It’s remarkable how Valve’s Steam Deck remains the most popular handheld gaming PC in the market right now. Since its debut in 2021 and subsequent launch in early 2022, the company has yet to announce an official sequel as the OLED variant is considered just an incremental upgrade. ASUS seems to have taken a page out of its rival’s playback as it finally takes the wraps off the ROG Ally X.
It was only a few weeks ago when the Taiwanese company hyped up its new SKU during a Republic of Gamers (ROG) stream on YouTube. Given the original ROG Ally was a powerful contender in a segment dominated by the Steam Deck, it was unfortunately marred by several hardware and software issues.
The latter was eventually resolved by updates, but the same could not be said for the controversial microSD card reader problem. Teardowns and testing by tech industry experts narrowed it down to thermal stress. For now, it’s unclear if this is fixed on the ROG Ally X, but ASUS’ engineers have likely resolved it to avoid another similar debacle.
Those who always wanted a stealthier colorway can now rejoice as the ROG Ally X ships in black. There is no word if ASUS will also offer it in white, but the darker shade hides blemishes better. Without a protective cover, it was a chore to regularly wipe smudges and dirt off the ROG Ally to keep it presentable.
Running the show is the same AMD Ryzen Z1 Extreme CPU and AMD RDNA GPU. Nevertheless, it welcomes a massive boost in RAM and internal storage with a 24 GB LPDDR5X-7500 and a 1 TB M.2 PCIe 4.0 SSD, respectively.
It’s now packing double the battery life of its predecessor at 80 Wh but retains the 7″ IPS display with a 120 Hz refresh rate. Gone is ASUS’ proprietary XG Mobile connector and in its place is another USB-C port, which means hooking it up to an eGPU is out of the question/
This means you can keep the ROG Ally X charged and connect it to an external display or plug in other compatible devices at the same time. Unlike Valve’s platform, it runs on Windows 11 out of the box and can access other game services provided by Microsoft and Epic, for example. The retail price is tagged at $799 and units are slated to ship out next month.
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Images courtesy of ASUS
