More from Steam Deck, ROG Ally, and more: all the news about the handheld PC gaming revolution
Get a load of the transparent shells on the upcoming RG35XXSP! It’s still not listed for sale on Anbernic’s site, sadly, but that could change pretty soon.
The Steam Deck Dock is getting HDMI-CEC to wake your TV from sleep and switch its inputs, and and the Deck OLED will soon be able to decide which Bluetooth devices can wake it from sleep... plus Bluetooth A2DP and BAP audio support, microSD fixes, a new graphics driver, overclocking controls in the Deck LCD’s BIOS, and more in preview!
[Steam]
We knew one was coming, but apparently it’s coming soon. Tomorrow at 3PM ET, the company will “get hyped about new impending ROG Ally hardware” on this live YouTube stream. Here are the other teases we’ve recently seen.
The gaming handheld and mini-PC maker describes the Zune-brown and RGB dial-clad unit as a “Multifunction Graphics Dock,” but is holding details for a “Sharing Session” on May 18th at 3AM ET, as reported by VideoCardz.
Mobile graphics docks are slowly coming to market, including AMD 7600M XT-powered ones like the GPD G1 and the ONEXGPU (which can both connect with Oculink), and the RTX 4090-powered ROG XG Mobile.
Anbernic is the biggest name in affordable emu-portables. Many mimic a Game Boy — but the RG35XXSP is first to tackle the beloved folding Game Boy Advance SP.
It’s got dual microSD slots, a headphone jack, Bluetooth 4.2 and “5G WIFI,” plus HDMI output to your TV. Transparent shells, too! No price yet, but Retro Dodo says it’s imminent.
First Asus quietly changed the name of its original handheld to “ROG Ally (2023),” then VideoCardz obtained an internal document mentioning an “ROG Ally 2024.” Now, the community has spotted a black ROG Ally in a new post from Asus itself.
This is a company that loves to tease — remember, the first Ally was introduced on April Fools’.
Ever heard of Flick Stick, which rotates your camera a number of degrees when you flick a joystick that way? How about gyro aiming to precisely nudge a crosshair simultaneously? New “Dots per 360” and “Turn Camera 360” features make calibrating them easy. Add the new “Turn to Face Direction” key, and you can instantly face whichever direction you’ve been strafing.
Early bird pricing starts at $399 via Indiegogo, with shipments expected to start in May. It’s advertised as the first device with Qualcomm’s Snapdragon G3x Gen 2 that’s designed to chase the booming gaming handheld market.
There are Android gamers out there, right? We’ve been asking you to email The Vergecast about your Android gaming life, let us know!
Two months later, Asus says the framerate-boosting tech is nigh! There’s also a firmware update that lets you map triggers to back buttons.
AFMF can’t make its fake frames out of nothing; you’ll need a game that already runs at a decent clip to get best results. Here’s the Asus guide on how to use it.
[rog-forum.asus.com]
Asus has now extended its warranty, and will even reimburse for damaged cards if you send them (and your handheld) for repair.
But it’s not clear whether the card reader can be repaired — “devices returned from RMA as recently as this month still have the issue,” warns r/ROGAlly moderator duckydan81. I asked Asus if that’s changing; I’ll report back next week.
If that sounds delightful, iFixit has the guide for you — it even sells the 88Wh battery and has the free 3D-printable backplate you’ll need. You do have to replace the battery connector with the one from the ROG Ally’s pack, so it’s not quite plug n’ play. iFixit currently has 14 of the batteries in stock, tho teardown tech Shahram Mokhtari tells me they’ll order more if there’s demand.
Lenovo’s Clifford Chong says “of course” there’ll be a next generation of the Legion Go handheld, in this roundtable interview recorded by Chris Stead. Here’s hoping it keeps kickstand and joy-cons, but not the ergonomics.
Separately, Aokzoe will announce a new Intel Core Ultra handheld on April 14th, the third to try Meteor Lake after the MSI Claw and OneXPlayer X1.
The Phawx rips the handheld’s Intel chip a new one in the video below, trying and failing to find almost any redeemable quality. More power draw and/or worse performance than rivals isn’t a winning recipe.
ETA Prime and Retro Game Corps are seeing similar. MSI put this one on sale before reviewers could weigh in, which is never a great sign... I’ll keep an open mind as Intel and co ship updates?
Did you know Valve’s Steam Deck OLED product introduction video was entirely lit by Steam Deck OLEDs? Now you do, and Valve has just published a blog post that goes behind the scenes.
The thing’s legit, and I’m kicking myself for not publishing my own pics of it sooner. (Court happens!) Here I am inside the thing, and I like this intentionally goofy one of Valve’s Lawrence Yang.
Playtron CTO Franck De Girolami:
The immutable file system from Fedora Silverblue will be very helpful in implementing our anti cheat system but it is not our anti cheat system. We are planning to generate signatures for each version of our OS (easy with Silverblue) as well as all the DLLs we install dynamically. Basically using our SDK, a game developer will be able to obtain a signature of the current config on the device then call our backend to verify that this is a genuine Playtron version.
Playtron: the startup hoping to Steam Deck-ify the world
What if Steam Deck, but not just Steam and not just Deck?
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Verge Score
It’s different, and different can be good.
One thing the Asus ROG Ally absolutely does better than the Steam Deck or Lenovo Legion Go: smooth out choppy gameplay with its variable refresh rate screen. Now, GPD will use a similar 7-inch 120Hz VRR screen on its 2024 Win Mini — and (sadly?) swap out the Oculink external GPU port for 10Gbps USB-A.
The MSI Claw will also have a 7-inch VRR screen.
One of the weak points in the experience on a ROG or the Lenovo [Legion Go] is Windows. How Windows works on controller input only on that kind of DPI, on a smaller eight- or seven-inch screen. That’s a real design point that our platform team is working with Windows to make sure that the experience is even better.
Does that mean handheld mode isn’t just a hackathon project anymore? There was that Xbox app compact mode...
