The handheld gaming PC scene seems to have gotten a kickstart with the ROG Ally, with Lenovo and MSI suddenly coming up with their take on gaming handhelds over the last few months. It seems that ASUS will not be resting on their laurels too, as the ROG Ally 2 is slated to come later this year, if ASUS India’s VP Arnold Su is to be trusted.
In an exclusive interview with Techlusive, Arnold Su spilled the beans about the second generation ROG Ally that’s apparently to come later this year. The ROG Ally 2 is expected to still run Windows, for better or worse, but apparently ASUS will focus more on gaming. Whatever that means. If we are to take it at face value, it might mean that the ROG Ally 2 might debut the much-rumored Windows Handheld Mode. Or it might mean that ASUS will double down on their Armoury Crate SE, which does help make Windows on a handheld more usable than it is natively.
It will be interesting to see what else ASUS will bring to the table with the ROG Ally 2 though. One main complaint that just about everyone had with the ROG Ally was its battery life, although we might not see any major leaps happening in that area just yet. The new AMD Ryzen 8000 series is also fully focused on Ryzen AI with no major advancements in the CPU and GPU fronts. For the uninitiated, the Ryzen Z1 Extreme is essentially the Ryzen 7840HS, sans Ryzen AI. So I don’t see a chip refresh being the key to the ROG Ally 2.
Unless of course ASUS decides to work with Intel, harnessing the impressive Intel Core Ultra chips in the ROG Ally 2. I don’t see Intel being as friendly towards customizing bespoke chips for a specific device though, unlike AMD which has plenty of experience with custom chips from their console offerings. Would ASUS use their renowned OLED technology in the ROG Ally 2? I mean, we finally have OLED in the new ROG Zephyrus G16, so I wouldn’t be too surprised to see it here as well.
Of course, these are all plain speculation as Arnold Su did not share any specifics on the configuration of the ROG Ally 2. I guess we will see when it finally arrives on the market.