The ASUS ROG Ally - 1 Month Later Review

Some products come along and either set the pace or act as a catalyst to elevate things to the next level for people to notice and pay attention to when it comes to an emerging segment. In this case, after spending close to a month with the Asus ROG Ally, it’s safe to say, this is the Catalyst for handheld PC Gaming.

My experience with the Asus ROG Ally is basically the definition of living a dream, that is now a reality way sooner than expected and of course it does come with it’s drawbacks and imperfections, but at the core, this is such a game changer for the progression of high quality gaming on the go, especially when it comes to PC gaming, which for years has had the perception of only being enjoyable on a custom built desktop or even laptop.

Form factor & Build Quality

For the size and look of the Ally, I was expecting it to be a tank to hold, but at just 608g, the lightweight nature makes it one of the best parts of using it. I will say with my experience using other handheld gaming PCs, it’s not the most ergonomic feeling, or outright premium, but it’s definitely well put together when it comes to the fit and finish. 

All in all, I really like the design and build quality of the ALLY, but I would love to see an additional USB-C port. I wish the USB-C port was USB-4 compliant but I do understand Asus would rather favor their XG Mobile interface instead and last one for me is the spacing between the bumper and trigger buttons because I found it way too easy to mis-press them when gaming.

Display

The display and audio experience has got to be one of the biggest highlights of using the Ally and becomes one of the definitive reasons why it sets itself apart from the competition. Stating the obvious, The bezels are big and disproportionate with the top and bottom having thicker borders compared to the left and right. This does takeaway from having an elegant and aesthetically pleasing visual look to the viewing experience, but once you move past that, it is near enough a technical masterpiece.

The display is using a 7 inch, 16:9 aspect ratio IPS LCD Display, with a 1920x1080p resolution, touch screen support and most importantly a 120Hz high refresh rate with support for VRR using AMD Freesync Premium, in addition to a 500 nit peak brightness level. That combination of VRR, 120Hz and a 500 nit display really sets the Ally apart  and comes from other handheld PCs that usually compromise on the resolution.

To compliment that awesome display experience is the speakers and Asus did not play when it comes to just how good the speakers are. It’s not just down to how loud they are, but also the quality, the clarity and the lack of distortion when experiencing playback.

Specs

There are two models of the Ally in which Asus decided to release the more powerful version first to kick things off. This is powered by the AMD Z1 Extreme processor with AMD Radeon RDNA 3 graphics, 16GB of LPDDR5 RAM and 512GB of SSD Storage. A few things to note, the thermal design power a.k.a TDP is rated up to 30w and total graphics rating is up to 8.6 Teraflops. Hopefully in the future I’ll be able to get the “standard” Z1 non extreme model, compare them and see how much do you lose out when spending £100 less for the Z1 in performance and gaming experience.

When it comes to the experience the Ally brings, the price we are working with here is £699, which for me is far from “cheap”, but considering what is at hand here, this is an incredible achievement from Asus and just makes me wonder how much more accessible the £599 Z1 model will be when it’s ready. Either way, this is currently the Catalyst of Hand Held PC Gaming.