Letâs be clear, hardware manufacturers have been trying to make handheld gaming PCs forever. The Steam Deck isnât the first, and wonât be the last, it was just the first to be truly successful. A result of that success is that rivals now have a benchmark to aim for, though, and one of the first companies to take a swing at Valveâs new crown is ASUS.
Launching under the companyâs Republic of Gamers (ROG) label, this is the ROG Ally. While the handheldâs reveal video runs for three whole minutes, thereâs not a single mention of specs, just the announcement that itâll run on a custom AMD chip, and that itâll be compatible with ASUSâ existing external GPU/power supply unit (the ROG XG Mobile eGPU) used by its laptops.
A bunch of influencers got their hands on the device early, and while their videos are also devoid of the most useful hard numbers, they do mention details like the fact the Ally will have an impressive 1920Ă1080/120hz display (compared to the Steam Deckâs 1280Ă800/60hz), and that itâs smaller and lighter than Valveâs handheld as well.
The Ally will run Windows 11, and has a fairly traditional control setup, with two analogue sticks, a d-pad, four primary face buttons and some triggers. It certainly looks nice in the videos, but then, this is pre-release marketing, and how nice it looks now will be completely irrelevant if the Allyâs price, battery life, performance and storage arenât up to scratch. Like I said, this isnât the first and wonât be the last time a PC hardware manufacturer has tried to make a handheld gaming PC; ASUS will have to get the mix just right to be able to compete with Valve (and already, even without numbers, this feels like itâs going to be way too expensive!)
