The ROG Ally gaming handheld arrives in June for $700 to battle the Steam Deck, preorder now
Asus today confirmed the pricing and release date of the ROG Ally, the company's highly-anticipated gaming handheld device. The success of the Nintendo Switch's form factor prompted other device makers to test the waters, including Valve and Logitech. Some products are simply cloud gaming systems, like the Logitech G Cloud. Others, like the Valve Steam Deck, are full-fledged gaming computers crammed into a portable handheld form factor.
At a worldwide launch event, Asus revealed that the ROG Ally will retail for $700 and debut on June 13. Buyers can start pre-ordering the gaming handheld starting today at Asus, and the ROG Ally will also be available at big-box retailers like Best Buy. Interestingly, the ROG Ally will come with three free months of Xbox Game Pass Ultimate in the box, the company said. That seems to indicate that Asus sees the ROG Ally as a cloud gaming option since a key perk of Game Pass Ultimate is game streaming capabilities.
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Though Asus hasn't released the full technical specifications of the ROG Ally, we do know some things about the gaming handheld already. It'll run Windows 11, meaning that it supports all the games you'd typically run on a gaming computer or laptop. That's paired with a 1080p screen, which is about on par with what we've seen from the gaming handheld space to date. Asus claims that the ROG Ally can handle modern AAA gaming titles without issue, but we'll have to test it out firsthand to know for sure.
Similar to the Nintendo Switch and other products in the gaming handheld category, the ROG Ally will be able to connect to a dock. This will let you connect the ROG Ally to a TV or monitor for a better visual experience. Plus, something unique about the ROG Ally is that it has full external GPU support, so you'll be able to hook up a desktop-grade GPU to the ROG Ally for enhanced performance. With these two features, it's possible that the ROG Ally could serve as your main gaming computer, both at home and on the go.
The ROG Ally has an AMD Ryzen Z1 Extreme processor, which is built on AMD's new architecture and looks set to provide solid performance. The big question mark with the ROG Ally, like other handhelds, is battery life. Since these gaming handhelds offer laptop or desktop-class performance in a relatively small form factor, there isn't much room for a large battery. That's been a common pain point with the competing Steam Deck, and it'll be interesting to see whether Asus can improve in this area.
The Asus ROG Ally is available for pre-order starting today with a global release set for June 13. Check it out with the link below.
Source: XDA Developers
