ASUS - ROG Ally 7" 120Hz FHD 1080p Gaming Handheld - AMD Ryzen Z1 Extreme Processor - 512GB - White

The ROG Ally is priced very competitively in the market space against handhelds like the Steam Deck & Ayaneo 2. However it’s held back by hardware flaws and software bugs. For raw performance the turbo mode (30w) is absolutely fantastic, there isn’t a single game you can’t easily play. On the flip side the Zen 4/RDNA3 SoC used in the Ally is horrible at lower power setting (which is kind of important for a handheld). At 10w the Ally is considerably slower than the older Zen3 6800U in the Ayaneo 2. The last photo in my review show the Ally running roughly 35% slower at 10w. This same performance disparity at lower wattage can be seen between the Ally & Steam Deck as well. As in most cases the Steam Deck ties or beats the Ally at anything below 15w. Maybe this is a just immature drivers but this makes the $700 a hard sell compared to the $350 Deck. The other elephant in the room is the widely reported SD card issue. My Ally ran my SD card fine until about the 5 week, just outside of the return window my SD card reader died. At this time it’s hard to say if this is a driver issue, or hardware issue but regardless it’s been 3 weeks+ without an actual update from Asus on a fix for the issue. My last gripes with the Ally is the small storage & ram (given the issue with the SD cards this is a big deal). Flash memory is insanely cheap now, with 1tb drives costing $40-60, Asus could have put a 1tb drive in the Ally for another $20-25. They also should have included 20gb instead of 16gb of ram, since the Z1 SoC is an APU so it uses your ram for VRAM. Now with games like Last of Us using 8gb+ of VRAM and Windows consuming 2-3gb, it only leaves you 4-5gb for the games. Again another 4gb ram module would cost $20. My last hardware complaint is the lack of Hall Effect sensors. At this point they cost basically the same as regular joysticks. Bad: 1. 16gb of ram can easily become a bottleneck when playing games that require 8gb of VRAM 2. No Hall Effect Sensors (very noticeable deadzone issues) 3. Small 512GB storage for a $700 device 4. Weak performance at lower wattage modes 5. SD Card reader failure 6. Sticky buttons & D-pad The Good: 1. Fantastic 20w+ performance 2. More affordable then devices like the Ayaneo 3. 120hz screen is amazing 4. Easy to upgrade (joysticks and NVME are easily accessible) 5. Windows OS adds so much flexibility 6. Armory Crate is surprisingly polished

Since my first review was taken down for some reason I have decided to update it with a few more observations and have deducted a star. I will be comparing the Ally with my Steam Deck that I've had for 8 months. First, the positives. The hardware! The 1080p 120hz with VRR (variable refresh rate) is way better than I'm used to with my steam deck. Color accuracy, text clarity, motion performance are all way better. It's hard to go back to using the deck after using the Ally. The Zen 4 APU is in a different class of performance (more on this later). The Ally is smaller and lighter and feels more premium in hand. Armoury Crate works quite well - better than I anticipated. Lots of functionality that's needed to provide a great user experience. Having the ability to customize power profiles/fan curves and the ability to set the VRAM to 8gb is a huge plus for more demanding games. The game launcher works great, the performance overlay is neat, and there's a ton of other customizability I could mention that would make this review even longer than it is. Buttons and analog sticks are good. The front facing speakers sound fantastic, and get quite loud. Thermals are also very good under normal use. Fans are quiet. The things that are more "neutral"- The rgb. There's not much of it and I just turned mine off. I like how having the Ally white makes it stand out, but I feel like over time it will stain with skin oil/etc. It takes some time to almost "re-learn" how to hold the Ally compared to the Deck. You have to sorta shift your hands higher and rest the rounded bottom corners in your palm. It is comfortable to use once you figure out the right way to hold it. The Negatives- 512gb isn't enough storage. I can't find the toggle in Armoury Crate to disable the startup sound. Armoury crate is good, but seems to get in the way often. The performance overlay is in the top right corner, which makes it impossible to just click on the X to close something. Sometimes when I bring up the quick menu in a game I get "you are using x Controller mode" messages. That's not necessary. There's a bit of lag in game when altering quick settings. FPS limiter seems broken. It doesn't limit frame rates when adjusted in game. The included 'stand' is painful. If it was this cheap stand or nothing I would prefer the nothing option. Official accessories appear to be overpriced. (a soft case for $40???) Yeah. The battery. There's more to it, though. It's tied to what I'm going to discuss next- The Ally does a TERRIBLE job at power/frequency management. All around. It's why my review says "needs time to bake". At idle on the desktop, APU power doesn't go below 4 watts. For context, the Steam Deck is able to clock/power down at idle down to less than 1 watt. I've found often that in quiet and performance modes the GPU gets 'stuck' at 800mhz. It seems like only the CPU is allocated any power and performance TANKS when this happens. In The Witcher 3 when the GPU is at 1200-1400mhz I can get ~45 fps and at 800mhz it slows to a painful 20 fps. This is something the Steam Deck is way better at. If the CPU isn't really needed with a game running on the Deck, it will give the GPU more power and higher clock frequencies - again depending on the workload which allows for more performance at lower power targets. AMD and ASUS need to get this fixed as it seems to me that it's a BIOS/firmware/driver issue. There needs to be a better algorithm (optimization?) to determine how to allocate power available to the CPU/GPU, better idle power consumption (of sub 1 watt), and if necessary a way to 'turn off' some of the CPU cores to boost performance at lower power targets. This is why this device has such poor battery life. Further optimization is sorely needed. Lastly, the left side of the Ally on the back where you might rest your fingers if not using the triggers tends to get hot. I guess that's the price to pay for having a smaller device? This will be a highly recommended handheld if AMD and ASUS can get some of this optimization done.

This handheld is great for on the go gaming. The main issue I have with it is the battery, but there are accessories that give you quality of life improvements that will be included in the pictures with this review. These accessories have made the experience much more enjoyable as the default grips are uncomfortable in my hands, but I know that this is different for everybody. The other accessory that I have been using is the joystick extensions. The joysticks are the only other problem with this device, as the joysticks are a little loose and have some drift. However, the new update that they released does help alleviate some of those issues. I would also recommend getting joystick locks that will prevent the joysticks from getting caught on anything when being taken out of a case or bag, the battery accessory with a clip that carries a portable battery pack on the back of the Ally has been a great addition to this as well. In terms of performance, I’ve thrown a few AAA games at it such as cyberpunk, Need For Speed, Overwatch, and was able to download an app to play World of Warcraft successfully, with the controller setup. The oppurtunities are endless with this device…. even emulated games as it is basically just a full Windows 11 PC. If you’re looking to get into PC gaming or even being able to play those PC games on a big screen with the dock, then this is the device for you. Be sure to get the accessories and maybe even a screen protector. Do not bother with an SD card as it may get cooked, unless you are not using it for long periods. Volume can be pretty loud, but can get a little distorted at higher volumes. It is awesome to be able to just move the usb-c cord from my work laptop to this and kill some time on a mid range gaming PC. Get an open-box one as they are typically barely touched, because people did not like the fact that you had to go through a Windows serup and configuring software etc. Overall 7/10, excited for the second iteration and the start of high end PC gaming at your fingertips.