ROG Ally X leaks, with twice the battery of the original and way more RAM

Asus’ ROG Ally was the first attempt by a major brand to compete with Valve’s Steam Deck. It was beefy and interesting, but it had three major flaws: it ran Windows on a small touchscreen, had unremarkable ergonomics, and its battery life was punishing.

The Asus ROG (Republic of Gamers) Ally Gaming site VideoCardz, starting its leak with “More Rumors,” cites the ROG Ally Hz. rate.

The battery and memory have changed significantly, however. An 80 watt-hour battery, compared to 40, adds only 70 grams of weight and about 5 mm of thickness to the next device. By increasing the RAM from 16GB to 24GB and making it LPDDR5, the ROG Ally X may be able to lend more to the GPU, increasing performance somewhat without requiring a new chip or architecture. There’s also a second USB-C port, with USB4 speeds, which should help a lot with connecting, charging while playing with accessories, and, I suppose, Linux hacking.

How does it feel? Only Sean Hollister of The Verge knows this, aside from ASUS employees. The sequel has lost the oddly sharp corners of the back, and more of your hand fits around the back, without the rear buttons being accidentally triggered as easily. The triggers and buttons all seem to have received improvements based on feedback in terms of durability and feel.

If Asus sticks to the $800 price point (this was also disclosed), it could rival the Steam Deck OLED on features and flash, or even library and tweaking. But as I’ve said before, perhaps somewhat defensively, go for the flashiest pocket PCs.

The expanding viability of portable PC gaming means more developers are targeting these systems, whether in terms of specs or simply accessibility. Increased demand for new types of handheld computers makes the entire field more interesting and competitive. Microsoft, which is keenly aware of this developing market and envisions a more cloud-based and less Xbox-centric gaming future, can only improve Windows on handhelds, as the bar is pretty low right now .

All of this gives me more games to play on the couch while the rice cooks, whether or not the device I’m holding has bigger, faster RAM and better USB-C ports than my gaming PC.