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Asus’s ROG Ally gaming handheld wasn’t just an April Fool’s joke

On April Fool's Day, Asus unveiled the ROG Ally, billed as a new gaming handheld with a custom Ryzen APU more powerful than the one found in the Steam Deck. Now, Asus has confirmed that this announcement was not a joke, the ROG Ally is real, and it will be launching this year. 

While the ROG Ally will use a custom Ryzen APU, apparently AMD's ‘fastest yet', the exact technical specs haven't been revealed just yet. The handheld will have a Full HD display, a quiet dual-fan setup under the hood to keep temperatures in check and it will be running Windows 11, rather than a version of Android like some cheaper gaming handhelds, or Valve's SteamOS.

Asus has also said that the ROG Ally will be compatible with the ROG XG Mobile eGPU, so at home, you could dock the Ally and enjoy higher performance.

Since this was announced on April 1st, there was a lot of doubt as to how real this product is, but ASUS has confirmed today that it is indeed real. For now, it seems the handheld will only be available in the US and Canada, but it should come to other parts of the world at some point.

Asus has teamed up with Best Buy in the US and Canada to offer pre-orders. There is already a mailing list set up, so if you are thinking of getting one as soon as they become available, you can sign up to be notified once sales go live.

KitGuru Says: One of the advantages Valve has in the handheld market right now is a decent price-to-performance ratio, which is enabled in part due to the fact that the system uses SteamOS (Linux), instead of a more expensive licensed OS, like Windows. We don't have pricing yet for the ROG Ally, but based on the use of Windows and the fact that it will seemingly have better technical specs, I would expect the ROG Ally to be priced a bit higher than Valve's handheld. Hopefully we won't have to wait long for more official details. 

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