ASUS posted a teaser for the ROG Ally, the company’s first gaming handheld, on April 1st. When everyone thought it was an April fool’s joke, the company has now confirmed that it’s real, and is coming soon to take on the Steam Deck.
Dave2D
ASUS did not reveal the official specifications of the handheld, but Linus and Dave2D YouTube channels have posted hands-on videos of the device of the prototype.
ASUS claims that the Ally will offer 2 times the performance of the Steam Deck, since this is powered by a custom AMD 4nm Zen 4-based APU. This has a 7-inch (1920 x 1080 pixels) 16:9 screen with 120Hz refresh rate screen, twice the resolution and refresh rate of the Steam Deck. It has 500 nits brightness.
Linus Tech Tips
There are shoulder buttons, 3.5 mm audio jack, microSD slot (UHS-II), volume rockers, fingerprint sensor, and a connection port for ASUS XG Mobile external GPU that supports up to RTX 4090. It can output 4K via the display port when you connect the eGPU.
There is a USB Type-C port which is part of the connection port that is used for charging at 65W. It has an M.2 2230 SSD and should come with up to 1 TB storage option.
The device has a heat pipe with two element heat sinks, vents on the top and there are in takes on the back. This is much quieter than the steam deck.
Availability
ASUS just put up a page for North America and Canada and asks users to sign up to be notified when the ROG Ally is available for pre-order and available in-store/online.
The ASUS ROG Ally is expected sometime later this year, and the pricing will be competitive, says ASUS. Will it compete with the Steam Deck? We will have to wait for a few more months to find out.