The Asus ROG Ally

When Valve introduced the Steam Deck OLED, I called it “everything the original should have been.” Asus is trying to do exactly the same with the new ROG Ally X.

After months of leaks, teases, and exclusive early details from yours truly, it’s official: the ROG Ally

When it ships on July 22, it will ship with dual battery, dual storage, dual USB-C ports with quadruple USB bandwidth, 50 percent more (and faster) 7500MHz memory for up to a 15 percent performance boost, dramatically revised ergonomics , an overhauled internal layout, and an extensive list of other tweaks.

There are so many changes that I spent two hours on the phone with Asus technical marketing director Sascha Krohn to hear about them all. I also went to the company’s US headquarters to open up a ROG Ally I took a lot of pictures because I want you to come with me.

But first let me remind you what the ROG Ally is not. This is what I wrote last month:

Don’t call it an Ally 2: When it’s released in the second half of the year, the Windows-based Ally It’s not quite like the Steam Deck OLED, where Valve got AMD to overhaul its chip for better battery life and stability and added a larger, brighter, beautiful new OLED panel with improved response time and thinner bezels.

The ROG Ally It still runs Windows, and I’m still convinced that Windows is dragging down gaming handhelds. But the Ally doesn’t feel heavy, one that fits my average-sized hands better than any Windows handheld I’ve tried.

Weighing 678 grams, ROG Ally It’s almost exactly the same weight as the original Steam Deck, and almost half an inch thinner, but with twice the battery capacity inside.

How? While the larger battery added more than 120 grams to weight, Asus was able to offset half of that by making other components lighter. Krohn says a stronger, thinner and lighter chassis yielded the biggest savings, with the weight of the talc-filled ABS/polycarbonate composite going from 176 grams to 134 grams by the time Asus was finished. (I ran into one side effect of the stiffer plastic mixture: it’s harder to pop it open for repair.)

The Ally more powerful, because the company’s in-house design team created its own set of 77 ultra-thin blades that surpass the 47 of the original. Krohn says you may see the Ally run a few degrees cooler, and the thinner blades also help reduce the audible sound bump around 5,000 Hz.

And there’s a new set of vents that allow Ally X to cool the touchscreen more effectively: up to 6°C cooler.

The joysticks are another place where they are both better And Lighter: Completely revised modular boards now use the same high-quality potentiometer-based ALPS sticks you’ll find in a PS5 or Xbox gamepad, with a much tighter throw than the original Ally, wonderfully sticky concave tops a la Steam Deck OLED, wider base for better dust resistance and low friction POM plastic stems for a smoother action when scraping against the edge of the joystick ring.

They’re rated for 5 million rotation cycles, up from 2 million, and if that’s not enough, they’re modular – ready for a drift-resistant Hall Effect magnetic joystick upgrade kit that Gulikit already has in development. (Krohn says not enough gamers prefer Hall Effect sticks that come standard, which… maybe?)

And Asus has seemingly addressed almost all of the biggest I/O complaints:

You now get a full-length M.2 2280 PCIe 4 SSD slot, a slot that also supports double-sided drives, bringing both the highest capacity and most cost-effective storage options on the market.

Asus has also replaced its own and 4 PCIe lanes for standard eGPUs. (No Oculink, sorry.)

Both ports are top-mounted, but Krohn says even the weaker one can offer 100W charging and 10Gbps data.

And yes, Asus says you can get one new So SD card reader not the same as the one that Asus doesn’t want to admit there is a problem with.

Here are some of the smaller details I learned:

• Not only is the D-pad now eight-way, it’s also bigger and more comfortable. I greatly prefer it.
• The face buttons are 3mm larger, in a longer tube for greater stability. I noticed they have a flatter press.
• The speakers have a slightly larger chamber for slightly more volume and bass.
• The haptic actuators have been moved to the edges of the device, under the palms, for more pronounced feedback and weight distribution.
• The shoulder buttons are mounted differently on the board, so that they are less likely to break in the event of a fall.
• The triggers are wider and made of smoky semi-transparent plastic that looks cool.
• The rear intake vents are slightly larger.
• The tops of the joysticks are now attached with screws, so you can theoretically 3D print your own tops or stem extenders.
• Likewise, the new rear buttons are now screwed into the back, so you could theoretically move their position in your own 3D printed back.
• There’s now a ring around the fingerprint power button to make it easier to find by feel.
• Turbo mode still runs at 25W, but Silent has been increased from 10W to 13W and Performance from 15W to 17W.
• The battery now has a remaining capacity of 80 percent after three years of cycling, an increase from 70 percent
• The handheld now uses a different IMU.
• It still has magnetic Hall Effect triggers, but slightly revised to ensure they don’t interfere with the speakers or vibration motors.
• While it now supports 100W charging, it still comes with the same 65W adapter.
• It’s not compatible with existing cases and mounts, but Asus has reached out to fan favorites JSAUX, Deckmate and Dbrand to offer new ones.
• Existing Ally owners can migrate settings to an Ally

Last but not least, there’s an Easter egg in the comfy new grips: just as the PS5’s controller is covered in incredibly small PlayStation symbols, the ROG Ally X’s grips are covered in “ROG ROG ROG”:

I can’t wait for a review copy of this handheld, because battery is king in the world of portable gaming PCs, and the Ally Just don’t necessarily expect it to dethrone the Steam Deck OLED, because Asus can only go so far without a more efficient chip and screen – and because I’m still not sure what I think about Asus’s deteriorating reputation for support .

Some small news today: Asus just announced it that all ROG Ally devices in North America now have a two-year warranty.

Photography by Sean Hollister / The Verge