but that extra capacity and bandwidth might well produce performance upgrades; remember that with an all-in-one APU, memory is shared among the central processor and the GPU, so the latter is getting an indirect power boost.
I’d feel icky about posting images with another site’s watermark, so here’s a photo of the original ROG Ally that I had to creep into some bushes near the Houses of Parliament to take. |Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun
All this added bigness has, inevitably, forced an increase in the ROG Ally X’s proportions. It will weigh 678g (up from 608g; the Steam Deck OLED weighs 640g) and measure 36.9mm across, so it’s gained 4.5mm of thickness. That’s still not as chunky as theLenovo Legion Go, mind. Or as weighty.
Expect confirmation of the ROG Ally X’s specs and pricing at Computex, Taiwan’s computing-focused tech trade show of renown, on June 2nd. Word is it will release the same month, too.
I like the sound of all these changes, at least for a refresh –battery chuggingwas one of the original ROG Ally’s two biggest issues, and while I’m a Steam Deck OLED convert these days, there was nothing about the ROG Ally’s display or performance that seemed in drastic need of upgrades. It was also slim and light enough that the new design’s modest bulk additions surely can’t spoil it.
That said, itssecondbiggest issue was the fiddliness of using Windows 11 on a small screen with no onboard trackpads, and for all of SteamOS’s occasionalcompatibility headaches, it’s still just a much more welcoming software experience than what the ROG Ally has ever offered. Asus actually have confirmed a new replacement for the Ally’s games launcher app, ROG Pulse (formerly Armory Crate), but I’m still waiting to be convinced that this and/or the ROG Ally X itself will fully address the underlying mismatch between OS and hardware.
