Customer Ratings & Reviews

Let me start with this, regardless what device you get the future for these handheld gaming pc is extremely bright, and having so much competition always ends up benefiting the consumer. That being said I want my review to be about the Rog Ally and not compare it to anything else. Let me start with this The ROG Ally is amazing and having this amount of power and flexibility in my hands is amazing just playing some games I would usually play on the big tv be able to play them on a handheld with very few concessions is awesome, but that doesn’t mean it’s perfect or without faults. The hardware is amazing from the comfort to the build quality it looks and feels good the sound is unbelievable for the size and that fact that the handheld is generating so much heat but you never feel it is a testament to the design. The screen looks gorgeous, yes 720p on a handheld is fine but there is definitely a difference you can see when you have the games running at 1080p. Being that is runs windows give it so much ease and flexibility to run all the games and programs you want. I have yet to run into an issue where I couldn’t play a game, but that leads me to my first issue with the device. Being a windows pc is a gift and curse yes I can run pretty much anything because it’s just a pc bad news is sometimes it takes messing with settings to get it running well, which makes it hard to recommend to anyone that does not have familiarity with playing games on pc. It’s also not the easiest to mess around with your settings on out without plugging it to a monitor and use a mouse and keyboard to go in and adjust things. Battery life is also not great but at this point in the cycle for these handhelds it’s also not unexpected. Armoury Crate is good but not great at this Point, but even with these issues I am loving my time with Ally and even more excited for the future, I know things will get better with more updates and while I never recommend something based on the future this is good enough now to warrant a recommendation. The future is here and the future is bright come join in on the fun and pick up an Ally.

The ROG Ally is probably the best Windows handheld you can buy at this price point. It's not perfect but it is worth the asking price in my opinion, especially compared to more expensive options with the same Z1 Extreme chip. First off, the good things: 1. It's powerful for a handheld. It runs most games well @ 1080p. Even more recent titles run at a decent framerate with a little settings tweaking. One note though, I would not buy this thinking performance is going to be far greater than the Deck. It beats the Steam Deck in most games but we're talking single digit difference in framerate in most cases. 2. The screen looks great. It's definitely no OLED but colors are vivid and accurate. It has VRR support so it really helps with screen tearing. 3. It's very easy to take apart to replace the SSD. I put a 2TB SSD in mine and the process is fairly simple compared to my Steam Deck OLED. 4. Since it runs Windows game compatibility is great. The Armory Crate software is good for mapping the controls for games that only support mouse/kb but it can be buggy at times. 5. It is light and hand fatigue is fairly minimal. It is noticeably smaller and lighter than my Steam Deck OLED and definitely lighter than the Legion Go I returned to get my Ally. Now for the bad: 1. The SD card problem is real, hence my 4 star review. I would not save anything to an SD card that you care to lose, chances are it will be corrupted or stop working altogether like mine. I ended up putting a bigger SSD in my Ally to compensate for the dead SD reader. 2. As it runs Windows I will say that Windows 11 was not designed for the handheld form factor. Navigating Windows can be quite awkward at times without a mouse. Also the Armory Crate app is buggy and I find myself forcing closing and restarting it often. The user interface is the one thing that the Steam Deck really does well. The Steam Deck is like a console that can also be a computer whereas the Ally is a computer with a built-in controller. If you're computer savvy it's great. But if you don't like messing with settings or you're buying it for a small child I'd get a Steam Deck OLED instead. 3. The USB-C port is not USB 4 or Occulink so it does not support external GPUs over USB-C. Asus' proprietary GPU connection only supports their extremely expensive external GPUs. Overall the Ally is great little Windows handheld. It has quirks as any Windows PC has but if you're a computer nerd you'll likely love it. The SD card problem is a bummer but with a big SSD I don't really mind it so much. It regularly goes on sale for $100 off and at $599 its basically the cheapest and most powerful handheld around.

Terrible, the device is poorly optimized, the battery, they should do tests before

Not enough ram to run/play Call of Duty MWIII. Starfield working

Not what u think it is. It is more for a casual gamer.

The reality is that this handheld gaming is much more than that, in fact it is practically a pc that can fit in the palm of your hand. Since this is something recent, and being this the first version of this device -I hope there will be new versions in the not too distant future- there are some things that are not completely convincing. However, I consider that there are many more positive things in favor of this device. Well let's start with the first thing, the unboxing. The gaming handheld comes in a relatively small box along with its charger, quick start guide and warranty documentation. You need to charge the battery and in the meantime you can start with the setup of the device. Setup - Regarding setup, and pretty much everything else, keep in mind that this device is running Windows 11, which means that, excluding the Armoury Crate SE app, any configuration or manipulation of the device and apps will be like setting up a PC. This is important to know because I believe that you need to have a minimum of knowledge about the Windows operating system to solve the various problems that may arise. One of the first things to do is to check and install all available updates for windows, as well as update the app that serves as a control center, Armoury Crate SE. Pre-installed is an asus app, "My Asus", which allows you to download the specific updates for the ROG Ally (In the app go to Customer Support-> Live Update-> Available Updates > Update All), this part is essential because from there you can update the BIOS, a necessary update that fixes bugs and make the device perform better. Once you have installed the necessary updates, you can start downloading games and apps you want. This is done from the Armoury Crate SE app, from there you can download both the platforms and their games (you can also create shortcuts to already installed windows apps). This brings me to the memory section, which despite having a relatively large storage of 512 GB, falls short if we consider that the device can run AAA games that usually use more GB. In my case, having 8 games installed, the available memory is just over 100 GB, the good side of this is that you can replace the memory for a larger capacity (NVMe M.2 SSD), and also has a slot for UHS-II MicroSD memory, something very convenient. Connectivity - The device can connect to the internet via WiFi and is compatible with WiFi-6 for faster download speeds. It also has bluetooth connectivity that allows you to connect headphones, keyboards, mouse, etc., to the device. It also has the option to connect an external graphics card - ROG XG mobile eGPU - in case you need to increase the graphics power of the console and use it as a gaming PC. Audio - The device has a 3.5 jack input for headphones that works without a problem, and the audio quality, whether using headphones or the console's speakers, is outstanding. Mainly the audio of the speakers has left me impressed, normally in this kind of mobile devices the built-in speakers lack power and sound not good at all, but with the RGO Ally is not the case. Screen - The screen is really good, 1920x1080 full HD Touch Screen with a refresh rate of 120Hz, which is perfect if we consider that this console can run games at high frame rate, although this will also make the battery consumption higher. The image quality in games or multimedia content is phenomenal. It has a maximum brightness of 500 nits (many times I do not use more than 60% brightness), which in my opinion is sufficient. Autonomy - Regarding the battery, I consider this is one of the least favorable points of the console, because being a device that is made to take it with you everywhere, you have to carry the charger with you all the time because the autonomy leaves much to be desired, in turbo mode just over an hour, in other modes about 2 hours. It is understandable because of the kind of operating system that uses, where the amount of processes that are necessarily running in the background is enormous, as well as the battery consumption. What somehow balances this, is that if used with the charger connected, although the temperature increases, it does not affect the gameplay or the use of the console, that is, even if the temperature rises, the heat doesn't feelin the hands, this is because of the fans position, the heat dissipation system is very well designed. Design - The design of this portable console is superb, I love it, white color inspired by the Xbox controller, ergonomic design that allows you to play without it slipping out of your hands or being uncomfortable, a well positioned crosshead, good sized joysticks that feel very smooth(arround them theres a RGB light tha can be configure at taste, I deactivated so is a distraccion for me), the A, B, X, Y buttons feel very good, so far none of the four buttons have been stuck or have not worked, rather they work properly that really seems that you are playing with an Xbox controller. It has their respective bumpers and triggers, plus two rear buttons that, personally, I do not use much because I find them a little hard to press, however, in some games I prefer to assign some function that allows me to play more easily. The two speakers are placed at the bottom on the sides of the screen, which allows for a better experience in this area. It has dedicated buttons for certain functions, such as direct access to Armoury Crate and access to the Command Center, where you can change the display settings, refresh rate, fps rate, resolution, Operating Mode, etc., the volume buttons are at the top, near the screen lock button, which in turn is the power button and the fingerprint scanner, which by the way works extremely fast, I was really surprised. In general I consider that everything is very well distributed, it is a very well thought out design. Performance - Regarding gaming performance, something that many of us are on the lookout for, it doesn't disappoint, in fact it surprises. Sometimes I wonder how we got here, I never thought to play the same games I have on my PC, in such a compact device. All the games I installed run smoothly, however, it is important to mention that I experienced this in turbo mode and with the charger connected, in performance mode the games run well but you have to lower the quality to medium, and in silent mode you will have to lower the refresh rate and fps to play smoothly. I have spent several hours testing games, epic games, xbox game pass (the console includes 3 months free), EA. Games like Cyberpunk 2077, Star Wars Battlefront I and II, Metro 2033 Redux, Telltale Batman, Need For Speed MW, Star Wars Squadrons, Hot Wheels Unleashed, Fornite, Rocket League and the list will go on because I have a lot left to play XD, all without any problem, honestly I have spent very good hours of fun playing with this console. Regarding performance outside of gaming, unless you connect a monitor, keyboard and mouse, I do not recommend using this device as a substitute for a tablet or laptop, although it serves to play multimedia content, surf the internet, download office software, perform tasks of a PC itself, the screen is too small for these tasks and the operating system (Windows 11) is not really intended or designed for this device (although it sounds a bit exaggerated we could say that this ROG Ally is almost unique in its class). This can be noticed in some errors that occur from time to time, such as when rebooting the console, or using applications and then freeze and close on their own, when configuring or customizing the operating system itself. Although sometimes it seems that this also happens due to the fact that the RAM (16 GB) is shared with the graphics, this due to the fact that it is an APU (CPU with integrated graphics). What is also important to mention is that Asus is constantly working on updates, just today morning I downloaded the new BIOS update, which is improving with each update the performance of the console and therefore the user experience, so again I recommend keeping an eye on updates. I didn't want to be too incisive with this part, because I think we are witnessing a very important moment at a technological and gaming level, being this the first version of this console that we haven't really seen yet what it can be capable of. If there is a second version in the future, then there will be a more stringent critical benchmark. Prediction - Being a powerful device in many ways, it seems to me that the trend of turning devices like this into powerful computers will be adopted. This device makes it look that way because if you get the ASUS - ROG 65W Charger Dock, you can practically turn it into a desktop PC, as it allows you to connect a monitor via HDMI, a keyboard via USB, and, if you so desire, a wired mouse via USB-C. Unfortunately for this moment this accessory is sold out, you will have to wait to buy it: (goos news: it is cheap and very convenient). Without going any further and in conclusion, this ROG Ally handheld is an excellent choice for that price. For gaming, as I mentioned above, it works excellent, you can play high quality PC games from the comfort of your couch, bed, living room, etc.,. It has an Xbox controller type design, a well distributed button panel and a high quality 1080p full HD screen, excellent sound and image quality. I can definitely highly recommend this devices. Great product!.

I’m very happy with the ROG Ally. Overall, it’s a great portable gaming device. What ultimately convinced me to buy this over the Steam Deck was its versatility (can play any game that works on Windows from any site) and the fact is has more computing power. What I love: - It performs better than I expected. While of course, it can’t compete with a dedicated gaming rig and some graphics settings might need to be scaled back to improve performance, it runs intense games on average settings just fine. Better than I expected. - It is truly portable, and playing handheld is a great experience. It’s light, the screen is very clear and bright, and resists glare well. Speaker sound is pretty decent, and headphones (wired or Bluetooth) are easily connected. - It is extremely easy to connect wireless accessories. Keyboard, mouse, headsets, controllers can all be paired in a matter of seconds and work great. - With the adapter (not included, purchased that separately), it is extremely easy to connect to a monitor or tv to use the Ally as a mini PC. - It’s just like using a Windows PC. Can download any program you need, install mods for games, etc. - The built-in Armoury Crate SE software is really solid. It’s easy to use once you learn its features, and it makes running games from any site and adjust settings very simple and quick. - The touchscreen is great. Things I love less: - The number 1 complaint I would imagine people have is the battery life. I’ve never used the power saving mode, but on the middle setting, you get about 2 hours of battery life when playing a moderately intensive game. This isn’t too much of a problem for me, as we really just use it sitting in the living room close by outlets, or docked and connected to the tv (which charges it), but I could imagine that if you were trying to use this as a portable device to travel and game, the battery just really doesn’t last a very long time. - Storage. Base, it comes with 512 Gigs of SSD storage. Enough for a decent collection of games, although Baldur’s Gate 3 alone took up about a quarter of the hard drive by itself. Replacing the SSD with a larger ones seems relatively easy, and the storage is ample enough for a handful of games. But it certainly won’t store your whole collection. - Windows. While the familiarity and flexibility of it being a Windows PC is a net positive, it can be a little clunky on a handheld. Using the sticks to move the mouse is fine, but for some reason, it doesn’t always appear when certain apps are open. And even though a controller works perfectly when playing games, I can seem to get it to control the mouse cursor. You can always use the touchscreen, but this is a little cumbersome, particularly when docked. The Armoury Crate SE app definitely helps with navigation, at least with games and settings. - Not the most ergonomic. Playing handheld is great, but I’m used to the PS5 Dual Sense Edge. That is just miles ahead in terms of comfort. The Ally is a little chunky, and reaching the buttons on the back requires a little stretching (again, I’m a little spoiled with the comfort and accessibility of the dual sense edge). I would say it’s a little more comfortable than the Nintendo Switch in handheld (although I have an ergonomic case that goes around the Switch making it more comfortable, in my opinion). The joysticks are a little loose for my taste, but all buttons are responsive. I think it just comes down to personal taste. I’ve used it handheld for several consecutive hours and didn’t have any fatigue or cramping issues. Overall, I’m really happy with the ROG Ally. It was much more affordable and is more portable than a mid to high-end gaming laptop, and I don’t really feel it sacrifices too much in terms of performance in comparison.

I was quite excited when Asus revealed this was not an April Fools joke. I had been using a Steam Deck but wanted something a little different. Though let me just say I am extremely grateful for the competition in this space the Steam Deck has ignited. As well, since it is the closest competition I will be comparing to the Deck regularly. Now heres a few pros and cons of the Ally. Pros: The Screen - It is much better than the Decks. While I could use a little more brightness, it is vibrant and I like the inclusion of the 120hz panel. I understand some may find it to be an over indulgent inclusion.However, even if you're not running games at that refresh rate often, it makes the general navigation of the device feel much smoother and more intuitive than it would otherwise. Similar to high refresh rates on mobile phones. Size/Weight - One of my biggest problems with the Steam Deck was its size. It is just so long and, honestly, somewhat cumbersome. With or without its case it takes up a considerable amount of space in my backpack. The Ally keeps the same screen size but is more compact and much lighter. The weight of the Deck hadnt concerned me as much as its size. However, I still appreciate the lower weight of the Ally after using it. Performance - The Ally performs at a much higher level than the Steam Deck. Now at 15w the difference is still there, but less stark. However, the flexibility to take it up to 30w+ when plugged in is amazing and can offer some great performance. With all of that said, the Deck does perform better at sub 15w power profiles. So if you play mostly pixelated games or older titles, then the Deck may provide better performance while also conserving battery life. Analog Sticks - This is not a huge pro but I, personally, like the analog sticks on the Ally more than the Steam Deck. They feel a little looser, which is my preference, but also a little cheaper than the Decks. So again, not a huge pro, but they're my preference. Neutral - I realized I had a few points I was relatively neutral on and wanted to mention here. Software - Now I have heard many complaints in this area, though most of those were also pre release reviews. My feelings towards the software are neutral as I feel Windows is not as well made for handhelds as SteamOS. However, it is also mroe familiar for me and feels more natrual to navigate in desktop mode. You also have the option of using Steam Big Picture Mode or Asus' Armoury Crate software if you want something more akin to the Steam Deck. Armoury Crate isn't amazing and I basically never use the full client. Though the quick menu you can pull up works perfectly well with some small annoyances. Like, I wish I could see the battery life more easily while in game. As well, I appreciate the Steam decks greater control and granularity in its menu. The ability to select any refresh rate from 40-60 as well as the complexity of the on screen display are nice features. Ones that I miss on the Ally. However, by and large, I think the software on the Ally is fine and I am interested to see how it evolves throughout its life. D-Pad - This is another point I have heard some complaints on. I don't typically like the D-pads in this style. However it feels well enough implemented here. I did have a few missed or misregistered inputs in Mortal Kombat but it wasn't too often. So nothing particularly positive or negative about it. Face Buttons/Triggers - I lumped these together as there is not much to say. The face buttons haven't stuck on me but don't feel great or anything. The triggers and bumpers are much the same. They feel perfectly adequate but don't stand out in my opinion. Upgrade-ability/Repair-ability - While not as repair friendly as the Deck, you do have the ability to easily replace the battery, analog sticks and NVME drive. Which is nice. The face buttons are integrated into the motherboard and parts are not as readily available to my knowledge. So another point that falls into the middle. Cons - Battery Life - I gotta get this one out of the way as its a pretty significant con given this is a handheld. It kind of goes in the face of it being lighter and more portable than the Deck as well. Given the battery life just doesnt follow suit. It is not god awful terrible, necessarily. However, it is noticeably worse than the Steam Decks. Even at similar power profiles its battery life will be a touch shorter. Add into the fact that you cant take power lower than 7w, as well as the fact that even at that power you're getting worse performance than the Steam Deck. It all adds up to being a fairly negative experience in terms of battery life. However, I can still give 5 stars as I don't mind playing plugged in and prefer playing with higher power profiles in most cases anyways. Though, it could still be a problem if you plan on using this more portabley than I do. Grip - While the Size/Weight of the Ally are much appreciated and preferable to the Steam Deck. The grip leaves a bit to be desired. It doesnt feel as comfortable in the hand as the Deck. Now the Deck was uncomfortable in some ways too. Namely with the the right stick and face buttons were positioned next to each other. However, here the grip actually causes some discomfort has I have to readjust my grip frequently, which is annoying. It is not a deal breaker but it is probably my biggest, personal, flaw with the Ally Back Buttons - This is directly related to the feel/placement of the back buttons. The fact that there are 2 of them is totally fine with me. I never used more than 2 on the steam deck anyways. The customization on offer for them is fine as well. However, where they are placed and in combination with the poor grip, I have mispressed them multiple times. It was especially inconvienient as well considering it was mapped to record with Xbox gamebar by default. So It caused my game to lag/hitch for a moment then have a recording window on the screen I could only close with the touch screen. Now this was also while playing Mortal Kombat and so I was more intensely operating the controller, however it has happened in other games as well. The back buttons here as just placed poorly and don't feel that amazing either. That mostly covers big categories of the device. It may seem odd to give it 5 stars since most of my thoughts fell into the neutral category. However, some of the big things I wanted in a device like this ended up being pros. With most other things being neutral its easy for me to see past the cons as well. This will vary from person to person so its hard to blanket recommend. But if you are interested in handheld gaming but want something different from the Steam Deck then I think this is an appealing option. Just keep in mind some of the quality of life/design compromises.

Product it’s amazing but quality of refurbish from Best Buy was not so good, component come with sticker buttons, with Scratches on screen. Broken core and erased stickers

I can't charge the electricity in less than a month, what quality is this, I am so disappointed.

What can I say about the ROG ally that you haven't heard by now? It's got bugs galore. We've got windows 11 and it's shenanigans, updates that exist in three different places, and SD card readers that stop working and freeze the system when a card is installed. If by some miracle, Asus fixed every single bug, the only real complaint would be battery life. This thing chews through battery very quickly. Have a battery bank or charger ready to go. This isn't. a huge issue for me as I mainly play in bed or on my lunch break. If you're taking this on a road trip, make sure you have a means of charging it. All of this begs the question Why, oh why did I give it 5 stars then? Because when it works it is glorious and I love it. The screen is sharp and smooth with a 120hz refresh rate at 1080p. My unit does not have backlight bleed. Contrast is decent in a dark room and good in a bright room. It has variable refresh rate which makes frame rate fluctuations smooth and tear free. This is great because you don't have to lock it to 40fps using a frame cap. you can just let the game run wild and it will feel smooth. of course you can still cap the frame rate to achieve a consistent lowest common denominator frame time, but you don't have to because of vrr. This alone is what sold me on the Ally. I was tired of playing with individual refresh rate settings on the Steam Deck. The software on the Ally allows you to Change the color temperature saturation contrast and other settings via the Radeon control panel. I wish these tweaks were all on one place as armoury crate allows you to change temperature and modes like vivid etc. but nothing else. Once I discovered Radeon settings I did my visual tweaks there. Now the screen is even more vibrant. A beautiful mess. My only real complaint about the screen is the chunky bezel on the top and bottom. When it's off it looks like a massive screen, then you turn it on to realize you have almost a letter box feel despite being 16:9 aspect ratio. The z1 extreme chip delivers excellent performance at 15 and 25 watt settings. And it does this while staying quiet. The only issue here is that it boosts way higher than those wattages which can spike temperatures. I say create a manual tdp to boost no higher than 25 watts and you shouldn't see temps above 80C. if you're plugged in I've seen it go as high as 50 watts! temperatures soared to 95C. I hate noise so I lowered the power rather than crank the fans. All is good, but it requires user input. again, a beautiful mess. The controls feel responsive, the face buttons have a nice candy feel to them. Even the Dpad has been working well for me in street fighter 6. Although I only use it for training not online matches. That's what my arcade stick is for. I'm not good at the game anyway so I guess it doesn't matter in that sense, but it does matter in the sense that the d pad doesn't feel like it's hindering my gameplay. My right bumper occasionally makes a ticking sound when I haven't pressed it in a while. I tried lubing the button but to no avail. I dont know why it does it but it's not a big deal. The triggers feel responsive. They are hall effect triggers. You can adjust the throw of the switch so you can get 100% actuation at almost any point in the travel. I leave it on stock. The analog sticks feel comfortable. They're somewhere between the steam deck and dualshock as far as tension. They lean toward the lighter side which I grew to like in the first few days of using. The led rings are a nice touch but I would have preferred an anti friction ring for a super smooth feel when using the sticks. The finger print sensor works quite well and it buffers the input so when you turn it on it logs in if you did so with the correct finger despite pulling the finger away and going through the splash screens. Playing games on this is downright fun once you get all the updates sorted out. I've been playing Death's Door on gamepass as well as Diablo 4 on Blizzard. Diablo has been especially cool because the Ally has a built in microphone. I was chatting with my party and they had no idea I had gone mobile and wasn't using a headset. Streaming games with moonlight from my powerful PC has been the best experience. It feels native and runs at 120hz flawlessly. Basically any game that the Ally can't handle natively I stream from my PC to the Ally. It looks amazingly cris and with 120hz feels ridiculously smooth. General software use is a mixed bag. Armoury Crate is really good. It's a central hub for your games despite what launcher they use. You can launch your games and even add programs to it. I added moonlight and chiaki. One is to stream my PC games to the Ally, the other to stream PS5 remote play. Windows is windows. It will throw up a random notification while I'm in a game. You have to configure windows to shut up and leave you alone as you play. This is on all windows pcs, but when battery life is at a premium you don't want to spend any time messing with stuff like that. The Myasus software is a bit tricky to navigate as update are under customer support live support settings instead of just having a dedicated update section. I turn automatic updates off as sometimes updates can break things. My rule is to not change a working system. when things are running smoothly I leave them alone. So the big question is do I recommend the Ally? Yes, as long as you're prepared for he PC like experience rather than a console like experience. Windows is annoying, Asus needs to streamline the settings and updates into one place, and figure out why SD card readers are dying. My reader is fine but time will tell. I give this 5 stars because I really do love it once I got everything customized to my standards. But it's not a blind love, I see all the flaws and issues hoping Asus addresses them. I want them to succeed so we keep getting support for the Ally and eventually get future iterations.

So many bugs, hope you have a good exterminator you can call.

I’ve been gaming with the Asus ROG Ally for the past 5 days and I’ve had a lot of fun gaming with it. Handhelds aren’t new to the market, but technology is getting really good for portable PC’s and laptops and the AMD Ryzen Z1 Extreme processor in this machine is proving to be quite powerful. I say it makes me feel like a kid again, because I remember how much fun I used to have playing with a game boy when I was a kid. It was large, clunky and it was so cool to just pick it up and start playing instantly, And the batteries die almost as quickly lol. The Ally has run every game I have tested quite flawlessly. Just to name a few.. Days Gone, Fortnite, Rocket League, Shadow of the Tomb Raider, Ultra Street Fighter IV, Tiny Tinas’s Wonderland, Red Dead Redemption, Destiny 2. 😅 They all ran pretty well in performance mode. I did have to turn down the resolution to 720p for Tiny Tina’s and Red Dead but they still looked great and played good. Battery life is about what I was expecting, I’m averaging about 1- 2 hours of gameplay in performance mode. I keep it in performance mode about 90% of the time. I find it to be the best mode for gameplay and battery life. If you are playing older games or the classic style indie games you might be able to play in silent mode. The Ally is definitely larger than I was expecting but it is very comfortable to hold for extended gaming sessions. My hands never really cramped or fatigued with it when gaming for more than an hour. The joysticks are comfortable and I didn’t find them to be in an awkward position. My only complaint about the joysticks is that they seem a little “loose” and they seem to have some deadzones / not the most responsive joysticks. They are definitely perfectly fine for casual / single player games but I would not rely on them for competitive gaming where you will want faster and more accurate response from your joysticks. Yeah, you could always pair or connect a Gamepad with a cable but in my opinion, that defeats the purpose of playing handheld. I haven’t gotten to buy / try the charging / hdmi dock that Asus makes for it but I am definitely going to grab one. I think the coolest thing about it is that you can bring it with you anywhere and just bring a couple cables and controllers and play on a TV or monitor. My nephews love playing Fortnite and rocket league together and I quickly jump in with them with my Ally. There is so many cool use possibilities with this and everyone I’ve showed it to so far is amazed by it. Back to the controls.. the buttons have been fine, they are tactile and responsive. The shoulder triggers are great, they’re really good to be honest and they are comfortable also. The two buttons on the back kind of get in the way and I tend to accidentally press them often, but they don’t cause me too much trouble. I have fairly large hands though, so they might not be a problem for most people. The screen is beautiful and vibrant and the speakers are impressive. I keep them below 40% cos they are loud. The fans are pretty silent and do a great job at keeping the machine cool. I haven’t had any frame drops because of heat. The fans and vents blow the air up and away from you, so I can never really feel any heat from it. Only when I reach up to press the volume or power button I’m like Oh, it’s toasty. Anyway, I’m just rambling now.. but all in all, I love this handheld gaming PC. Yeah.. windows isn’t really optimized for a handheld, but Asus did a great job with amory crate, it’ll boot up straight to that screen, and you can launch your games from it without having to bother with other launchers or shortcuts. The 512gb SSD is very fast and is enough storage for me. I am going to get a micro SD card later, and drop it in the slot for bonus storage. ASUS has been dropping updates pretty much every day, so I can see it only getting better as time goes on. I’m excited for the future of the Ally and looking forward to playing my favorite games on it. My only complaint is about the joysticks, I wish they were a little more accurate and responsive. They aren’t terrible, but I won’t be winning any tournaments online with them. Would I recommend it? If you love gaming and have the money for it, yes. It’s really cool, and it’s great for couch gaming with friends and family.

Have had it less than 2 weeks , crashed multiple times, now in a permanent bootloop. Research on the internet says likely from windows update. Diagnostics show the wifi adapter is not working. Cloud update attempt 7, if it doesnt work, ill be returning it tomorrow. Bestbuy, stop selling unproven garbage.

This machine is full of trouble, only after several week the trigger button is no working and they refuse to exchange or provide server to my machine all of those make me feel really bad for this buying expensive I won’t buy anything from this best buy again

I've had the ally for a few months now, and it's fantastic. There are a handful of problems, but it offers something nothing else does right now. Pros: The whole point of this handheld is to deliver a real PC gaming experience in a portable form, and it delivers impressively well. Forza Horizon 5 looks and plays fantastic, as do most other graphics intensive games I've played. There's a decent size online community too that shares optimized graphics settings to get the most out of the device. The fantasy of the Ally is basically "a steam deck that can play anything", and that is, in fact, what you get. The upgrade to a 2TB mini SSD was easy with the right screwdriver. Watch some youtube videos before you do it and double check that you're getting the right drive, it's not a normal NVMe. The cons are non-trivial, however. 1) the SD card slot is unusable. At the very least it will fail and corrupt your data, at worst the insane heat the Ally puts out will actually kill your SD card. Don't expect to use an SD for storage, period. 2) Battery life is quite short if you want to maintain a high level of performance. I have plenty of places where I'm happy to play this plugged in to the wall - if you don't, I'd skip it. Be aware that if you want to charge it from a power bank, you'll need a special high wattage one, normal ones won't work. 3) The joysticks keep shedding black plastic around the rim, which makes me worried about their lifespan. 4) it'll cook your fingers if you leave them in the wrong spot, she runs HOT. In addition to all that, people have had trouble with ASUS support, and there are concerns about the manufacturer's long term support of the device. You can see more on the subreddit. All that said, I truly don't care about any of the cons. I love this little device, and if you're an early adopter who thinks they might be interested in something like this, you probably will too.

After a week of updates it dies whenever I start playing

I would agree with the positive reviews here but then we would both be wrong … this product is absolute trash, i do IT for a living so i ignored the warning from others not to buy one thinking it was jusy their lack of technical skills. I picked up two, both came with corrupted windows installed, I have never had issues with any asus products in the past i even used to sell and recommend their products but you can tell this was rushed to market with almost zero quality control. save your money and get the Lenovo go when it comes out this winter

The ASUS ROG Ally is a powerful device that offers an amazing gaming experience right in the palm of your hands. Ally opens a world of possibilities, allowing you to experience multiple gaming platforms on a single device but this isn’t just a gaming platform, it can be whatever you need it to be. From playing your favorite AAA titles to watching your favorite movies to even a little bit of productivity all on the go. Asus Rog combined its powerful processor and graphics with Microsoft Windows 11 to bring to you a portable gaming pc. I have been playing around with this for a few days now and I must say that I am in love. So, let go over the features and PROS and CONS on the new Asus Rog Ally. Features: • Processor and Memory: The Ally is powered by an AMD Ryzen Z1 Extreme processor and 16GB of LPDDR5 RAM, which allows it to play even the most demanding games at high settings. I was able to play games like Elden Ring, Horizon Forbidden West, Call of Duty, and Forza Horizon 5 at high settings with no problems. The games looked great and ran smoothly. I was even able to connect my PS5 to Asus Ally using the PS remote play and play the games remotely. • Display: The Asus Ally offers a beautiful 7-inch FHD (1080p) touchscreen display that is capable of 120hz, producing a smooth gaming experience. The touchscreen is responsive, and the colors are bright and vivid and just simply amazing. • Audio: The audio quality of the Asus Ally is just simply amazing and supports Dolby Atmos Surround sound. On full volume this device can be pretty loud. The device also has a built-in microphone. You also have the option of using the provided headphone jack or your favorite Bluetooth headphones. • Connectivity: The Asus Ally supports WIFI 6, Bluetooth and best of all wireless display. I know Asus sells an adapter that you use to connect to your tv, but if you have a smart tv you can connect to it wirelessly and it works great. • Design: The Asus Ally is beautifully designed internally and externally and what I mean by internally is that even playing on this unit on “Turbo Mode” the handles of the device do not heat up and stay comfortable, even though there will be significant amount of heat coming out the of the vents on the top. The way the device is designed is fit comfortably in your hand and the controls are easy to use and easy to reach. One thing I was not a fan of the white color. Even though it looks nice, it gets dirty rather easily even with clean hands. You can easily clean it up with wipes, but I hope Asus will offer this in different colors as well in the future. • Battery Life: The battery life on the Asus Ally is not the greatest. Playing games on “Turbo Mode” with the highest settings, you will probably get about 2 hours of game play. Asus has recently released an update that improves the battery life by up to 10 to 20 percent. I would recommend that if you are going to be gaming on the highest settings to use the provided charger. PROS: • Powerful performance • Portable design • Display Quality / Touch Screen Display • Audio Quality • Variety of ports • Versatile • Great Design CONS: • Battery Life • Color Overall, the Asus ROG Ally is a great gaming device that offers a lot of features and performance for the price. If you are looking for a powerful and handheld gaming PC, the ROG Ally is a great option.

This device is awesome. I came in with high expectations and it met them. The specs, build quality, and thought they put into this device is an amazing marvel. Firmware continues to improve greatly. Even as is I have no real complaints. But imagine it will get even better as time goes on. But never buy a product on what it could be. I honestly can’t recommend enough. As I’m able to catch up on my gaming during lunch at work and then continue at home on my top-tier desktop gaming machine and there isn’t that big of a difference in feel and immersion. Unbelievable difference in performance/picture quality though so I’m not saying this is comparable to that type of machine. Just that even being spoiled this thing still impresses. COMFORT/CONTROLS/BUILD QUALITY: The first thing I noticed is that it was lighter than I expected it to be. The place where you put your hands fit mine well making it comfortable immediately and this continues even after long gaming sessions. They did seem to get a bit warm which I can’t tell is just my hands (which normally isn’t an issue) or if you do get some residual heat. But the triangles they have help prevent any slippage. But despite that holding the device with one hand on the edges is difficult due to balance. The back buttons are in a good place, large, and easy to hit. I am used to Scuf controllers so I hit them a lot on purpose trying to do stuff which would cause a slight hiccup of nothing responding on controls. They come stock as shortcut controls. Unsure if you can make them something else, but based on customization options you probably can. It comes with Hall Sensors for the triggers. Which feel good and are high quality. Bumpers feel good as well. I tend to be highly specific on my joysticks and these are excellent. Right amount of resistance, movement, and accuracy. The LED around them are cool but I turned them off for battery life. They stay on during charging which was annoying but this can be disabled in settings. Buttons themselves to me feel really good like any other PlayStation/Xbox controller. I don’t use D-Pads all that often but it feels up there with the best I’ve tried. The buttons to the side of the screen feel crisp and satisfying. The same as the volume rocker on the top. Last you have the power on button which also feels good. It’s small. Has Windows Hello Fingerprint login. Which worked so-so for me. Not the best I’ve tried but not the worst. I noticed no creaking and everything feels SOLID and high quality. Overall, it feels like a premium device and is very comfortable. I have no real complaints from a physical/hardware standpoint. But I did notice some latency when using the controller during some games while on battery and on Performance Mode. Which tended to resolve (or get less noticeable) when I went into Turbo Mode. I tend to be highly sensitive to latency and it was minimal, but I could still feel it but quickly acclimated once playing for a period. Never felt this when I had keyboard/mouse plugged in. SCREEN: This is a bit hit or miss for me. As I tend to be quite the snob when it comes to my screens. I have severe black crushing and white crushing which I knock a lot of points off for. From a normal usage standpoint I don’t notice it that much as it makes it so the device has “good” contrast. But it does take away in dark environments and during media watching. Colors however are excellent and punchy. In settings you can adjust to different profiles which does change colors drastically but didn’t change black/white crush at all. The 120 Hz feels good and responsive. Especially, when you have mouse/keyboard attached. It gets bright. I usually had it at 20 – 30% indoors. Where out in my car, without windows tinted, during summer, around noon, I had it at max brightness and was able to see everything. Which I was not expecting. Temperatures were good to at 71c. But during use the screen does get quite hot to the touch. Not to the point it burns or anything, but hot. Overall, I rate this screen as solid as it doesn’t take away from the experience, most of the time I was impressed, but that crushing prevents it from being awe inspiring. PERFORMANCE SUMMARY: I wasn’t able to find a game that I couldn’t run. But you have to adjust your expectations. As while this device is surprisingly powerful it still isn’t up to gaming laptop standards. You’ll need to have it set to 720/1080p medium to low settings for newer and/or more demanding games. Whereas, for older games you may be able to get away with high. Your target and expectation should be 30 frames and it’s a bonus if you get more than that. The games I tried I tended to get 40 – 50 frames on Performance (15 watts) or 50 – 70 with Turbo Mode (30 watts). I even tried Steam Link or whatever it is called to my main gaming PC and that felt responsive. Did feel some latency and sometimes the screen would get fuzzy for a second. But allowed me to have way higher frames at higher settings. GAMES TESTED: Mainly Performance Mode. GTA 5: 65 – 93 frames GTA Online: 55 – 60 frames Elden Ring: 30 – 35 frames (but crashed multiple times) Halo Reach Multiplayer: 100 – 120 fps Dead Space 2022: low/720P Turbo was getting 40 – 60 Frames. But upping to Medium didn’t really change frames. Also, performance mode battery was closer to 40 frames where turbo was closer to 50 – 60 frames. ALLY OR LAPTOP: In comparison to my gaming laptop (AMD 5800H, 3050TI, Plugged in Turbo Mode) I was getting 140 – 200 FPS in Dead Island same settings compared to 77 FPS on the Ally. This was the case across the board on all games. Making it so a laptop with a dedicated graphics card is still going to significantly outperform this. But is going to be way larger, a lot louder (fans), not as good of speakers, screen will be hit or miss, and isn’t going to be anywhere near as portable and will consume a lot more energy with similar or worse battery life while costing more. Some of those points may change a bit depending on how much you are spending. But I’m talking about a $999 gaming laptop compared to this $700 Ally (not the fairest comparison but figured it would be beneficial). The whole package you get with this is amazing. TEMPERATURES: Temperatures were great. Usually anywhere from 50 – 78c. With most of the time being 60c mark. Fan noise is minimal where honestly most of the time I couldn’t hear them when game audio was playing. Even when I was out in my car (80 – 90F outside so hotter in car) windows down, no air conditioning, max brightness, 15 watts performance on Dead Island (40 – 50 FPS), it was 71c. At home in air conditioning (70c) Turbo Mode 30 watts, max brightness, on Dead Island (77ish frames), max I got to was 78c. The Zero Gravity fans are awesome in this too. As no matter what position I had the device in I never noticed increased temperatures or fan issues. Which is impressive. Hats off to you. POWER MODES: Changing between the different power modes is easy. Simply press the bottom left button, it brings up options, can cycle through Silent (10 watts), Performance (15 watts), or Turbo Mode (30 watts). If you so choose you can make your own settings as well which gives you a lot more control and I think allows for up to 45 watts. For this review I left everything on stock. When you plug in the device compared to when it is on battery it has two different modes saved. Where it will automatically switch to Turbo when plugged in and Performance when not. Which I liked a lot. I did find that Silent mode tended to not give me good frame rates or make games playable. Whereas, Performance did just fine, and Turbo mode made a huge difference increasing framerate (depending on game) between 1.2 – 2x performance. I will say that you get A LOT better experience using this plugged in over on battery alone. As battery life depending on mode is short. Performance Mode on Dead Island netted me and hour and forty five minutes. EXTERNAL MONITOR I was able to use a High-Quality dongle to get mouse/keyboard and power/charging to work at the same time. However, I couldn’t get a 1440p/4K monitor to work with the dongle plugged in through HDMI or USB-C. Which works perfectly fine on a normal laptop (Windows or Mac). However, if I unplug the mouse/keyboard/power and just use USB-C to HDMI I could get a picture. Which was disappointing. Making it seem like either my dongle isn’t working (unlikely seeing as it works on normal laptops) the USB-C port on the Ally itself isn’t Thunderbolt or powerful enough (I didn’t check), or Asus has it locked down to use their own non-included variant that is $69.99. Which is a bummer as I think this is an awesome handheld device, but since it is running windows, you have mouse and keyboard options that you could use on the go too (which is my preference). But as of my testing not without their official device. Which is lame. BATTERY LIFE: I tested this mostly on Performance Mode which gave me 90 – 105 minutes. I’m sure with Silent you could get 120 minutes maybe more. With Turbo I’d expect 30 – 60 minutes. So, you’ll always want to bring a charger and I highly recommend you plug in for best experience. Charge time is about an hour and half at 65 watts. Unsure if it supports faster charging with higher watt power brick. SOUND QUALITY: Sound quality is fantastic. These speakers are great. They sound amazing. Way better than any laptop speaker I’ve owned (which is quite a few including MacBook Air). The 3D effects actually work where I can tell Left/Right/Behind me. Not with pinpoint precision but close. Which blew my mind. I normally wear headphones as speakers tend to be terrible and I give up on them quickly. With this most of the time I forgot I wasn’t wearing headphones. Even for media watching they did a great job.