Since Valve launched its Steam Deck in February of 2022, I've been a staunch supporter of both the platform as well as the need for more competition. Other devices have started to filter out to the public, from Aya Neo's powerful handhelds, to ASUS's ROG Ally device, to meaningfully challenge Steam's handheld.
ASUS' ROG Ally is equipped with AMD's Z1 chipset, including the higher-end Z1 Extreme which is what our review unit is packing. The smaller, yet powerful unit costs more than the Steam Deck, yet the unit feels perfectly poised to challenge Valve's dominance in the space. After weeks of testing, both at home and the on-the-road experience with the ROG Ally, I've come away really impressed with ASUS's foray into handheld PCs.
Specifications
- Operating System: Windows 11 Home Edition
- Processor: AMD Ryzen Z1 Extreme Processor
- CPU: Zen 4 AMD CPU 4nm process; 8-Core/16-Thread CPU; up to 5.1 GHz boost clock; 24MB total cache
- GPU: AMD Radeon RDNA 3 Graphics; 12 CUs; up to 2.7 GHz; up to 8.6 TFLOPS
- TDP: 9-30W
- Display: 7-inch FHD (1920 x 1080) IPS-level Display; sRGB 100%; Adobe 75.33%
- Refresh Rate: 120Hz
- Response Time: 500nits
- Freesync Premium
- Memory: 16GB LPDDR5 On Board (6400MT/s dual channel)
- Storage: 512GB PCIe 4.0 NVMe M.2 SSD (2230)
- I/O:
- 1 x 3.5mm Combo Audio Jack
- 1 x ROG XG Mobile Interface and USB Type-C Combo Port (with USB 3.2 Gen2, support DsplayPort 1.4)
- 1 x UHS=II MicroSD card reader
- Audio: 2 front facing speakers with Smart Amplifier Technology
- Network: Wi-Fi 6E (802.11 ax)(Triple Band) 2*2 + Bluetooth 5.2
- Battery: 40WHrs; 4S1P; 4-cell Li-ion
- Power Supply: Type-C 65W AC Adapter, Output: 20V DC, 3.25A, 65Wl Input: 100~240V 50/60Hz universal
- Weight: 608 g
- Dimensions (W x D x H): 11.02" x 4.37" x 0.83" ~ 1.28"
- Cost: $699.99 on ASUS website
First Thoughts
I've said in a few GPU reviews over the years that I'm a huge fan of the "gamer aesthetic," and the ASUS ROG Ally Z1 Extreme really fits that bill. I love the aggressive angles and the fact that it screams "gamer" in every choice the company made when designing the device. The main reason is that it fits the device perfectly.
While I don't mind the curves and the more restrained design of the Steam Deck, I feel that the look of the ASUS ROG Ally is both eye-catching and contributes to how it feels to hold while in use. The grips on each side are incredibly comfortable, their more angular design fitting solidly in the palm of my hands. I love the textured feel of them as well, as the ROG Ally never felt like it would slip through my hands, even during fast-paced and intense gameplay sessions of Cyberpunk 2077 and Fortnite matches.
I do also appreciate the angled downward slope of the grip in the front, which perfectly fits my hands. Though, I'm sure, your mileage might vary here depending on the size of your hands. I don't have small hands, but they aren't humongous either. And while I love the ergonomics of the Steam Deck, the ROG Ally just felt naturally more comfortable each time I picked up the device. It was a great fit for me, personally, to where I would find myself reaching for it over the Steam Deck more often than not over the last few weeks.
The front of the ASUS ROG Ally is dominated by its 7-inch FHD screen that is one of its standout features. The screen on the ROG Ally looks incredible at every angle, the IPS panel really shining in the handheld. It's bright, colorful and the 120hz refresh rate, regardless of the argument of whether a handheld needs a 120hz display, is appreciated when it's able to put to full use.
It helps too that the screen is Freesync Premium, the VRR display smoothing out some of the framerates in more demanding games and making them feel more fluid to play.
Flanking the screen are two thumbsticks set in an offset pattern, which I prefer so much over in-line sticks. The sticks themselves feel great in motion, and I appreciate the Aura Sync-enabled RGB ring at the base of each, adding to that gamer aesthetic I Iove so much. The face buttons and the D-Pad aren't really anything to scream about - they are serviceable, each feeling good to press compared to the Steam Deck's mushier feeling buttons (and none of the ROG Ally's stuck unlike my Steam Deck since day 1).
On the back of the ROG Ally are two mappable buttons to make some actions easier in fast-paced moments, such as reloading or weapon swapping in a first-person shooter so you needn't move your thumb of the stick. I also, going back to my love of the gamer aesthetic, love the ASUS ROG logo cut into the backplate. Just touches like that make me happy - I'm simple, I know.
Where I feel the ASUS ROG Ally is a step backwards is the overall package. There isn't a kickstand fo the Ally - just a cardboard piece that comes with the device that will, inevitably break down with use. Additionally, the more expensive ROG Ally does not come with a carrying case to protect it while traveling like the Steam Deck does at even its lowest priced model (the one I own). This was a huge miss for me, as I traveled with the device multiple times during the review period, buying a case for it to make sure nothing happened to it while in my backpack. It's an inconvenience for sure, and one I hope future offerings rectify.
Using The ASUS ROG Ally - Gaming Performance
So, with those first thoughts out of the way, how is it to actually use the ROG Ally?
Over the course of the last few weeks, I've put the ASUS ROG Ally through some real-world testing to get a feel for what it would be like to actually own one of these. This meant I would use it when I just didn't feel like sitting in front of my PC any longer to actually traveling with the device when I've had to go out of town for work.
As a result, I've been able to get a sense of the real-world experience versus just simply running a few benchmark tests in games and call it a day.
First of all, the lack of a case was a real concern early on. I don't have a ton of stuff that throw into a backpack while traveling, but having to put the Ally in there unprotected was a point of concern, especially when going through an airport or carrying it onto a plane. My biggest fear was that something would happen to the screen, so I bought a case to protect it while sitting in my bag.
However, even with this case, my backpack was not nearly as bulky or heavy as it is when I put my larger Steam Deck in there. And while I appreciate the simple 65W power brick the ASUS comes with, at times, I found it just as convenient to use the 65W power supply I bought for my MacBook when I wanted to save on space.
Sitting on a plane heading to Seattle for PAX or even on my way to Iceland for EVE Fanfest, the ROG Ally was put through the real test. It was awesome to sit on my flight and play through the early missions of Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty without much of an issue or jump into a few training rounds of Street Fighter 6 using a small travel leverless fight pad I travel with now. Starting Baldur's Gate 3 for like, the third time while over Greenland is also pretty brilliant, and the ROG Ally plays these quite well despite them all being demanding games visually. Or, in the case of Street Fighter 6, demands perfectly fluid framerates to enjoy.
Also, it was fantastic to sit back in bed and work through some of Final Fantasy XIV: Endwalker versus having to sit at my work PC to progress late at night.
Another surprising factor with the ROG Ally is down to its front-facing speakers. Man, they are incredible for what they are. Playing games like Cyberpunk saw the audio pop and sound incredible, while F1 22 made me feel like I was on the track itself. It won't beat a set of headphones, but they were impressive nonetheless.
ASUS ROG Ally (Z1 Extreme) Benchmarks
The ASUS ROG Ally comes with a few operating modes to help with battery life, though being a Windows device they are basically the power management modes of Windows 11. The 15W silent mode is great for pixel games like Stardew Valley, games that don't drive heavy graphics, while the 25W Performance mode is where most of my gameplay lived. Plugged into a power supply bumps that operating mode up to 30W Turbo, where the ROG Ally really shines.
Since the device is, by default, meant to be a handheld PC, our testing is done by default unplugged using the 25W operating mode. This is the most likely use-case for the ASUS ROG Ally, though the 30W mode does bring framerates up even higher, much like a gaming laptop might when plugged in. By comparison, the Steam Deck is designed to have the same performance regardless of whether it's plugged in or not, thanks to its custom SOC and the work Valve has done on the platform.
Despite the ASUS ROG Ally having a full 1080p screen, the best performance is eked out when setting it to 720p, especially if you want to avoid any upscaling that could cause a blurry or soft image, especially at low resolutions. We tested a few different games in our bench to get a sense of how they would all perform,, everything from large open worlds like in Horizon Zero Dawn and Starfield to the MMO Final Fantasy XIV: Endwalker. While FFXIV isn't that technically advanced now by comparison to other MMOs on the market, it's one of the most popular with gamepad support, and seeing how the ROG Ally handles all of the effects going on in battle was key in choosing this title.
Impressively, none of the framerates in the most advanced game in our bench, Cyberpunk 2077, was unplayable. Even keeping the resolution at 1080p and using FSR Performance, albeit on the low preset, produced a great framerate for the form factor. When using 720p and the "Steam Deck" preset, Cyberpunk 2077 performed even better, giving us 41fps without any upscaling and 57fps when using FSR 2's Performance preset. However, FSR just doesn't look great at these lower resolutions, and so my recommendation is to drop the preset and use either Quality or even enable AMD RSR for better visual return on these games.
Baldur's Gate 3 shouldn't even be possible on the ROG Ally, yet even in the busy Lower City of Baldur's Gate in Act 3, the framerates are kept in check using the Medium preset. FSR doesn't give much headroom here, as BG3 performance is going to be impacted heavily on CPU as well, but 30fps even in some of the most intense spots of the city, using a handheld, is still very impressive.
Starfield was a bit disappointing, however, as the only game to turn in sub-30fps averages. This is 100% tied to CPU performance, as the ROG's Z1 is just not powerful enough to handle this game, even at low settings and FSR performance when set to 1080p. Alternatively, racing games like F1 22 shined quite well here on its High preset (without ray tracing enabled). FSR gives even more frames back, topping out at 126fps at 720p, while even 1080p gives great numbers.
While playing, I will note, that while the device did get hotter than when not in use (duh), it never felt hot where I was holding onto it. Air is pulled in through the vents in the back and expelled through the ones on the top of the device, pushing the hot air out comfortably away from anywhere you'll touch. It does get loud, especially when plugged in and on the 30W turbo mode. But, if you're using headphones, you won't notice that anyway.
ASUS ROG Ally Windows 11 Experience
One of the major selling points and differences between the ASUS Rog Ally and the Steam Deck is down to the native operating system. While the Steam Deck uses its own Linux-based SteamOS, which is tailor made for the handheld experience here, the ASUS ROG Ally uses Windows 11. This has both great advantages and disadvantages.
One major advantage is that the ROG Ally allows for basically any game to be installed on it since it is, after all, a Windows PC. This meant installing games like Diablo 4 and Fortnite was a breeze since those launchers were natively supported. In fact, the ROG Ally made a case for me to look at Diablo 4 again despite falling off it pretty hard earlier this summer since it played incredibly well on the Ally out of the box.
Fortnite is one of the most popular games on the planet, and the ASUS ROG Ally handles it like a champ, outperforming the console versions and getting the closest to maxing out that 120Hz display at 1080p than other games I played.
Controllers and other peripherals hooked up to the ROG Ally without much issue as well, thanks to Windows being able to find and install drivers. My Victrix Pro FS-12 fight stick was easy to hook up (though comically much larger than the Ally) and use when I wanted to get some Street Fighter action in, and connecting a mouse and keyboard using a third-party USB-C powered dock was a breeze. In fact, hooking up to a monitor also felt flawless without needing to bother with anything other than selecting it in Windows settings and going from there. Alternatively, I have had some issues hooking up an external display to my Steam Deck and it works correctly out of the box, especially the ultra-wide I use for work.
However, Windows Updates can sometimes cause issues for the ROG Ally, and the first thing I'd recommend doing is disabling auto-updates, especially for the GPU. ASUS instead wants you to use their MyASUS App that ships with the device to update drivers, something I didn't quite realize early on and forced me to DDU the device a few times to get rid of a driver the Ally did not recognize.
This means that even when AMD releases a new Z1 driver every few months, ROG Ally users will also need to wait for the tailored ASUS driver to drop in the MyASUS app. This is both good (the driver won't break your system, in theory) and frustrating, especially when a new game releases that you might not be able to play right away, thanks to this driver delay. This happened to me when Starfield was first released - there didn't seem to be an ASUS-approved driver ready when it launched, and it wouldn't even open the game till I could update via the MyASUS app.
There also isn't anything really notifying you in Windows that there are updates waiting, instead, it requires a bit of initiative to check the app every few days. Alternatively, this is where SteamOS' strengths come into play, as it's a unified OS and game launcher that prompts you with game updates but also notifies you whenever there is a system update ready to install.
ASUS also preloads the Armory Crate app on the ROG Ally, which acts as a unified launcher like Steam Big Picture Mode. Here you can launch games installed on the device, launch game stores and other apps, while also controlling some of the performance profile of your ROG Ally.
I actually really liked Armory Crate, and it became my one-stop shop every time I booted up the Ally. It's got some issues to work through compared to SteamOS, such as keeping preset control schemes when you load a game for example, but it's simple and easy to understand out of the gate.
Armory Crate can also tweak the performance of your ROG Ally, highlighting the different operating modes, Game Visual tab, which gives a few different color options for your screen based on the content you're playing, and even tweaking GPU settings to utilize more system RAM while gaming. Armory Crate also enables a separate overlay - Command Center - which can be toggled using a button on the left side of the Ally screen. This Command Center puts system settings such as the Operating Mode or AMD RSR at the tip of your fingers, allowing you to tweak on the fly during games. It is also a handy spot to take screenshots, which are then saved and viewable in the Armory Crate app.
I would love, in the future, to see something akin to Steam's Verified program, with ASUS pointing out games on Armory Crate that really excel on the ROG Ally. It's such a great badge of confidence for games on the Deck to know that they will perform well before you install them, and I feel the Ally could benefit from something like this across all launchers.
It's not a replacement for Steam's SteamOS system, but for what it does, it's pretty great. I would love to see more options, including a separate section for game launchers and the games themselves, but the program will be improved more and more as ASUS supports the ROG Ally platform.
ASUS ROG Ally Battery Life
Here is the kicker, though. As all handhelds have to, the ASUS ROG Ally has to balance performance with its battery needs. The ROG Ally performs much better when plugged in, much like a laptop does, thanks to the extra juice that can be pumped through the device without worrying about maintaining battery life.
However, the ASUS ROG Ally is a handheld, so battery life is worth considering. And it's here where I feel the ROG Ally suffers the most.
Remember when I said I traveled a ton with the ASUS ROG Ally over the last few weeks? Oftentimes, those planes didn't have outlets, meaning that I was gaming purely on battery power. And while for short flights, this wasn't much of an issue - I played Cyberpunk 2077 the whole flight from Vegas to Seattle without much issue - longer flights really suffered.
On average, in the most demanding use cases using the 25W mode, games like Cyberpunk and Baldur's Gate 3 saw about 2 hours of battery life at most. Less demanding games such as Stardew Valley and Fae Farm saw that battery life increased and stretched, but in gaming applications, don't expect it to last too long.
ASUS ROG Ally (Z1 Extreme) Final Thoughts And Conclusion
So what do I make of all this?
I didn't start out in this review expecting that I would prefer the ASUS ROG Ally over my Steam Deck, yet, the more the weeks went on, the more I realized I was enjoying it much more than Valve's handheld. And that surprised me as I would use my Steam Deck almost every day.
Part of it is down to the fact that it's designed to be used with Windows natively, versus having to load Windows on the Steam Deck as a separate OS. I have all of my games at my disposal without much work around here, which is important to me. While I love my Steam library, and 80% of the games I play are there, having to ditch my Epic Games library or Battle.net games on my Steam Deck always sat poorly with me. Indeed, it was awesome to have all those games available at any moment, especially my Games Pass games (the ROG Ally comes with a Game Pass sub for a few months as well).
Steam Big Picture loads natively on the ROG Ally as well, meaning that when browsing my Steam library, it has the same UI and ease of use as my Steam Deck. It does perform much better when hooked up to power (though games like Starfield and BG3 didn't, thanks to the inherent CPU limitation), and as a handheld, it holds up quite well.
As a result, despite owning a Steam Deck, I'm considering buying the ASUS ROG Ally as well. While the $699 price is a lot, especially considering it doesn't come with a case, it's competing directly with the top-end Steam Deck offering, which sits at $649. With the ASUS ROG Ally, you're getting the more advanced Z1 chip with RDNA 3 graphics versus the last-gen RDNA 2 chip in the Steam Deck, as well as a better screen and, in my opinion, better ergonomics overall. And while expensive, it's cheaper than the smaller Ayaneo Air 1S, which sits at $799 USD.
It's not perfect - I wish updating the device didn't have to go through the MyASUS app to ensure compatibility, and the battery life is a bummer (though at full tilt, so is the Steam Deck's). The bugs in the Armoy Crate, such as control schemes not always carrying over to games, will need to be ironed out, and an argument can be made that it doesn't need the 120Hz display.
But at the end of the day it's a worthy competitor in the space and gives a powerful alternative to the higher-end Steam Deck. The ASUS ROG Ally (Z1 Extreme) is a great handheld PC that, while not perfect, is a compelling option in the space and provides some more much-needed competition in the handheld PC category.
Full Disclosure: The product discussed was provided by the manufacturer for the purposes of this review.
