[Computex 2024] ROG Ally X Is The Latest Upgrade For ASUS’s Gaming Handheld

Last year, ASUS unveiled the ROG Ally that kicked off a wave of gaming handheld products in the market today; the company is now introducing an upgraded version that packs even more RAM and battery a better overall package. Also, users now have the black color option to choose from.

ROG Ally X: 24GB RAM, Double The Battery

There’s a reason ASUS didn’t name it “ROG Ally 2” – the ROG Ally X is mostly identical on the outside, but the innards has received a big upgrade, though it’ll be powered by the same AMD Ryzen Z1 Extreme processor as usual. The new model now includes a 1TB option thanks to a new M.2 2280 form factor (only M.2 2232 supported in the original Ally), and users can upgrade for even bigger drives as 2TB single-sided models exist today.

The memory has also been given a significant improvement, which now contains 24GB of LPDDR5X-7500 RAM for better multitasking. This should help with gaming performance to some degree – as the onboard GPU shares the RAM pool with the CPU, having a larger capacity should help reduce hiccups caused by insufficient memory.

Battery is another big upgrade this time around: ASUS has doubled the battery capacity of the ROG Ally X to 80Wh which should provide double the battery life over the original model. While that sounds like a lot of weight penalty, turns out some weight savings have been made as the new model is only 70g heavier (now 678g), and a mere 4mm increase in thickness.

That extra space was likely created by shrinking the fans, which are now 23% smaller. However, the fan blades are now 50% thinner, while two new tunnels direct air to a third exhaust vent on the upper edge of the ROG Ally X. All these net 24% more air volume from the intake, while significantly cools the display by up to 6°C.

Let’s get back to the chassis side of things for a bit. While we said earlier that it’s mostly identical, there are some minor changes. For one, ASUS has reprofiled the shell with more rounded corners for improved comfort, and the controls have been re-arranged slightly to improve ergonomics. The joysticks are now upgraded to a new module that is rated for 5 million cycles, with stiffer springs that mimic the feel of popular controllers. The D-pad now supports 8 control directions, which should work well with fighting games.

Gone is the semi-proprietary XGm port that was used to connect discrete XG Mobile external GPUs, as ASUS says users “overwhelmingly requested more universal I/O.” In its place are two USB-C ports, one of which is a USB4 port that are compatible with Thunderbolt – meaning you can still get an external GPU to work on the ROG Ally X.

ASUS says the new handheld will cost $799, and it is expected to be available starting this July. However, no information is known regarding local release so far – but it should be released here reasonably soon.

Pokdepinion: As someone who owns all things black – I like ’em black.