Asus has confirmed its handheld ROG Ally gaming PC will hit stores on June 13. Pre orders are live, and the brand also shared a slew of new images and confirmed specs via a live launch event.
Looking to compete directly with Valve’s almighty Steam Deck, the device seems to have a lot going for it, and spec for spec could offer a worthy alternative to the portable Steam machines ever-strengthening grip on the mobile gaming market, at least on paper.
Touting a 7in display the device sits pretty with a full-HD IPS touchscreen capable of 500 nits peak brightness and up to 120Hz refresh rate. We’ve also got all the premium features you’d expect including; gamer-centric 7ms response times, Dolby Vision HDR support, and AMD FreeSync Premium for tear- and stutter-free visuals.
The driving force behind ROG Ally’s impressive performance figures is AMD’s latest Ryzen Z1 Extreme Processor. Based on the Zen 4 architecture, this little beast boasts eight-cores and 16 threads, 24MB total cache, and up to 5.10GHz max boost clock. Meanwhile, in the graphics department you will find 12 RDNA 3 CUs running at up to 2.7GHz, equating to 8.6 TFLOP of compute performance. Sheesh.
Rounding off the impressive list of specs, the ROG Ally has 16GB of LPDDR5 RAM, with a 512GB PCIe 4.0 M.2 SSD allocated for storage. Network connectivity is handled by a Wi-Fi 6E, Bluetooth 5.2 chipset, while battery capacity is rated for 40WHrs.
Early reviews and hands-on coverage suggest battery life is a weak spot, and we’re intrigued to see whether or not the base model, outfitted with regular Ryzen Z1, will fare better in this regard. We’ll have to wait a while to find out as the £599 variant won’t become available until Q3 at the earliest.
Finally I/O ports cover a single USB Type-C port, A ROG XG Mobile port for Asus external GPU enclosures, and a 3.5mm audio jack. All this in a 28.0 x 11.1 x 2.12cm chassis weighing a total of 608g. Impressive.
Is it the promised Steam Deck killer everyone expected? Well reviews so far say close but no cigar. Despite a mixed response, ROG Ally is priced competitively at £699 and with native support for Windows 11, it remains a powerful challenger in the increasingly popular handheld gaming market. PC Game Pass, anyone?
In the UK, the Asus ROG Ally is available today on pre order directly from Asus, or alternatively, you can register interest at your local Currys, with pre-orders expected to become available on May 16.
