Computex highlights: ROG's Ally handheld, Acer's stereoscopic 3D displays, Spider-Man themed GPU

Computex, one of the world's largest technology trade shows, kicked off today and runs through June 2. — Photos: CHRISTOPHER FAM/The Star

TAIPEI: Asus Republic of Gamers (ROG) gave Computex attendees first-hand access to the upcoming Ally handheld (due for a Malaysian launch sometime in July), along with peripherals like the Raikiri Pro controller and a charging dock with HDMI output.

While ROG touts the handheld as having twice the performance of the competing Valve Steam Deck, its booth focused more on the design process of the Ally, with a section showing off prototype designs.

Various iterations of the ROG Ally's designs were displayed at the booth.

The section also included a teardown display of the device, with the company boasting that it managed to lower the weight to just 608g.

ROG's booth also featured the Raikiri Pro controller, which was previously announced in January for both the Xbox and PC.

The most eye-catching part has to be the OLED display on the top, which can be customised with animations and status indicators and used to switch profiles on the fly.

It comes with a 2.4GHz dongle, which can be stored internally by flipping up a cover underneath the controller, along with wired and Bluetooth connectivity.

Other highlights include the ability to remap buttons, adjust joystick sensitivity, and tweak the throw distance of the triggers. The Raikiri Pro is expected to be released globally in July.

The company also showcased its all-in-one charging dock, which has a USB-C input for transmitting video, power, and data all at once.

It supports 1080p video at 120Hz, or 4K video at 60Hz via the HDMI 2.0 port and has an additional USB-A port for peripherals.

ROG's dock will be released on June 12, alongside the international launch of the Ally.

ROG also brought its record-breaking 540Hz monitor to Computex, which supports 1080p resolution and will be launching in the second quarter of this year.

Acer's booth, on the other hand, highlighted its lineup of SpatialLabs displays and laptops, which all feature stereoscopic 3D, similar to what was used on the Nintendo 3DS.

It showed demos of Octopath Traveler 2, Kena: Bridge of Spirits, and Bright Memory: Infinite, which support the feature.

These SpatialLabs displays show images in stereoscopic 3D.

There was also a soundproof booth at the SpatialLabs area, with Acer using it to show off its experimental spatial audio, which could come included with a future Acer laptop.

The spatial audio feature was used to emulate surround sound effects with just two regular laptop speakers.

Acer's SpatialLabs lineup was released last year, with the Pro models having launched just last month.

At the same booth were also an ebike called the Acer ebii Battery and an electricity-generating fitness bike called the eKinekt BD 3. Acer has yet to reveal the release date for them.

The last of the major brands that took up the central area of the showfloor was Zotac, which showed off its graphics processing unit (GPU) lineup, which featured artwork from the upcoming animated film, Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse.

Zotac highlighted its collaboration with the upcoming Spider-Man animated film.