What you need to know
- Today, Jake Kulinksi and Whitson Gordon of ROG Pulse gave us a teaser look at the "next ROG Ally" which is officially called the ROG Ally X.
- Improvements will include improved battery, storage, RAM, UI (Armoury Crate SE 1.5), and physical changes.
- The ROG Ally X will still have the same AMD Z1 Extreme processor.
- The improved Armoury Crate SE 1.5 will also come to the existing ROG Ally in July.
- No images were shown of the new gaming handheld, but a special announcement will come on June 2 to reveal additional info for ROG Ally X.
Today, May 9 at 1 p.m. PT / 4 p.m. ET, Whitson Gordon and Jake Kulinksi of ROG Pulse took part in a quick (roughly eight-minute) video stream to confirm that a new ROG Ally device, officially called the ROG Ally X, is on its way. While specs weren't detailed, certain information about the upcoming device was discussed.
The show started an hour later than expected with the pair explaining that "extenuating circumstances" forced the crew to delay the stream.
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This was mostly a teaser announcement since ROG Ally X specs were not revealed, nor was an image of the upcoming handheld shown. Several improvements for the device were officially confirmed, though, including improved battery, SSD, RAM, UI, and more.
"I can say that this is going to be more than just a basic refresh with, like, just one spec change, right?" Gordon explained. "It's not just- oh we changed the color, we added more storage. But at the same time, it's not a full redesign or a totally new generation. It's somewhere in between these two things.
"As a result, we're not calling it the Ally 2 as alluded to in that video and the thumbnail in this video, if you caught it. The name is going to be ROG Ally X. It is the ROG Ally built for the enthusiasts that wanted a bit of X-tra goodies. And almost everything that we put into this is a result of the feedback you, the community, provided us over the last 12 months."
ROG will continue to support the original ROG Ally.
Kulinski went on to say, "Like Whitson said, not everything is changing. But there are significant improvements across the board. Some things that we can kind of hint at are the battery has been improved and it's not a small battery improvement. The battery is very good. And there's improvements to storage, RAM, even ports, and maybe even some physical changes to the device itself."
Gordon went on to clarify that a full rundown for the ROG Ally X will be revealed on June 2. However, he did clarify that this new ROG Ally X will still feature the AMD Z1 Extreme that the original ROG Ally utilizes. He also explained that ROG Ally X will feature an improved Armoury Crate SE 1.5, which is a "fairly big UI overhaul to the software that runs the ROG Ally with some new features." He also stressed that ROG will continue to support the original ROG Ally and that Armoury Crate SE 1.5 will be coming to both the ROG Ally X and the original ROG Ally in July.
At this point, Kulinksi and Gordon then showed us what Armoury Crate SE 1.5 looks like and explained that the game launch page is similar but with slight changes. For one thing, users will be able to switch between a grid view and a list view when viewing their game libraries. They can also further customize the way the page displays by choosing which why it scrolls, how cover art is aligned, how large cover art is, whether or not game titles are shown, whether background images are displayed, and more. Additionally, new tabs run along the top with the ability to add games to a favorites list, so you can access them faster. Meanwhile, launchers for game streaming services like Steam, Epic, Xbox Game Pass, and more are on their own tab.
Another feature of Armoury Crate SE 1.5 is the ability to create and share button mapping profiles with others. For instance, if someone determines a specific setup works best for a particular game, they can share that mapping profile for others to use.
Gordon closed out the stream by once more emphasizing that all of the ROG Ally X details will be coming out on June 2 and to check back then. We at Windows Central are very excited for this device and the features it brings, so we'll be here to cover that news.
