Today’s hack is an unexpected but appreciated contribution from members of the iFixit crew, published by [Shahram Mokhtari]. This is an ROG Ally Asus-produced handheld gaming console mod that has you upgrade the battery to an aftermarket battery from an Asus laptop to double your battery life (40 Wh to 88 Wh).
There are two main things you need to do: replace the back cover with a 3D printed version that accommodates the new battery, and move the battery wires into the shell of an old connector. No soldering or crimping needed — just take the wires out of the old connector, one by one, and put them into a new connector. Once that is done and you reassemble your handheld, everything just works; the battery is recognized by the OS, can be charged, runs the handheld wonderfully all the same, and the only downside is that your ROG Ally becomes a bit thicker.
The best part is, it’s hard to fail at applying this mod, as it’s documented to the high standards we’d expect from iFixit. The entire journey is split into detailed steps, there’s no shortage of pictures, and the group has also added warnings for the few potentially problematic aspects you want to watch out for. Plus, in the comment section, we’ve learned that there’s an entire community called AllyMods dedicated to ROG Ally modding that has spawned creations like the dual display mod, which is a joy to see!
This mod reminds us of the time someone modified a Nintendo Game Boy Advance SP with a thicker shell too, not just extending the battery, but also adding things like Bluetooth and 3.5 mm audio, USB-C and wireless charging. A worthy upgrade for a beloved device!
Neat trick. I got a Steam Deck and when I travel, I use the ModCase and that comes with, what looks a bit like, a watch. That’s a mounting system that let’s me mount a battery bank to the back of the device I can hook in. I got 3 Essager 15000mAh (in reality it’s 10000mAh) 65W powerbanks I can take with me. Works perfectly. Do use a different USB cable, the one on the powerbank is a bit short. I use the same powerbanks for my PineCil soldering iron on the go.
I see this and I remember the old GP2X handheld console with the moded thunder power pack (It was so easy to mod the power pack that lots of uses bought and moded them). It was a very similar concept and It multiplied the battery life several times since the GP2X runs with two AA batteries and thunder power pack added two 18650 (or similar) batteries.
Seems a shame such a neat job has not got a bit more love here.
That said I’m not sure I’d want to do this mod myself, seems like a rather large battery bump that would be awkwardly in the way often enough its not worth it. Even with the Ally’s apparently terrible battery life I think I’d rather take the external supplementary battery bank approach or do a mod similar to this but with the battery being exchangeable – use the original stock pack or one of these bigger ones with the 3d printed case latching them in somehow.
It’s a cool mod, just like the 90Wh battery one, but when i think at all the work needed and the additional money, i realize that just using my beefy Bauses battery bank is good enough, no need to do all that work and add extra weight to the device itself, especially now that an Ally 2 with likely a bigger battery is coming and i will sell my Ally to get the new one