Asus' all-new ROG Ally handheld gaming device is now available for purchase, starting at $699 at Best Buy. That makes it one of the most competitive gaming consoles for the price, outside of the Steam Deck. The ROG Ally comes equipped with AMD's latest Z1 extreme gaming SoC and is capable of running PC games with the inclusion of Windows 11.
Best Buy is the only vendor that sells the ROG Ally, but we suspect other vendors will be selling the new gaming device eventually. The SKU Best Buy is selling is the higher-end RC71L, featuring AMD's Ryzen Z1 Extreme SoC, 16GB of LPDDR5 memory, and 512GB of internal storage. A lower-end SKU will arrive later featuring the same specs but will with AMD's lower-end Ryzen Z1 (non-extreme) with two fewer cores and four RDNA3 GPU compute units (compared to eight cores and 12CUs on the extreme).
The Ally is a full-blown handheld gaming PC, designed for users to play PC games from the couch or on the go. It sports an aggressive ROG-themed white finish, with two joysticks, a D-pad, and XABY keys on the front, with additional triggers on the top and rear sections of the device. The Ally weighs 1.34 pounds and features a 40WHr battery with a power adapter sporting up to 65W of charging potential.
In our review, we liked the console's capabilities, scoring it at 3.5 stars. We highlighted the use of Windows 11 and its very strong performance with frame rates that outpaced the Steam Deck in most situations. The main gripes we had were that its software does not match the experience offered by Steam's custom-brewed SteamOS Linux operating system, and its underwhelming battery life characteristics.
Still, with a price of $699 for the higher performance model, we concluded that the Ally is a strong competitor in the handheld PC space. It has superior specs compared to the top-of-the-line Steam Deck trim that's priced just $50 less than the Ally, and it can play any Windows game out of the box — not just those with SteamOS support.
