Customer Ratings & Reviews

I have had the Ally for about 3 months now, and I also have the Steam Deck, the ally is definitely more performant, I usually leave it at 15W most of the time, I don't use it with Turbo mode, and I get good battery life, about an hour and a half - two hours (depending on the game), the fan does not get loud (unlike the steam deck), it does not get hot, and it very comfortable to hold, since its smaller. The screen is awesome, VRR is definitely a plus. The only complaint I have is the SD card issue, even when RMA it still breaks (from reports I've seen). I tried using the SD card and the SD card eventually got corrupted, and it was a new card from Samsung, I ended up formatting it again and not using it, and just upgraded the internal SSD instead. Overall I'm pretty happy with the purchase. Hopefully the Ally 2 (if it even comes out) addresses the SD card issue.

TLDR: This thing is so powerful I gave it 3 stars even though it’s a pile of trash in every other way. Software: AWFUL. I “upgraded” from a steam-deck for this because the struggle is real with some newer games on the SD. This thing was nothing but problems out the gate. Turn it on and you are instantly put into this horrible set-up and updating process. Windows setup sucks but Armory Crate updates were MUCH worse. Every update it said it needed in Armory crate would either not respond at all when clicked or would fail. I had to reformat the whole thing and that seemed to almost work except for 1 update that it still wouldn’t respond to click. Battery life: Actually playing the thing at 15w it ran much much worse than Steamdeck and got similar battery life. At 30w we are talking 40 minutes of battery life which is completely unacceptable. Performance: Woweee this sucker GOES. Games were butter smooth 60FPS in almost any thing I threw at it. And you can make it so crystal clear. The screen is FANTASTIC and truthfully rivals/beats the steamdeck even with the OLED panel. The features are what bring it over the top (120hz freesync and 1080p). This thing also Absolutely demolished the SD at 30w in performance. At 15w as stated above it sucked and ran much worse for the same amount of battery consumption than the SD. Ergonomics and feel: Bad. Feels a little cheap and the sticks feel like mashed potatoes. The button feel is really crappy and the overall experience is very sub par. The jutting corners also destroy my hands. 15 minutes in bed with this thing and my hands were numb because the jutting corners at the bottom. XG mobile: I bought the XG mobile in hopes to use this with it to replace a desktop. Horrible idea. If you think you want that you do not. It’s egregiously loud, runs good on paper but bad in reality and pretty much broke my Ally. Go look at my XG mobile review, spoiler.. it’s 1 star.

When the switch came out, I felt that I wouldn't go back to playing games any other way. This provides a similar experience for me. I can understand why some are not keen on navigating through windows on it but that does not bother me in the slightest. I didn't want to be locked into the Steam universe as I had other games through other services I wanted to use on it. The speakers on it are better than any laptop speakers I've had but like others have said, the sd card slot just does not work. I do wish Asus would be more responsible with this issue and make the repair process simple. Other than that, I think it is a great device and have been very happy with it.

I bought an open box model and everything was in excellent condition! The device itself is extremely easy to use if you know about windows. The downside is the storage, but an upgrade to a 2tb ssd will suffice. The SD card slot definitely has an issue, I haven’t used any just to be safe but it burns out your card. The only fix is to send it back to ASUS and they’ll replace the motherboard I believe. The battery when it’s undocked, has a short lifespan of about a couple hours depending on the settings you have. Other than that this device is very fun and powerful for a handheld device. Once you buy a dock and the other accessories, it could turn into a desktop.

Pros: Portable AAA gaming in small form factor, full Windows functionality, easy to mod. Cons: Ventilation, low ram, lack of accessories Gaming on this is easy as long as you tweak around the settings and find the sweet spot with the 6gb normal folks use for GPU and the rest for CPU. Albeit at low / medium settings I get easily 50-60 FPS for intense GPU games and 60+ for 1+ Year old titles. The heat is manageable from the two fans, I’ve never ran into issues with over heating. It’s better by a few degrees if you add an aluminum heat sink and change the back case to increase area for the second fan that’s carved out with the ROG logo. I’ve noticed minor differences with both those mods. So that’s negligible at most. The SSD increase is a must. Toss in a 2TB and you are golden for at least 10 games. Maybe 2 if you think about COD. Hah. There is a possibility to use the normal m.2 SSDs, just add the adapter and you have plenty of space for that upgrade as well. Modding is easy; the back case is accessible by taking off the 6 screws (5 actually cause the 6th stays attached). Cons: Battery life could be better, the GPU could have been better it’s rated as on par with a Nvidia 1650. Granted yes I understand it’s a “switch” form factor PC, so anything above 1080 is moot on a screen this size but still. The option to have greater fidelity would be nice. Most games you’ll be lucky to get a few rounds on performance mode, let alone turbo off plug in power. So consider any potential “portable gaming” to be near a wall outlet to be remotely lasting. The most annoying bit is the joy sticks rub off on the circular LED glow rings and leaves black residue in the small crevice you can’t quite get with pointed tools unless you take the front face apart to clean. It’s just normal wear and tear of a joy stick controller. After some time, the SSD tends to also forget there is an OS on itself so it’ll go into a BIOS/ UEFI state as if nothing is on the SSD. Fully shut down and it might work normally but it’s annoying when it happens frequently. Overall this is a tech persons toy, honestly anyone else might get really annoyed or frustrated in figuring out the nuances of such a device. This isn’t a plug and play console. It’s a small PC. If you aren’t versed in pc gaming and can’t trouble shoot basic problems or aren’t the go to IT for your circle…look at streaming devices like the Logitech go, PlayStation portable, or iPhone attachments for easier accessibility to your console via data driven connection.

I was thinking about the steam deck. But then I seen this and saw that it runs on windows 11 which means its a smaller computer. It runs well. Had a bit of a problem with the sdcard thought it was the issue these have had with the card reader malfunction due to heat stress. But it was just the card. I bought this really to play Baldurs Gate 3 when I go into work. This thing runs the game superbly at mid to high settings. The feel of the console feels firm durable. I love holding this thing in my hands. I will say though the keyboard feature and touch screen can be a little buggy at times. Would I buy this again? Yes would I buy a steam deck? Yes. This does have a horrible battery life but given the type of chipset and gpu it has. There are compormises that have to be. You cant have your cake and ice creme and eat it too. I normally have it plugged in all the time anyways so I can run at turbo mode. Even in the car.

In my experience within the first 10 days I had a couple hardware issues. The SD card reader stopped reading SD cards. My right trigger didn't register as being fully registered unless you pressed it extremely hard. To the point it was uncomfortable putting that much presser on the trigger thinking it may break. And lastly it kind of seemed half of my battery cells were dead. At 15-25w the battery life was only 45 minutes. Which was about half of what other reviews were getting. I do feel being a launch device things like this can happen and I do not feel the device as a whole is bad. The screen is decently bright and is color accurate. The controls are good, while the sticks are a bit to loose for my usual liking they worked fine. The speakers for their size have good sound depth and volume. Overall feel of the device is good. The performance potential is really good, while not quite there yet as long as AMD and Asus continue to support the device with firmware and software updates it could be an amazing device. Sadly I did return my Ally within the return window due to the hardware issues with the plan to pick up another one down the road. There are a lot of other Windows gaming handhelds out there but I feel that Asus and AMD working together can make the Ally great and having a local brick and mortar store to aid in support is the way to go over internet only purchasable handhelds. Good start but needs a little more time to become what it can be.

First of all, I own a steam deck, and have owned a Logitech G Cloud. They lack the power I want, so i bought the ally. Its angular design is uncomfortable for me. The battery life is poor, and YES I run it at Turbo, otherwise no point in buying it over the steam deck since the deck is better at 15w. The G cloud is easily the most comfortable. Im having to return it since it gets very hot and shuts off. It gets hot not only around the command center and armory crate buttons, but oddly a little around the back grips. I did appreciate the updates (except the recent one that reduced performance by roughly 30%) The sound was the best ive ever heard. The buttons are nice overall. Mapping the back buttons make my life easy. I was getting about 1080p Mid settings 35-45fps Turbo non plugged in on Elden ring. Plugged in got me 45-55fps. Battery is horrible. Not sure I believe its the same as the steam deck. Overall, battery sucks, comfort isnt great, and the obvious heat defect is an issue ive even read elsewhere (likely fan problem). The look is awesome, sound is great, screen is nice, oh and xcloud streaming looks better than G cloud (likely due to 6E support), and theyre supporting it well so far. Would be a 3.7 star if not for the defect.

Pros, fits my hands well, good graphics, good speeds with internet connections, compatible with most highspeed SD cards, Bluetooth functions great, excellent sound quality to headphones, speaker system not bad for the device. I use this when traveling or waiting in an office and such. Cons. Unit overheated in the first 30 days causing me to send for warranty repair. 3 week turn around. Inbternal storage is not great at at 1/2TB, so store most of my games on cards which you either delete and download when you want to play to the device, or play directly from the card which causes lag. Really not much else wrong with it. I will definitely keep using it when I don't have access to my laptop or PS5... is a good go to for travel.

I’ve made the swap from a Steamdeck to the Ally and I do not regret this choice one bit. The Steamdeck was good, don’t get me wrong but the incompatibility with a lot of games really just made it more difficult to play the games I want to. AAA games played on the deck were only able to play Low-Medium settings. On the other hand, the Ally can play basically ANY game that runs on Windows and the games run at a good medium-high settings depending on the game. Games run at an average 41-100fps give or take depending on the game of course. I’ve yet to find a game that runs poorly on this thing. I’ve been using the Ally to lay on the couch and just game since I’ve bought it. Pros: can run almost any game Windows based SSD can be upgraded Cons: Battery life Battery life Battery life

This is an amazing piece of equipment. The fact that it can out perform laptops that cost more while being as portable as a switch is almost mind blowing. It does, however, come with room for improvement. Storage is the biggest issue. The 512 GB doesn't last long and the SD slot over heats and cooks the disk to death. This leaves you with too little storage or the need to open up your device and swap in a new drive. I have not opened mine up, so I can't comment on the difficulty. Overall, I would certainly recommend this over a Switch and I'm happy to have selected it over a Steam Deck, though I've not used one.

This is a great choice for a handheld gaming PC! It is powerful enough to handle the latest AAA game titles, the screen is vibrant and bright, and the controls are good. It is great for the price. I wish it had more storage, but you can upgrade it. I also wish it had a larger battery and more memory. There is a new model coming out sometime soonish that does have more memory and maybe some other upgrades.. I am thinking about getting it because Iove this one so much! You won't go wrong buying this one though!

It’s a decent system for what but is. Very power processor and GPU and that’s an awesome experience for a handheld. Unfortunately that means battery life will be less than stellar and you have to remain plugged in or gonna have to keep power banks on hand. Performance wise it handles everything I threw at it like a champ. It’s a new kid on the block so the issues are being ironed out through patches as with any new thing. If you can overlook the battery consumption issues then this may be the unit for you. I also was taking this beauty to work for a min watching movies on that beautiful screen. Invest in a decent dock as well. The paper one serves its purpose but a decent plastic one would’ve been preferred.

Honestly a pretty solid little gaming handheld. There are issues that ive seen other people have but personally i havent. I also havent dropped mine. I recommend one if you want something on the go, something you can put on a dock in a different room, or if you wanna spend more time around family without being d a desk.

I started out with a steam deck and kept running into it's limitations. I felt like there was something missing and I was missing out on a true PC game experience so I took the leap and got the Rog Ally. It has done everything that I need. So far my biggest gripe is that the internal memory doesn't last long when you're really thinking about the sheer size games in their updates can have this is without mods and anything else luckily I already had an additional micro SD to expand its memory but so far I've got no complaints. It's a fun lightweight system with a nice amount of battery, it is a lot less restrictive then the steam deck. Thoroughly enjoyed no regrets.

The screen is perfect, the sound is perfect, is pretty lightweight compared to other handhelds, but I hate windows, updates can take a lot of time and it's more hassle because you need to check windows updates, myAsus updates and armored creat updates. It's pretty powerful but only above 15W, if you want more power you'll need either a power bank or play plugged in because the battery kinda sucks, if you don't want to do that I think the steamdeck oled version is a better option unless playing unverified games on steamdeck are a most for you, that and games that aren't on steam like minecraft, in that case go for the ally

I got this to play my games on the go since my job takes me to a few different states. So far I've enjoyed it. I've played Baldur's gate 3, fallout new Vegas, etc and it has done pretty well with good graphics and fps. Though it's battery life isn't very long so don't be far from your charger.

Intended on purchasing a Steam Deck before this was announced but opted to wait and purchase this instead. The storage is easy to upgrade to a 2TB SSD and said upgrade is highly recommended because modern video games will quickly eat up the amount of storage you are left with. The screen looks much better than the Steam Deck and is well worth paying $50 extra to go from a maxed-out Steam Deck (512GB) to an ROG Ally (Z1 Extreme, 512GB). Battery life could be better but that's to be expected of putting a high end laptop chip inside something so small. The 120Hz screen is a joy to look at and all games look and run phenomenal on this, so long as you adjust the settings accordingly.

I bought an Ayaneo 2 before the Ally came out ans ended up selling it. The ayaneo was too heavy and ended up being uncomfortable to wield for a lengthy time, the performance was good, but i felt it coupd be more, and the right thumbstick not being staggered from the abxy buttons made the grip awkward for me. The Ally solves all those issues: its really light, really quiet, comfortable, and extra performance with the Z1 APU. Battery isn't that great, but I usually play AAA games on 30W plugged in for the best graphical fidelity. Speakers sound really good too. Most "cons" about being Windows I feel are somewhat irrelevant as you would deal with the same issues on a laptop/desktop. Beyond that, I had no bugs or issues. I have a desktop 4090 with a 4K 120hz that I will always prefer over the Ally when at home, but it is 100% worth it for the price for anyone that does a lot of handheld gaming.

How impressive is it to have a device in your hand that will compete with modern consoles, and even outperform them in some cases? oh and did i forget to mention it moonlights as a full fledged windows PC? The answer is... awesome full steam library, full gamepass plus excel if youre into that whole work sort of thing...battery life in turbo mide is not the greatest but you have to realize it is what it is. Storage is also a bit limited and i would not opt for an SD card even if there werent issues with them in this device. Get the adapter for a full size nvme drive and a nice 4tb unit and get off to the races. These negatives dont come close to the pure wow factor that this device delivers as a "portable" gaming console...highly impressed