ASUS ROG Ally is Not An April Fools Prank

On April 1st ASUS announced its ROG Ally handheld console which most rightfully assumed was an April Fools prank, however as it turns out the ROG Ally is a real product and could look to compete with the Steam deck.

ASUS ROG Ally A Real Product

As it turns out this product is a genuine product and Dave2D on youtube has been the first to get hands-on with the device and show us information regarding it. Most assumed that this product would just be a cloud gaming console making use of the Xbox Game Pass library however it isn’t and features a fully-fledged APU which Dave2D confirms is a 4nm AMD APU with a Zen 4 CPU and RDNA3 graphics.

Steam Deck Competitor?

This device could well and truly be a competitor to the Steam Deck which is arguably the best handheld on the market at the moment as on paper it features higher specifications than the steam deck. The Rog Ally is slated to feature a 1920×1080 120hz display whilst the Deck features a 1280×800 60hz display and is said to weigh 608g which is less than the Steam deck at 669g. Dave2D also claims that the 2-fan cooling solution was quieter than the Steam deck at 20 dB vs 37 dB.

In terms of pure power Linus Tech Tips also got their hands on the ROG Ally and provided more information from ASUS who has claimed that with its AMD Pheonix APU and possibly 16GB of RAM, the device could offer 50% more performance at 15W and twice the performance at 35W over the Steam Deck.

ASUS ROG XG Mobile Unit Compatibility

Also giving this a boost over the Steam Deck is the console’s compatibility with ASUS XG Mobile external GPU designed for laptops. The only problem with this is that it is a pricey option and can’t really be considered an advantage over the steam deck considering how much you’ll need to pay.

What Kind of Pricing Can We Expect?

ASUS hasn’t explicitly revealed pricing for the ROG Ally however the rumours that are spreading indicate that we may see it around $680 which is just a bit more than the 512GB Steam Deck and will possibly be seen within the next few months.

Has the ROG ALLY piqued your interest? Let us know in the comments.