Asus has announced a new handheld gaming machine, called the ROG Ally. At first, many people thought it was an April Fools’ Day prank, but Asus has confirmed that it’s a real device. The company claims that the ROG Ally is the fastest AMD-customized Ryzen APU yet and will run on Windows 11. It has a seven-inch 16:9 display with 1920 x 1080 resolution, 500 nits of brightness, and a 120Hz refresh rate. The chip inside uses AMD’s Zen 4 architecture with RDNA 3 graphics tech.
The ROG Ally is smaller, lighter, and flatter than Valve’s Steam Deck, weighing 608g and measuring 280mm x 113mm x 39mm, compared to the Steam Deck’s 669g and 298mm x 117mm x 50.5mm. It also has a fingerprint sensor along the top and a dual-fan system that makes it much quieter than the Steam Deck.
The ROG Ally has a standard setup of dual analog sticks, a left-mounted D-pad, and four face buttons, plus a few smaller buttons around the screen to access menus and settings. It can be used with the ROG XG Mobile eGPU to stream games to a TV.
However, details such as battery life and price are still unknown. The ROG Ally looks like a high-powered entry into the portable gaming market and may give Valve’s Steam Deck a run for its money.