Rumors have been circulating for a while, indicating that ASUS planned to release a new version of its ROG Ally gaming handheld this year. This led to people speculating that it could be a full-blown sequin or laptop-style refresh with new Ryzen hardware or possibly even a new OLED display, ala the Steam Deck refresh.
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Recent speculation and rumor have pointed to the 2024 ROG Ally refresh being nothing more than a minor hardware update that would fix the SD Card Reader issues that have plagued some units since ASUS launched the Windows 11-based PC gaming handheld in 2023. It’s a minor but very welcome fix that would sort out one of the only real faults with the hardware and something that wouldn’t warrant a special presentation.
That said, ASUS is teasing a special stream set to broadcast tomorrow with the title ‘The Next ROG Ally.’ This indicates that there’s a lot more coming to the ROG Ally 2024 refresh than a fix to the SD Card Reader.
Personally, I think the refresh is all about making adjustments to things outside of the AMD Ryzen hardware on the inside. On that front, the chances of it featuring AMD’s new Strix Halo APU are slim because the processor has yet to be officially announced. With that in mind, and this is pure speculation, the ROG Ally 2024 could be a new model with a larger battery, refined thermals, and a high-refresh-rate OLED display.
The latter would be excellent to see, as OLED technology has been a game changer for the Nintendo Switch and Steam Deck, where the same games running on the same underlying hardware look notably better.
We don’t have to wait long to find out, so stay tuned.