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The ASUS ROG Ally is still rough around the edges; it’s a handheld gaming PC that is in equal measure both spectacular and janky beyond belief. When it works, it’s absolutely wonderful. A joy to use, handle, and interact with. When it doesn’t, however, the overall user experience ranges from somewhat baffling to downright infuriating.
Overall, though, it’s a rather nifty device — one that justifies the investment. It’s also pretty unique, too. It is by no means the only handheld PC of its kind, but it does have a few unique bells and whistles that none of its competitors come imbued with. It also targets a very specific kind of user. It’s nowhere near as user friendly as one would expect, and its software-related quirks can leave a bitter taste in one’s mouth, depending on one’s patience and technical savviness.
So, how does the ROG Ally hold up a whopping six months after its release? Let’s start off with the good.
The Good — ASUS ROG Ally 6 Month Review
When everything works as it’s supposed to, the ROG Ally is an absolute marvel. It’s smaller than Valve’s Steam Deck, more portable, and more powerful, too. Its screen is jaw-droppingly good, despite being a “regular” IPS panel. It has a variable refresh rate, it’s bright, color accurate, and plenty fast, too, at 120Hz. VRR, in particular, often ends up making the biggest difference, especially when playing AAA titles that can neither reach nor maintain 60 FPS.
It’s also an absolute powerhouse, and even though you often have to tinker a bit with the settings so as to attain a smooth gaming experience, it’s definitely worth the effort. Often times you’ll feel like it’s capable enough to chew through whatever you might throw its way, and that holds true for emulation as well — regardless if you’re playing older legacy titles from your childhood or newer ones through RPCS3 or Yuzu/Ryujinx.
The device itself is also a lot more malleable than it was in the beginning, with ASUS’ Armory Crate SE now being much more fleshed-out than anyone ever thought it’d be. It provides easy access to a bunch of nifty features alongside dedicated toggles for showing the desktop, opening the on-screen keyboard, quitting whichever application or game you happen to be running, disabling CPU Turbo boost, changing the screen resolution, refresh rate, FPS cap, TDP, AMD’s RIS, and so much more.
When everything works as advertized, the ROG Ally is an absolute joy to use. And, to be fair, that is the case more often than not. With a bit of tinkering and tweaking, it can run basically any game you’d want to throw its way — with lowered settings, in most scenarios. You’re rarely going to harness its full 120Hz refresh rate, but if you’re into indies or older legacy titles, that will be possible (at the expense of battery life).
In any case, its performant nature, beautiful display, compact size and sheer malleability — not to mention the fact that it runs Windows out-of-the-box — make it a worthwhile investment so long as you’re aware of its flaws and limitations. They’re not great in number, but they are rather noticeable.
The Bad — ASUS ROG Ally 6 Month Review
Despite receiving so many updates over the last six months, the ROG Ally is still frustratingly janky and broken at times. Windows, most likely, is to blame — as was to be expected. Armory Crate is much better than it was upon release, but it still freezes and bugs out regularly. This, in addition to the frequent driver updates, makes things a lot less seamless than they ought to be.
Sometimes you have to wait a second or two for Armory Crate to pop up. Other times your Ally will refuse to go to sleep no matter how many times you press the power button. Sometimes the screen will go black but you’ll still hear the sound. Other times you’ll be scrolling your games and they’ll just freeze for a moment. You get the point. It’s rough around the edges and unrefined. There’s so much happening at every point in time — so many layers and Windows-related processes — that things often end up going from bad to worse within a moment’s notice.
This isn’t something you’ll experience all the time, but it happens a lot more often than we’d like — and a lot more often than it has any business happening given the sheer cost of this device.
Then there's the battery life. It's abysmal.
You can tweak and optimize certain settings, but you’re never going to be truly satisfied with the ROG Ally’s runtimes. If you’re playing something a bit more demanding, you can expect no more than an hour and a half or, at most, two hours. That’s… just not all that impressive. In that sense, the Ally is more of a home console you can lug around the house as opposed to something you’ll use for hours on end while traveling or commuting.
If you’re willing to buy an external power bank (with PD fast charging) then you will be able to double or, at best, triple your battery life, but that’s yet another investment you’d have to make in addition to some kind of grip attachment to keep said power bank tethered at all times.
If you’re tech savvy and don’t mind dealing with a bit of Windows- and ASUS-related jankiness, you will be able to navigate those aforementioned bugs and quirks. The dismal battery life, however, cannot be solved or circumvented. On the plus side, the ROG Ally does charge back up to full in record time, but if there’s no wall outlet near you, you’ll essentially be left with a useless brick once its battery is depleted.
This debacle warrants ample attention, too. The Ally, by the looks of it, has a pretty severe design flaw: its microSD card slot is located right next to one of the exhaust vents. And so, if you push your Ally hard (which is to say: run it at 25-30W often and for longer periods of time without a super aggressive fan curve), then you could end up with a fried microSD card.
That’s… a pretty big deal, all things considered, but it’s also something we all have to accept. You can always swap out the internal 2230 M.2 SSD which, while by no means the most cost-effective option, is still totally viable.
What Does the Future Hold?
That’s a hard question to answer. First of all, it seems that ASUS is all-in on maintaining its inaugural handheld gaming PC; the ROG Ally is endlessly more versatile and well-rounded than it was upon release. ASUS has also been listening to user feedback and has implemented many features and additions people have been clamoring for — and it’s been mighty fast at doing it, too.
It’s not a perfect device by any stretch of the imagination, but it’s still sufficiently consistent in its behavior. When it works, it’s a joy to use. When it’s bad, it’s at least easy to understand why (and what needs to be done to fix said janky behavior).
Overall, the only things left for ASUS to do is to iron out a few software-related quirks and that’s about it. The ROG Ally isn’t going to get any better performance-wise with future updates (not in a tangible way, at least), so if it’s capable of running your favorite games and you’re okay with its short runtimes, then it definitely is worth its MSRP.
The Lenovo Legion Go is a worthy competitor, but it’s larger, heavier, and a lot more niche in its design. For some, its strengths and benefits are surely more alluring, but for those looking for a more “standard” handheld gaming experience, the ROG Ally is without a doubt the better — and much more polished — choice.