The cheaper $600 Asus ROG Ally is here, and you probably shouldn’t buy it

In the event you’ve been eying an Asus ROG Ally gaming handheld however can’t fairly justify the $700 price ticket… you’ll in all probability need to carry on ready. Immediately, the corporate has begun promoting a less-expensive $600 mannequin with a lower-performance AMD Z1 chip, however early critiques recommend the Home windows gaming handheld is just too compromised to justify the acquisition.

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

Temporary refresher: three months in the past, Asus started transport the ROG Ally, a Home windows gaming handheld designed to compete on value and efficiency with Valve’s Steam Deck. It had quite a bit going for it, together with largely better-than-Deck efficiency, a superb 120Hz variable refresh price display that makes all the pieces 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 straightforward to make use of handheld, iffy battery life, a bizarre efficiency hole between transport gadgets and the unique evaluation items, and an SD card reader that tended (tends?) to burn out and remains to be underneath investigation.

Asus instructed me in July that it might 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 Traits, 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, particularly, exhibits that battery life is simply barely higher with weaker video games and may be comparable or worse with triple-A titles. When totally loaded, the Z1 Excessive may 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 nicely! And with my $700 Z1 Excessive evaluation unit, I’m anecdotally discovering it’s a a lot better Starfield machine than the Steam Deck, notably when you plug it into the wall.

However when you’ve solely received $600 to spend, it appears fairly seemingly the Z1 ain’t it. And when you’ve received $700, I undoubtedly wouldn’t hassle with it.

(Be aware: 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 straightforward to swap in a brand new drive your self — only one additional screw in comparison with my fan alternative video. Additionally, it’s on sale proper now.)