- ASUS South Africa has announced the start of sales for the new ROG Ally X handheld gaming PC.
- The latest offering carries a recommended retail price of R17 999.
- Should you miss out on stock today, a second batch of pre-orders is slated for next week.
In early June this year ASUS revealed its second generation handheld gaming PC in the form of the ROG ALLY X, with local pre-orders set to go live later that month. As we cross the midway point of August, now ASUS South Africa has confirmed the local availability details of the ROG Ally X, which officially goes on sale online today.
To that end, ASUS South Africa has noted that the ROG Ally X can be purchased from ASUS Eshop, Computer Mania, and Game online, with it being available to purchase in-store at Incredible in September, although a precise date is not mentioned.
The company also pointed out the recommended retail price (RRP), which is R17 999, R2k more than the first iteration that we reviewed last year.
At the time of writing, the ASUS Eshop has the device listed, but it is out of stock, with a second batch of pre-orders expected to go live on 19th August and ship on the same day.
The dedicated ecommerce store is also running a promotion during the month of August, with R800 off of the price that to a coupon code, ROGALLYMEDIA2024, that can be used during checkout. You will also need to be logged in to claim the coupon.
As for Game and ComputerMania, the former does not have either ROG Ally model listed on its site, and the latter only has the first generation.
This will likely change, however, during the course of today or the remainder of the week, so it’s worthwhile checking both over the coming days if you’re keen on buying this latest handheld gaming PC.
As for what the second generation touts, ASUS has highlighted that the Ally X may feature the same AMD Ryzen Z1 Extreme processor as its predecessor, but crucially it has added upgraded storage, RAM, and battery life, alongside an updated chassis for improved ergonomics, cooling, and connectivity.
“Built with user feedback at its heart, the ROG Ally X amps up many of its crucial internal components. A new 1 TB SSD ensures users have room for all their games, up from 512 GB on the original Ally. In addition, the ROG Ally X uses a redesigned motherboard featuring an M.2 2280 form factor slot, allowing users to more easily upgrade their storage to larger drives than previously possible,” explained ASUS South Africa.
“Accompanying this storage upgrade is 24 GB of DDR5-7500 RAM for more flexibility. As an APU, the AMD Ryzen Z1 Extreme shares its video RAM with the device’s system RAM. With modern games using more VRAM for high-resolution, lifelike textures, 24 GB of system memory allows users to allocate more memory to both the system and the GPU for better performance in the next generation of AAA titles,” it added in a release sent to Hypertext.
The company also makes mention of the 80Wh battery onboard, which is double the capacity of the previous model. Added to this is the retention of a similarly lightweight device, with the Ally X only weighing 70g more than the original at 678g.
How local PC and handheld console players will react to the new Ally X remains to be seen, especially as the previous model only arrived in SA last year, but it’s clear this is a new product category that ASUS plans to carve out a name for itself.
If you want to know how last year’s iteration performs, you can read our comprehensive review of the original ROG Ally by clicking on the embedded post below.
