Verdict
The Asus ROG Ally is a more hefty choice to the Steam Deck . It features a superior design and more user - favorable software . That eminent price is hard to justify , however , especially with the wretched battery living . Competition is more fierce now too , with the Modern Steam Deck OLED , Lenovo Legion Go and MSI Claw on the fit .
Pros
Cons
Key Features
Introduction
The Asus ROG Ally bust on the view in 2023 , with the AMD Ryzen Z1 Extreme model coming first and the lower powered received Z1 coming later . As the year blend on , new rivals emerged . How does it clean in 2024 ?
The whole gaming reality seems to be moving in the direction of more hardware flexibleness , and handhelds look set to play a liberal part of that . peculiarly while serious nomadic gambling equates to a serious drain on your phone ’s battery life . So , why not have another gadget , eh ?
As such , it means the Asus ROG Ally has a bunch of competition , from the original Steam Deck that was its key rival at launch to newer comers in the form of theSteam Deck OLED , Lenovo Legion Goand upcomingMSI Claw . I ’ve fully test theRyzen Z1 Extremeversion , here are my full thoughts .
Design
Asus has become one of the world ’s best brands for center - view gaming laptop conception , so it ’s no surprise to see it uphold that form into the handheld securities industry . The Asus ROG Ally take care lovely , making the Steam Deck look outdated by comparability .
The shell is made of plastic , but it ’s well-fixed to view as and absolutely does n’t experience crummy . It has a rough-textured traction on the rear of both sides , and elusive groove running across both the front and back . I really care how the fan vents on the rear take the form of the ROG logo too – it ’s this storey of attention to detail that prepare the ROG Ally a more polished product than the Steam Deck .
Sadly , the Asus ROG Ally is only uncommitted in one colour , and that ’s the white mannikin you see here . I was worried it would look a little grubby after my sweaty hands had been grip it for hours , but it ’s rest sporty as a whistling so far .
The ROG Ally feel light , hitting the scales at 608 g. On theme , that does n’t seem that much lighter than the 669 g Steam Deck , but it feels like a big conflict in hand , owe to better weight statistical distribution . I ’ve had no issue carrying it around in a bag , and it ’s certainly easy to send than a play laptop . The Steam Deck OLED has closed the gap with the ROG Ally slightly , dropping 29 gramme count on what model you pick up .
Asus has been unable to fend the temptation of RGB lights here , with light - up rings around both analogue sticks . you may tailor-make this ignition via the Armoury Crate SE app , with choice for static colour and a suite of various effects . you’re able to even turn the lighting off completely if you ’re an RGB grump .
Look at the top of the ROG Ally and you ’ll find several ports . From left to right , there ’s a earpiece jack , microSD slot , ROG XG Mobile connector and USB - C power embrasure . The ROG XG Mobile connecter is particularly interesting , allowing you to connect the Ally to an outside art root for an elite - level performance boost .
However , you ’ll necessitate to purchase a ROG Mobile accouterment separately , which typically be over £ 1000 . And , since it needs a power source to function , it defeats the point of the portable nature of the ROG Ally . It ’s a nice option to have , but will belike have ecological niche ingathering .
You ’ll also encounter volume push on top of the ROG Ally as well as a power push button that repeat up as a fingerprint sensor with support for Windows Hello . Connectivity is superb too , withWi - Fi 6Eonboard for the fastest Wi - Fi fastness currently available , while Bluetooth support enable you to tie in wireless headphone , mice and keyboard .
Controls
Alongside the two parallel sticks , there are many dissimilar button on the front , including a D - Pad and the Xbox - mode XYBA button layout . I have some reservations with these front - facing buttons , as they involve truehearted presses down to register inputs . tactile feedback is great though , providing a tactical bombilation when pressed down .
The Asus ROG Ally have magnetic sensors in the triggers , which Asus claims wo n’t wear down after years of regular use . Both the triggers and bumper have a prissy grooved finish to prevent your finger sliding off , and provide satisfying deep presses . you could even custom-make the period of actuation , again demonstrating the excellent range of customisation choice .
gyrate the ROG Ally around and you ’ll find a twain of bumper on the rear . Asus labels these as Macro paint , working as plain clitoris that can be custom-make for any desired input for each plot . I determine these really ready to hand , supply a petty more tractableness for those game that have legion combos and controls to keep track of .
One factious Steam Deck and Lenovo Legion Go feature that you wo n’t find on the ROG Ally is the trackpad . It ’s far from accurate enough to put back a gaming mouse for first - someone crap-shooter , but it ’s useful for games such as Football Manager for loose navigation . If you ’d like a more various accountant experience , the Legion Go does offer detachable controllers , as well as more customs duty buttons , but the keypresses are n’t as satisfying as the ROG Ally .
The ROG Ally also frisk a shortcut release to the Armoury Crate SE app , serving as your landing page for anything gaming related , from Steam and Game Pass shortcuts to tweakable setting . It would have been nice to have a Windows desktop shortcut too , as I ’ve sometimes find it navigating to it difficult when multiple apps are undefended simultaneously .
Display
The Asus ROG Ally feature a 7 - inch IPS touchscreen panel , with a 1920×1080 ( Full HD ) screenland closure . That immediately gives it an advantage over the Steam Deck , which is restricted to a 1280×800 display that ’s noticeably less penetrative . However , the new Steam Deck OLED closes this gap , by offering a large 7.4 - inch panel as well as the vivid and lucullan benefit of that OLED engineering science . The resolution of the new OLED framework does stay the same though .
you may also find a larger and more immersive presentation on its cardinal Lenovo Legion Go rival , with a ginormous 8.8 - inch QHD gore . But , that does greatly add to the overall size , and it remains an IPS and 120Hz display just like this one .
I ’m impressed with how bright the screen can get , with Asus quote a 400 - nit acme . When you consider the norm for a gaming laptop is roughly 300 nits , it emphasize just how shining the ROG Ally is , even allowing for outdoor gambling sessions .
But a contrast ratio of just 1000:1 point that the ROG Ally is n’t so capable of display darker shades . The bare eye test backed up these concerns , as I really had to squint to see any detail when exploring cave inHorizon Zero Dawn . When playingReturnal(before it crash several time ) , I could just see anything on the dark and gloomy alien planet . AnOLEDscreen would have gone a long room to resolve this issue , but that would have driven the cost up , though the new Steam Deck OLED has see only seen a slight terms increase on the LCD master .
Asus claims its portable cover 100 % of the sRGB gamut , which means the on - filmdom colour for television and game should seem just how the director intended with no obtrusive deformation . That depend to be the pillowcase to me , with the vivacious undimmed gloss of Stardew Valley look just as gorgeous as that on my high - last gambling varan .
Curiously , Asus has adjudicate to use a 120Hz showing , which mean it refresh the on - concealment picture twice as many time per second as the Steam Deck . That ’s a welcome bonus , but it ’s only useful when a biz is running at a frame rate above 60fps .
allot to my benchmark results , that ’s not a mutual occurrence . With the Ultra graphics enabled , I could only get theeSports - friendlyRainbow Six Extractionrunning at around 64fps . Dropping the art configurations to Medium did push the performance up to 93fps , but it still highlights that you ’ll need to compromise on visual quality so as to make use of the rapid 120Hz refresh rate .
TheUSB - Cport on the ROG Ally also appropriate you to output the exhibit to an external reminder or television . Asus also offers the option for a USB - one C bobtail , enabling you to easily connect the portable to your TV / monitoring gadget in a similar mode to theNintendo Switch ’s docked modal value . Although , keep in mind that the drawback of a lower resolving will be more obvious when playing on a big sieve .
Performance
When Asus first revealed the ROG Ally , the most exciting aspect of the portable was the forebode operation rise over the Steam Deck . I ’ve yet to prove the Steam Deck OLED but its specifications remain largely unchanged in the carrying into action department , beyond a modification from a 7nm - cognitive operation to a 6 Land of Enchantment one , which could take added efficiency .
The Asus ROG Ally is powered by the Ryzen Z1 Extreme mainframe , which is built onZen 4architecture with 8 cores and 16 threads . The integrated RDNA 3 graphics also put up support for AMD ’s upscaling technology FidelityFX Super Resolution .
Asus has also announced a less potent Ryzen Z1 silicon chip for the ROG Ally , but Asus has told us it wo n’t be available in the UK or US at launch . I mean that ’s an odd decisiveness , particularly considering the Z1 Extreme model is price at a costly £ 699/$699 , but we ’ll hopefully see it make an show in the coming month .
I benchmarked the ROG Ally on multiple games ( all with the highest uncommitted graphics preset alternative and unplugged , since this is a portable ) to see how the portable stacks up . One matter I notice was how big of a difference the Turbo mode makes to gambling performance .
Turbo mode efficaciously overclocks the chip to eke out a little extra exponent . There are drawback to this Turbo mood , as it increases power consumption ( and so reduces battery life ) and causes the fans to get a minuscule louder to preclude the microchip from overheating . On the positive side , Turbo modal value causes the performance in Dirt Rally in 1080p to jump from 48fps ( in the default Performance mode ) to an impressive 65fps . When playingCyberpunk 2077 in 720p , Turbo mode also get the public presentation to jump from 26fps to 36fps . It makes a self-aggrandizing difference .
Turbo mode does n’t see this horizontal surface of performance gains for every game though . For Returnal , there was only a 3fps boost up to 23fps at a 720p resolution . That ’s not gamy enough to make the game playable , as it constantly crashed on me when using the ROG Ally . That also highlights that you wo n’t be able-bodied to get every single PC biz run on the ROG Ally , so watch out for those with demanding organization prerequisite .
But how does the ROG Ally transportation when compared to the Steam Deck ? There ’s no incertitude that the former is more powerful , especially with Turbo fashion trigger off , but there was mostly only a 10fps to 15fps difference . That ’s still useful to ascertain a smooth performance for games such as Horizon Zero Dawn and Cyberpunk 2077 , but I ’m not convince it ’s pregnant enough to justify the huge price jump – this model of the ROG Ally is double the price of the base Steam Deck .
The biggest advantage the ROG Ally has over the Steam Deck is the ability to flow games at a 1080p resolution , as the supererogatory pixels do make a difference to the moving picture quality . But with the likes of Cyberpunk only come to 21fps with Turbo spark , I advocate that you dial down the resolution to 720p for demanding games , unless you ’re glad to compromise on computer graphic preferences and lean on upscaling software system such as FidelityFX Super Resolution .
I also used synthetic benchmarks to get an idea of the operation compared to gaming laptops , as well as Asus ’ own play phone , theROG Phone 7 Ultimate . This is n’t really a fair competition , but I thought it would be useful to show how it compare to the performance of gaming - centrical laptops , especially since the ROG Ally is n’t too far away in damage of damage .
I was impressed by the CPU - centrical results shown by the ROG Ally , remaining pretty competitive with the up-to-the-minute chips found in gambling laptop . I seldom encountered any CPU performance bottleneck when using the ROG Ally , so this makes a lot of sensory faculty . The biggest take for the ROG Ally is that graphic performance picket in comparison with the laptop . That ’s no shock consider the ROG Ally is using integrated graphics bake into a processor rather than a disjoined GPU chip which you ’d find in a gaming laptop computer – it ’s the trade - off you ’ll have to make by opting for a smaller hand-held gimmick .
The Asus ROG Ally is really competitory with its SSD performance though , with a read speed of 4310.31 MB / s according to my benchmark trial run . This should mean loading screen should pass as apace as the modal gaming laptop . store content comes in at 512 GB which is fairish , although the microSD visiting card one-armed bandit allow for expanded storage .
I was also impressed with the thermal of this portable . Not once did I comment concerningly hot temperatures and , for the most part , the fans rest extremely subdued . actuate Turbo mode would make the birr stochasticity more obtrusive , but it was easily swim out by the loud play speaker . Asus has done an impressive caper with the chilling .
Battery life
A handheld gambling system lives and die by its battery animation – what ’s the pointedness of a handheld that run out of juice in a winking of an eye ? Unfortunately , this proves to be the Achilles bounder of the Asus ROG Ally , though it is a little improvement on the Steam Deck .
When playing Horizon Zero Dawn with the ROG Ally set to Performance modality , it live for 1 hour and 30 minute before call for recharging . When set the Ally to Turbo mode to maximise functioning , the stamp battery life dropped to an alarming 1 hour of role with the same game . This is a poor result – particularly when you view the Switch organic light-emitting diode can last for five hours – but it ’s roughly the same horizontal surface of stamina you ’ll receive with the Steam Deck . The new Steam Deck OLED may take the lead , however , with a boost up to a 50Wh battery from 40Wh as well as a more effective processor . I ’ll have to try the new Steam machine thoroughly to check this out first though .
you’re able to anticipate to extend the battery life of the ROG friend further when playing less intensive games such as Stardew Valley and Football Manager . But I also used a PCMark 10 battery benchmark that ’s designed to measure use for position workloads – not a use of goods and services casing for the ROG Ally but provides an idea of maximum battery lifetime . That result come in at 4 hour and 4 minutes , which again , is really poor .
On the bright side , it does n’t take too foresighted to appoint up the ROG Ally . During my test , it contract just over an time of day for the battery to fully refill . A 30 - minute charge will see the electric battery go from 0 % to 57 % .
Games and software
My favourite aspect of the Asus ROG Ally is that it runs on Windows 11 . That create it far more accessible and substance abuser - friendly than the Steam Deck , especially when you desire to access third - party cyclosis apps such as Xbox Game Pass andGeForce Now .
On that promissory note , streaming execution was fantabulous . When encounter Tunic via Game Pass , the control utterly sync up with the ROG Ally and Wi - Fi 6E support can ensure a pleasingly legato performance if you ’ve got a compatible router .
The ROG Ally loads up to a Windows desktop just like a standard laptop would . It can be a lilliputian fiddly to navigate , with the icons a tittle too small to well prod on the touch screen . And moving the mouse cursor with an analogue stick can be bunglesome . The virtual keyboard did n’t always pop up when require either , although can be summoned after a couple of dog .
Despite the rough sharpness of Windows desktop navigation , it ’s tonic to have a handheld system that can do anything a Windows laptop can , specially when you pair it with a Bluetooth keyboard . The Steam Deck did volunteer a lot of versatility on this front too , but those unfamiliar with Linux will likely find it a little intimidating by comparison .
Asus has also pre - installed the Armoury Crate SE app onto the ROG Ally , providing a more streamlined experience for those who want to stick to gaming . It provides cutoff to install games and supported third - political party platform such as Steam , Epic Games Store , Xbox Game Pass , EA Play and more .
The software is leisurely to sail , and there are loads of customisation options from control function to performance pinch . Asus has clearly put a lot of work into this app , and it improves the experience of using the ROG Ally substantially .
But Asus ROG Ally falls down when it comes to signposting which biz are compatible on the portable . The Steam Deck does an perfectly howling occupation of labelling which personal computer game are optimised for the portable and highlighting which games are unconvincing to run . The ROG Ally lack this feature article , so exploiter have to do their own enquiry to verify a game will go on the gimmick before hit purchase . This makes the ROG Ally difficult to recommend for young gamers or those befit to console where you do n’t involve to ever worry about compatibility .
In terms of game support , the Asus ROG Ally can operate any biz a Windows PC can , as long as its carrying into action meets the system of rules requisite . By snubbing Linux , the ROG Ally has also avoided the Steam Deck ’s issue of being incompatible with select multiplayer game with anti - unsporting software .
Latest deals
Should you buy it?
The Asus ROG Ally delivers on its hope to be a more hefty choice to the Steam Deck , albeit typically only by a 10fps to 15fps allowance .
The myopic stamp battery life is a major job for the ROG Ally at this price full stop . The Nintendo Switch is a far better portable option for long journeying .
Final Thoughts
The Asus ROG Ally provides improvements upon theSteam Deckformula in most arena , with the more streamlined nature of Valve ’s package being that devices main coup over the Asus . But , it pop the question a sleeker chassis , a more unfastened operating system as well as fast gambling execution . You will have to pitchfork out around twice the price of the Steam Deck to get this machine though .
There ’s now key competitor at a similar price now too , with theLenovo Legion Gooffering a large and in high spirits resolution display , as well as the neat antic of detachable comptroller . However , the Asus ROG Ally puzzle it for its first - party software experience , portability and more satisying controller .
operation is impressive given the fact this is a handheld organization but , with a typical 10fps advance on the Steam Deck , it ’s not substantial enough to be a no - brainer purchase . It ’s difficult to hit a high enough frame charge per unit to make the most of the 120Hz refresh rate and some games , such as Returnal , are unplayable even with compromised graphic options . The light battery spirit is also a concern for a equipment that ’s major appeal over a gaming laptop is portability .
As a result , I ’d still urge the Steam Deck andNintendo Switch OLEDover the ROG Ally to most people , while theSteam Deck OLEDlooks to up the luxury agent that helps the Asus to stand out in some country . But , if you ’re crave extra power or the added flexibility of Windows , the Asus ROG Ally is a fantastic option .
Trusted Score
How we test
We essay the Asus ROG friend by playing a variety of different biz at different graphics configurations , while checking the average frame charge per unit either via in - game benchmarks or an FPS overlayer .
We also conducted various electric battery psychometric test by play games for long stretches of time , trying out a mixture of graphics options to find out whether they made an impact .
FAQs
The Asus ROG Ally is a hand-held gambling PC , and a more potent option to the Steam Deck .
The Asus ROG Ally has a 7 - in touch screen .
