After its reveal back in April, ASUS ROG has officially launched the ROG Ally, the handheld gaming PC that’s similar to the Steam Deck.
It’s fair to say that ASUS Republic of Gamers has been a constant innovator in the portable PC gaming segment. After all, ROG has launched a wide range of unique gaming machines such as the Flow and the Zephyrus Duo. But now, ROG has set its sights on the handheld gaming PC market that’s currently dominated by the Steam Deck.
One key improvement that the ROG Ally has over the Steam Deck is in performance. That’s because the Ally is powered by the new AMD Ryzen Z1 Extreme processor which promises better performance, especially for playing more demanding triple-A games. It will need this as the Ally has a 7-inch IPS display with a 1080p resolution and a 120Hz refresh rate.
The Ally also packs 16GB of RAM, 512GB of SSD storage, and a 65W USB-C Power Delivery charger. As for its battery, the handheld has a 40 WHr battery that ASUS promises will last for two hours of heavy gaming and up to 6.8 hours of lighter loads.
As for connectivity, the ROG Ally has a 3.5mm headphone jack, a USB-C 3.2 Gen 2 port (with DisplayPort 1.4 support), and a microSD card reader which doubles as expandable storage. Plus, it has an ROG XG Mobile Interface, meaning you can connect it with ROG’s proprietary external GPU if you want to use it as a home gaming device with more GPU power.
Unlike the Steam Deck though, the ROG Ally runs Windows 11. Each purchase of the device will also come with three months of Xbox Game Pass Ultimate for free.
The ROG Ally is priced at USD 700 (around PHP 39,000) for the Ryzen Z1 Extreme version, though a version powered by a Ryzen Z1 will be released later this year at USD 600 (around PHP 33,500). This handheld PC will be released in select territories this June.
For now, there’s no word yet on pricing and availability for the ROG Ally in the Philippines.