Customer Ratings & Reviews

I have faith that it’ll eventually be finished baking but if you buy one, temper your expectations as this is a first generation product in a new form factor from a company who has never made one of these before. As of 6/16/23, there ARE bugs, there ARE driver issues, there ARE bios issues, etc. So far it’s been getting updates pretty regularly pre launch to post launch to help with these issues and I think ASUS will eventually work all these kinks out. Biggest issue for me is the minimum stick deadzones in Armoury Crate are atrocious. For now a good workaround is to set the deadzones in Steam to override them (Steam deadzones have to be at least one tick up from 0 or this won’t do anything). Sticks also have very little tension but I’ve gotten used to that aspect so that’s not really a big deal to me. If you’re trying to use a third party cable for charging, pay attention to the rating of the cable, it needs to be rated for 65w minimum for the Ally to allow full turbo. Third party charging bricks are even more of a mixed bag, research on google and Reddit before buying. Overall I’m pretty happy with the Ally. It blows my mind that you can have this much power in a handheld, for that reason temper your expectations on battery life, expect only an hour or less for more demanding games. Luckily the charger that comes with it is plenty long so it’s not difficult to just keep it plugged in when playing at home. Gaming laptop owners will understand lol. The screen and speakers are spectacular. Just don’t expect to hit the full 120hz in most games. You can hit 120 at good settings on older titles but most modern games I’m getting between 40-80 at 1080p low-medium, sometimes higher if it’s set to 720p low-medium with RSR turned on. Games I’ve tested and gotten acceptable performance from are Death Stranding, DOOM 2016 (great), Bioshock Remastered (great), Destiny 2 (acceptable), Farcry 5 (not great but playable), Cyberpunk 2077 (acceptable), Loop Hero (2D so duh lol) and Cult of the Lamb (not as good performance as I expected but still good). Also if buying an SD card, don’t cheap out on one. Get at least a U3 card. After getting burned by a cheap but large Sandisk drive on Amazon I picked up a 512GB Samsung Pro Plus from Best Buy and it works soooooo much better, night and day difference. If you’re already a PC gamer you shouldn’t have a lot of issues getting the Ally up and running. If you’re not already a PC gamer expect to have to figure stuff out. This is DEFINITELY a Windows gaming experience with all the good and the bad that that entails. Keep updated in Armoury Crate, My Asus app as well as in Windows update. Expect to be updating this thing for a good long while immediately after getting it out of the box, as some updates are needed to unlock even further updates. With all that in mind, I absolutely love this thing. Never thought that I’m my lifetime we’d have this much performance in a handheld at a reasonable price, this thing is has more power than the first mid-range gaming PC I built in late 2015 and it just blows my mind

Granted this will mainly be used for gaming, the rog ally delivers high performance from games to in general computer use. The only 2 things that can get to you would be the battery life on the go and the storage if your a user that downloads big games. If you need bigger storage, I would recommend grabbing a decent size uhs-ii micro sd card considering it will read what on the card faster(300mb) for some models. Due to how accessible they are though if all else fails you can grab the good old uhs-i micro sd. It will be a little slower in terms of memory reading but you'll have a much bigger variety in terms of storage size selection.

While Windows on a handheld may not he for everyone, for me it is the ideal format for mobile gaming. As someone who has a large library of games from multiple sources, the convenience of having a windows based platform is great. Now that isn't to say it's perfect. Windows is still windows, so there are the expected, and unexpected, quirks that come along with it. But I have enough experience, confidence, and patience with windows that im not too bothered by any of these things. Battery life could of course be better, but its in liek with what i expected. I mostly use the device while on a plane or in hotel rooms, and the form factor is perfect. Performance wise it does everything I ask of it. Other than a few crashes, due to windows, there havent been any real issues with performance for me.

Overall, the ROG Ally is a very good first effort. Setup was fairly painless, though it did take a little while to complete. Nothing really worse than any other Windows computer, but still. I think it would be much better served with faster RAM and 32 GB instead of 16 GB, but I can see how that may have been needed to hit the price point. It runs older titles really well, and newer titles with lower fidelity settings and/or a lower resolution. Battery life can be a real drain (pun intended), but again, at lower settings, you should be able to get at least a couple of hours out of it. It's more of a travel gaming system than a mobile system (in other words, you can take with with you on a trip and plug it in). I'd say 4.5/5 overall, but since there aren't half stars, 5 it is.

The ASUS ROG Ally 7" Gaming Handheld is an epic gaming companion! With its AMD Ryzen Z1 Extreme Processor, it's like having a turbocharged engine for your games. The 120Hz FHD 1080p screen brings your favorite titles to life with dazzling colors and super-smooth action. Plus, it's compact enough to take anywhere, making it perfect for gaming on the fly. Whether you're into RPGs, shooters, or strategy games, the ROG Ally delivers the kind of gaming experience that will have you grinning from ear to ear. It's a game-changer you won't want to miss!

More powerful than you think. Not enough marketing around this beast of a handheld. For the price, it's a solid win that's only topped by upgraded or newer versions. Access to any game library you want, full PC functionality, dock to any screen, and ease of the windows 11 OS. If you need something portable that you can do some legitimate on the go gaming with, best choice. Few cons, it runs hot... Very hot under some loads so watch your legs and fingers and the only other problem I have is a very sus USB C connection, for taking such a high wattage power supply and being intended to be used excessively between docking to display, charging, or simply running on turbo I would have expected a much more robust feeling of a connection, in my opinion it feels the type of loose like you'd expect on a much cheaper device and does not instill a feeling of longevity for the USB port.

The system has his issues, the problem with the SD getting hot, the BIOS getting the system to perform a bit slower. But the system overall is excellent, the price is very good, its powerful and you can technically use it as a laptop to do your homework, work stuff, projects, etc. The controllers are good, the screen is beautiful and most of the games run excellent. Personally I bought it to play mostly old games and indie games which is perfect for. Also use it as a laptop to code on the go. The battery life is ok (sometimes), but its a powerful device so don't expect much. It has Windows 11 (Non ARM), which makes it compatible with any software you use on your regular Windows PC. Overall the device has its flaws but its pretty impressive for the price and it really performs well.

It is a great alternative to a gaming laptop with the right expectations. If you like older pc games it is great or if you are willing to make sacrifices newer titles will play 720p med low settings with 90 minutes give or take of battery life. With that said if you get a battery bank with 65 watt output it could be limitless. Build quality is good feel is good and as a bonus you can use it just like a laptop because its windows 11. If you want a handheld console i dont know if I would be as keen to recommend it same pitfalls of pc gaming driver issues ect. but the same freedom as well

First and foremost, make sure that your system is fully charged, and once turned on, has the most update system. Treat it like any other computer or laptop, the system needs updating or you will lose functionality. I am super impressed at the feel of the gaming system because I have average size hands but the screen is huge and the joystick and buttons are properly placed. It doesn’t overheat plenty of cooling even when you’ve played for hours. The performance is two thumbs up doesnt glitch or lag. The design makes it fun to use. Plenty of storage for saving games and I really enjoy having a few apps for gaming access wherever I go. You can basically have all of your games in one Place And it fits in your backpack. Helps the time pass when I’m on flights or just bored with no gaming console or TV. But if you do have multiple units, you can have competitive gaming by connecting it to a TV with multiple controllers. Or you can have one unit with multiple users. The system also has 10 points of touch display. Way too much for me but it’s nice to have option. The only con: I can only play or use it for a couple of hours and then I need to give my hands a rest. The system is overall an upgrade to personal gaming systems.

Have been amazed by this gaming hand held! It plays pretty much most games, except for a few AAA games currently in development which have open alpha or beta play testing. Being able to play games like Red Dead Redemption 2 anywhere has been a blast. My only complaint is the battery life which is pretty low when playing more graphically demanding games: less than 2 hours. Which is easily extendable via 65w+ battery banks over USB C.

TL;DR -- Low battery life, great controls and screen, feels sturdy, and since it's Windows 11, it runs pretty much everything. "Long" version -- When I purchased this it came in dead. I expected at least 50% battery, but nope, dead. No issue, just a little QoL thing that I expected better from ASUS. Anyway, plugged it in, went through the Windows setup pretty quickly, and was done. Controls are super nice, analog triggers feel good, and the joysticks are pretty nice too. They do make a "click" every so often, though, and I've seen online that's pretty common with these devices. Some people exchange them, some deal with it. I haven't had any issues, but it's something to note. I'm just going to deal with it. The screen is also gorgeous. It's 120 Hz and 1080p, so it's really high def and buttery smooth. However, the biggest pain here is the battery life and the time it took to update everything. There are three places to update this device: Windows Update, Asus AmouryCrate, and MyASUS. This took a combined total of nearly 6 HOURS to do all these updates, it was absolutely absurd. Once that was done, I had to download games. Luckily I have gigabit fiber, so that didn't take too long, but it may for you. Also, this doesn't (seem) to have WiFi 6, and if it does it wasn't working (It could be my network as well), so I was being capped at 300 Mbps download speeds even though I get 1000 over the network. You may want to use a USB-C to Ethernet adapter to get it going faster. Once the games were downloaded, I had a lot of fun! For about 2 hours. Then it dies. The battery life is pretty bad in this. The good news is, though, that plugging it in *does* have benefits. When plugged it, it can get up to 30 or 35W, while the max unplugged is 25W. Overall, great device, with compromises to battery. I'm going to really enjoy it!!!!

Battery life is limited due to the nature of the device, and it can get a little warm, but overall it is an amazing device. Its been running AAA games for me with no issues and thats really all i could ask for.

Swapped from the steamdeck to this because it would let me play more of my steam backlog. Pros, much more powerful than the steam deck, quieter than the steam deck, better speakers than the steam deck, better screen then the steam deck. In every performance metric except battery life the ally is the clear winner. Cons, battery life, steam deck wasn't great either but I felt I got a bit more battery on it. User interface, ROG has custom version of armory crate. It's nice but it's not consistent, if anything it feels like a beta build. Nothing I can't overcome using normal windows desktop but still.

Never a single issue in the 16months of owning the z1 extreme. I use it daily, 30w manual mode plugged in all the time. Very seldomly do i have a need to run on battery. You also get better performance plugged in. I have a backup power brick just in case there is no outlet nearby. Ppl buy these handhelds, no matter who the manufacturer is, and then get upset because the battery doesnt last… if you wanna pump out the power to run demanding titles, your going to drain any battery in no time. Fact of life. The purpose of these is to have the convenience of enjoying your hobby almost anywhere. The internal batteries on any handheld can only do so much. So invest in a power brinck, or more outlets lol. 10/10 one of my favorite gaming devices.

The ROG Ally is very capable in running games that are AAA titles as a handheld gaming PC. The ease of use with ASUS armory crate and the side toggle menu that allows for quick access to settings is very convenient. The only real downside to this device is its battery life when trying to play games at a higher wattage and resolution. Besides that, this handheld pc is a game changer just for the sheer ability to games that are equivalent to high end consoles or better.

Amazing handheld. Display is good, onboard software is good (Windows could be better but that's on Microsoft), controls and general construction is solid. My only real gripe is the battery life, but honestly, purchasing something that puts out this much power in such a small form factor, you have to know that you're getting a few hours tops off of a single charge. I would recommend getting a "good" power supply (I ended up getting an Anker online for like 90 bucks).

I picked up the ASUS ROG Ally with the Z1 Extreme processor, and let me tell you, this thing is a beast. It handled everything I threw at it—AAA games, indie titles, and even a little bit of streaming. The 120Hz screen is buttery smooth, and the performance is insane for something I can carry in one hand. The controls feel great, the build quality is solid, and it’s so sleek that I felt like I was gaming on the future. Traveling with it was a dream—perfect for killing time on flights or pretending to be productive at the coffee shop while actually playing Elden Ring. So why did I return it? Well, right after I bought it, the higher-end version went on sale. And, you know how it is—FOMO is real. I figured if I was already spending this much, I might as well go all out. That said, I’d still highly recommend this model. It’s an incredible device that punches well above its weight for gaming and portability. But if you have the extra cash, spring for the top-tier version if it’s within reach. Either way, you’re getting an amazing handheld that can handle just about anything. TL;DR: This is an incredible handheld, but if the better model is on sale and you can swing it, go for the upgrade. Either way, you won’t be disappointed.

So far its working well. I bought a used one but from the looks nothing is wrong with the unit. With some minor tweaking it can run most games I throw at it. Windows is a bit of a pain to navigate since the screen is so small and I have to use the thumbstick but the armory crate app alleviates this once your games are installed. Games are so large you'll need to add storage space to the 512 if you plan on playing many different games.

I’m quite happy with this handheld pc. Can play most of the AA games easy. Get a dock station and it will become even better. It’s not 5 stars because of the known issue with the sd card reader and the initial windows setup can be painful without an external keyboard and mouse. The battery life is really correlated with what games you play, so don’t expect a long battery life when playing 3A games with high quality and frame rates.

I was so excited to see the Steamdeck have some competition, and ASUS did not disappoint with the ROG Ally. I was expecting a gaming system, but I was not expecting it to quite literally be a portable PC in a handheld form. When turning on, you're brought right to your desktop screen for Windows! I have yet to find something that works on my laptop and not on the handheld Ally. I am very impressed with how quiet the cooling system is. I typically do not even notice when the fans come on, unlike my PC, which sounds like a jet engine taking off. The visuals are spectacular and the screen goes much brighter than any other handheld system I have owned. This handheld, similar to the Switch, is also compatible with a number of controllers and docking devices so it can be played on a bigger screen. There is also a micro SD card slot to add memory to play even the biggest games, additionally with no lag! The speed is very compatible with my gaming laptop. My absolute favorite feature here is Armoury Crate! It is specific to the ROG Ally and helps keep all of your PC games in one place, whether it is from Xbox Game Pass, Steam, GOG, etc.