Asus ROG Ally

Soldato
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So I thought this was an April fools Ally = A Lie but turns out it's legit. This apparently supposed to have double the performance and refresh rate of the Steam Deck. Whilst it's not gonna be as cheap, they are saying pricing will be competitive. Thoughts?


 
Underboss
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Love the idea but ASUS tax will be huge, no doubt here will be a ROG variant which will be megalol money.

I'm tempted by a handheld, not had one since the PS Vita (?), will keep an eye on this.
 
Man of Honour
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There are a few takes on this already like the GPD products and competitors of varying quality. I'd rather take them over Asus probably.
 
Man of Honour
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Would have thought thed be better quality than gpd.

GPD quality is usually alright - the first run of a new model tends to have a few little gremlins, alignment on manufacturing a little out so the case might not quite fit perfectly, etc., but nothing too bad - on my first batch original GPD Pocket I had to open it up and insulate the WiFi connections to prevent interference for instance but that was fixed in serial production. Like those kind of brands in general there are a few oddities like drivers being published via a generic Mega account, etc. etc. GPD these days has matured significantly though.

Asus quality really isn't all that - I've had far more problems with Asus devices than GPD.

Some of the other noname brands can have varying issues - overheating being a not uncommon one - but you can usually find out from the user reviews pretty quick if a device is a turkey or not these days.
 
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Soldato
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I understand the comparisons to the SteamDeck given they're both handheld gaming but with the twice the performance claims* I imagine it will come with a price tag of, at least, twice as much too. At that price point though it starts getting in to gaming laptop territory and then IMO makes a handheld gaming device a harder sell.

*Though even Linus' video added the caveat of "under certain circumstances" so guess we'll have to wait and see quite how much more powerful this is over the SteamDeck.
 
Man of Honour
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I understand the comparisons to the SteamDeck given they're both handheld gaming but with the twice the performance claims* I imagine it will come with a price tag of, at least, twice as much too. At that price point though it starts getting in to gaming laptop territory and then IMO makes a handheld gaming device a harder sell.

*Though even Linus' video added the caveat of "under certain circumstances" so guess we'll have to wait and see quite how much more powerful this is over the SteamDeck.

Depends on your use case - even a light-weight gaming laptop is usually considerably larger and less convenient for more on the go kind of gaming - personally not really for me as I don't get on with playing games controller style like this - I have a gaming laptop I use more like a desktop replacement with mouse, etc.
 
Soldato
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Does it not cost pretty much like a laptop?

Price has already leaked, its $680 https://twitter.com/harukaze5719/status/1643130863369216000?ref_src=twsrc^tfw|twcamp^tweetembed|twterm^1643130863369216000|twgr^c7b488897ecc02a2df73c645bf7072f7e5d41775|twcon^s1_&ref_url=https://www.dexerto.com/tech/asus-rog-ally-2102952/

Its using an APU inside that was meant for next gen thin and light gaming notebooks

The APU inside the Ally has 8 cores and 16 threads of Zen 4 and 12 CU's of RDNA 3 with 35w TDP.
The steamdeck has 4 cores and 8 threads of Zen 2 and 8 CU's of RDNA 2 with 15w TDP.


The extra CPU performance in the Ally is nice because it means you can use an external RTX4000 GPU to make games run even faster, but this is really for use as a console with a TV, not ideal for handheld. The steamdeck doesn't support external hardware upgrades like a new GPU, not that it has the spare resources to handle it anyway
 
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Soldato
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I understand the comparisons to the SteamDeck given they're both handheld gaming but with the twice the performance claims* I imagine it will come with a price tag of, at least, twice as much too. At that price point though it starts getting in to gaming laptop territory and then IMO makes a handheld gaming device a harder sell.

*Though even Linus' video added the caveat of "under certain circumstances" so guess we'll have to wait and see quite how much more powerful this is over the SteamDeck.
On the same power level (15W) he mentioned 35% better performance, the double one is at a much higher 35W, so it does seem likely especially if it's a Zen 4 + RDNA3 APU. But considering the overall weight I don't think the battery size will be significantly larger so gaming at 35W will not last long... Does seem more suited in docked mode.
 
Associate
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On the same power level (15W) he mentioned 35% better performance, the double one is at a much higher 35W, so it does seem likely especially if it's a Zen 4 + RDNA3 APU. But considering the overall weight I don't think the battery size will be significantly larger so gaming at 35W will not last long... Does seem more suited in docked mode.
Not watched the video yet but the impact on battery life was what I was thinking about as well. Good to see some more competition though, just need enough early adopters to keep the segment alive and we could get some strong contenders over the next few years.
 
Soldato
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Price will be the deciding factor on this one.

I quite like the idea of one as it can utilise the XG mobile I already have for my Flow Z13. The extra grunt will be nice for those few games which are right on the cusp of being playable on the SD but only with compromises (looking at you Destiny 2...).
 
Soldato
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So it looks like it will have better cooling, more power, better screen, RGB, and likely higher price.

However, will the following match up? Controls, battery life, software support, after sales support, replacement parts available. I have my doubts.
 
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