The cheaper $600 Asus ROG Ally is right here, and also you most likely shouldn’t purchase it

If you happen to’ve been eying an Asus ROG Ally gaming handheld however can’t fairly justify the $700 price ticket… you’ll most likely wish to carry on ready. At present, the corporate has begun promoting a less-expensive $600 mannequin with a lower-performance AMD Z1 chip, however early opinions recommend the Home windows gaming handheld is simply too compromised to justify the acquisition.

Backside line: Z1 efficiency is reportedly worse than the $400-and-up Steam Deck, with none important battery life profit to make up for the lack of energy.

Temporary refresher: three months in the past, Asus started delivery the ROG Ally, a Home windows gaming handheld designed to compete on value and efficiency with Valve’s Steam Deck. It had so much going for it, together with principally better-than-Deck efficiency, a wonderful 120Hz variable refresh charge display screen that makes all the things really feel smoother, a delightfully quiet fan, and a plugged-into-the-wall 30W Turbo mode that makes its Z1 Excessive chip much more potent.

However the handheld was held again by impotent software program that doesn’t make Home windows simple to make use of handheld, iffy battery life, a bizarre efficiency hole between delivery units and the unique evaluate models, and an SD card reader that tended (tends?) to burn out and continues to be underneath investigation.

Asus instructed me in July that it will ship me the brand new $600 Z1 mannequin to check towards the unique Z1 Excessive, nevertheless it by no means did. Now, I see why: Digital Tendencies, Retro Sport Corps, and PC Magazine present it’s merely not an enchancment regardless of the additional cash in your pocket.

If Asus had despatched me one, I might have regarded for the silver lining of battery life — maybe AMD’s weaker chip would get extra? However Retro Sport Corps, specifically, reveals that battery life is simply barely higher with weaker video games and may be comparable or worse with triple-A titles. When absolutely loaded, the Z1 Excessive would possibly really be extra environment friendly.

None of that is sufficient to make the Z1 a nasty product; as you’ll see within the video above, there’s loads this technique can play moderately effectively! And with my $700 Z1 Excessive evaluate unit, I’m anecdotally discovering it’s a significantly better Starfield machine than the Steam Deck, notably should you plug it into the wall.

However should you’ve solely acquired $600 to spend, it appears fairly doubtless the Z1 ain’t it. And should you’ve acquired $700, I positively wouldn’t trouble with it.

(Word: The 512GB mannequin of the Steam Deck does technically retail for greater than the 512GB ROG Ally at $650 vs. $600, however the Steam Deck additionally begins at $400, and it’s simple to swap in a brand new drive your self — only one further screw in comparison with my fan substitute video. Additionally, it’s on sale proper now.)