Asus introduced that its ROG Ally handheld gaming PC will likely be launched on June 13, and you’ll pre-order one beginning immediately. It’s launching with AMD’s new Z1 Extreme processor, and a 512 GB SSD for $699.99 — solely $50 greater than Valve’s most kitted-out Steam Deck. A much less highly effective model is coming for $599.99 in Q3 2023.
Following the ROG Ally’s barely misguided debut on April Fool’s Day, of all days, we’ve realized much more about how the transportable gaming PC will stack up in opposition to the Steam Deck, in addition to different competing fashions. Is it definitely worth the worth? Check out Chris Plante’s full evaluation to search out out.
The pairing of its AMD Z1 Extreme processor and 16 GB of speedy LPDDR5 RAM appear able to operating PC video games with fewer visible compromises than what we’ve grow to be accustomed to on the Steam Deck (which itself is no slouch). Not to say, its 1080p show is a better decision, and it doubles the refresh charge — as much as 120Hz — for smoother-looking gameplay.
Notably, it has a proprietary slot the place you’ll be able to plug in certainly one of Asus’ succesful XG Mobile exterior GPUs, which is basically a docking station that’s full of an Nvidia GeForce RTX 4090 and quite a few ports. With that, the graphical bottlenecks will disappear. But along with being expensive (effectively over $1,000), utilizing it comes on the expense of portability. You’ll be strapped down by wires. If you need to study extra about how that works (warts and all), take a look at this video I did in 2022 over at The Verge.
All of that mentioned, there’s quite a bit to be enthusiastic about. If you need to pre-order the ROG Ally, we have now some data under that needs to be helpful.
Where can I pre-order the Asus ROG Ally?
Best Buy is the only retailer within the U.S. that is accepting pre-orders. You’ll be capable of pre-order the $699.99 mannequin on-line beginning immediately. The Best Buy itemizing is dwell for the $599.99 mannequin with the AMD Ryzen Z1 processor and 512 GB of storage, nevertheless it received’t ship till Q3 2023. We’ll be conserving an eye fixed out for hyperlinks at different retailers.
