Asus has the Rog-Ally-X introduced, a completely redesigned handheld PC based on the original Rog-Ally (test). The manufacturer addressed several points of criticism of the first version, especially the battery life. A battery with double the capacity was installed, which, however, requires a completely new internal structure, also in order not to increase the weight at the same time.
The mainboard and the cooling system have been newly developed. The fans are smaller, but are designed to generate 10 percent more air flow at the same speed thanks to thinner and more fan blades. In addition, part of the air is now directed under the display. This should prevent a hot touchscreen; Asus says that the display temperature is reduced by six degrees Celsius.
While AMD’s Strix Point APU is not yet available for a performance upgrade, Asus has nevertheless increased the performance of the handheld PC. Instead of 16 GB of LPDDR5-6400, 24 GB of LPDDR5-7500 are installed, which can increase performance in memory-intensive applications, but should also mean better graphics performance due to higher speed, since the memory is also used by the graphics unit.
Asus uses the larger battery for more SoC performance
At the same time, Asus uses the larger battery to allow the AMD Ryzen Z1 SoC to consume two watts more power in all presets. What seems like little at first glance represents an increase of 20 percent to 12 watts in the lowest setting of 10 watts. Asus has adopted the display with 1,920 x 1,080 pixels and 120 Hz refresh rate from the previous model.
Instead of a proprietary port for external GPUs, Asus has installed a second Type-C port that is compatible with USB 4 and Thunderbolt 4. This can be used to connect peripherals, monitors or an external GPU. In combination with a device with a share license, Thunderbolt Share should also be possible, although this feature has not been confirmed by Asus.
Adjustments to the housing for better ergonomics
In order to accommodate the significantly larger battery, the casing was made a little thicker. In addition, Asus made the handles on the sides a little rounder, which is supposed to feel better and convinced us in the short hands-on test at Asus. Asus made the macro keys on the back smaller to avoid accidental activation.
They can be operated in all directions, for example with different fingers. According to Asus, the joysticks are designed to last longer and are positioned at a different angle to the gamepad buttons, which is said to feel more natural. The ROG Ally X can be pre-ordered from Monday and, with a 1 TB SSD in the M.2-2280 form factor, costs 100 euros more than the previous model, which is still available.