After teasing the ROG Ally on April Fools Day and confirming that it will have a global release, ASUS has revealed the official specs for its first handheld gaming console. On paper, it is significantly more powerful than what the Steam Deck has to offer.
For its design, ASUS chose to use an XBox controller layout for the ROG Ally because it claims that it is one of the best gaming controller designs in the market. It makes sense also for ASUS to use an XBox controller layout since the ROG Ally comes with Windows 11 out of the box–which means it has native support for XBox Game Pass. Aside from being ergonomic, ASUS managed to make the ROG Ally light at just 608g–for comparison, the Steam Deck weighs 669g.
Aside from having a USB-C 3.2 Gen 1 port–which can be used to connect it to an external monitor–you also get ASUS’ proprietary port for connecting the ROG Ally to an XG Mobile GPU, where you can transform it into a full workstation when connected to a monitor, keyboard, and mouse.
One of the key highlights of the ROG Ally is its use of a custom AMD Ryzen Z1 processor, which is made using a 4nm process. There are two versions: the regular one has a 6-core, 12-thread configuration and comes with 22MB cache, while the Extreme version has an 8-core, 16-thread configuration and 24MB of cache. Both versions utilize a Zen 4 CPU architecture and RDNA 3 graphics.
As for storage, the ROG Ally comes with 512GB PCIe 4.0 SSD storage, of which ASUS claims up to 4.5Gb/s transfer speeds. This means that games should load significantly faster on the ROG Ally compared to the competition. If the internal storage is not enough, the ROG Ally is one of the few handheld devices that supports UHS-II MicroSD expansion–this means that it can accept MicroSD cards that have transfer speeds as high as 312Mb/s. ASUS did not scrimp on memory either, as the ROG Ally comes with 16GB LPDDR5 RAM.
Another key highlight in the specs of the ROG Ally is its display, which is a fast 120hz IPS panel that has a Full HD resolution, 500nits brightness, and 7ms response time. Again, those specs make the ROG Ally significantly better than the Steam Deck–at least on paper. Aside from those gamer-worthy specs, the ROG Ally’s display covers 100% of the sRGB color gamut and has a 1000:1 contrast ratio–which makes it a vibrant IPS panel. Aside from a great display, ASUS also added powerful front-firing speakers on the ROG Ally that support Dolby Atmos.
To keep that packed set of internals cool, ASUS implemented its ROG Intelligent Cooling on the Ally, where it claims that its dual fans provide minimal to no noise, freeing you of any distractions while playing with it. ASUS did not disclose the battery capacity of the ROG Ally, but we hope that it can match (or beat) the 2-hour screen time of the Steam Deck given its powerful internals.
ASUS has yet to disclose the official price of the ROG Ally, but we were told that it will not go over $1000. ASUS will reveal the official price and availability of the ROG Ally on May 11.
