Asus’ new ROG Ally X is here and it may have all the specs to beat the other handheld gaming PCs — at least on paper.
Asus officially revealed its latest gaming handheld, which should be considered more of a follow-up or a refresh rather than a next-gen model of its ROG Ally. That’s because the ROG Ally X largely follows the same design, but makes room for a few ergonomic tweaks and internal upgrades.
Asus designed the ROG Ally X to be one of the most powerful options on the market, especially looking at its 80Wh battery. That’s double the battery capacity of its predecessor and way more than the 50Wh battery in the Steam Deck OLED or the Lenovo Legion Go. The Asus ROG Ally X’s battery even trumps the Ayaneo Kun’s massive 75Wh battery.
Biggest Battery Yet
Besides the massive battery upgrade, Asus also doubled the storage to a 1TB SSD while changing it to an M.2 2280 slot which makes it easier to upgrade to a larger capacity in the future. The ROG Ally X also runs on 24GB of RAM, up from the 16GB from the previous model, and still uses the AMD Ryzen Z1 Extreme processor.
Just like the ROG Ally only came in all white, the ROG Ally X will only be available in all black. However, the new chassis offers better ergonomics thanks to deeper grips for your hands and a better angle for the buttons and sticks making them easier to press. On the flip side, Asus made the back buttons smaller so you get fewer accidental presses.
It’s important to note that Asus decided against including its proprietary XG Mobile port with the ROG Ally X and went with two USB-C ports instead. You won’t have that dedicated Asus port to connect to its external GPUs, but you can still connect to models that work via USB-C. Besides that, Asus improved the cooling design for the ROG Ally X, along with the D-pad and joystick modules.
First Deliveries in July
Asus already put the ROG Ally X up for preorder on Best Buy for $799.99. Considering the upgrades throughout the handheld, we understand the price hike from the original ROG Ally’s $700 price for the model with a similar AMD processor. The ROG Ally X is scheduled to start shipping in late July.
Before you pull the trigger on buying Asus’ updated handheld, it might be worth it to wait for some reviews. After all, the MSI Claw was advertised as a handheld to beat the competition and it’s so far failed to do that according to some early opinions. Even though the ROG Ally X may sound good on paper with its improved specs, it still has to prove that it can offer enough of a challenge to the smooth experience you get with the Steam Deck.
