The ROG Ally is a versatile Hand-held console with the power of the AMD Ryzen Z1 Extreme processor. It has no problem running heavy resource demanding games with ray-tracing, and games built on the unstable Unreal Engine 5, run well considering how buggy Unreal Engine is. Spider-Man 2 and Split Fiction and more all run on the device smoothly. The 7 inch 1080 screen is just right for the console, anything above 1080 and medium settings would be overkill anyway. Assasins Creed running on Ultra settings still hits 60fps.
The console allows upscaling via the GPUs FSR, which is good for modern games like Ghostwire Tokyo to run at a lower resolution and have the GPU re-render the visuals afterwards. With some adjusting and configuration, games like Call of Duty Black Ops 6 can run at 60fps. The internal rendering is 720p but with upscaling such as FSR or AMD Super Resolution, and even Steams Lossless Scaling app. Games can look like 1080p while running at a nice smooth frame rate.
Old Cds that you might own can be run on the ROG Ally with a external disk drive, which means you can play Lord of the Rings Battle for Middle-Earth, KS ‘n’ Kickin, and they run perfectly. And because it’s a Windows PC, you can also record games via the Stream deck app on your phone without loss of frame rate even while live streaming too. It can do all the tasks you would do on a Laptop, Video editing, Teams meetings and managing or organising documents.
There are some negatives about the ROG Ally, like the pitiful 512GB SSD the SSD is the 2230, this is the small expensive version of the M.2 making upgrades costly. The battery isn’t very good, especially if your running modern games at higher settings on the Ally. You can expect a meager 30 minutes worth of game play on Ultra settings, so a battery pack would be useful to overcome this problem. The Ally has a SD card reader slot so you can run games from the card although because of where the card reader is, it tends to overheat because its near the fan exhaust vent.
The Consoles sound quality is generally quite good with clarity and depth and can be loud. Adjustment enhancements like Dolby Atmos and Smart Amplifier Technology allow for a good quality sound experience. The ally also has a built in microphone with AI noise-cancelling technology. It supports HI-Res audio for headphones making it perfect for your smart headphones. Heres the nerdy bit:| CPU | AMD Ryzen Z2 A Processor 2.8GHz (6MB Cache, up to 3.8 GHz, 4 Cores, 8 Thhreads) | |
|---|---|---|
| GPU | AMD Radeon Graphics | |
| Memory | 16GB LPDDR5 on board (6400MT/s dual channel | |
| Storage | 512GB PCIe 4.0 NVMe M.2 SSD (2280) can be upgraded to 2TB |
|
| Display | Touch Screen 7-Inch FHD (1920 x 1080) 16:9, IPS-level, VRR (variable Refresh Rate) Refresh Rate: 120Hz, Response Time 7ms, brightness 500nits | |
| Battery | 60WHrs, 4S1P, 4-cell Li-ion | |
| Weight | 670g (1.48lbs) | |
| Operating System | Windows 11 Home | |
| Sound | Smart Amp Technology, Hi-Res certification (for headphones), Dolby Atmos, AI noise-cancelling technology, Built-in array microphone |
The Rog Ally is a formidable console with enough power for AAA games and plenty of flexibility when it comes to playing older games that you may have on CD should you buy a CD drive to plug into one of its USB ports. You can now install the Steam Hand-held version on top of Windows 11 giving you more games to access that might only be released on PC. The Console can be docked, and be screen cast to your TV or monitor. Or simply plug in a HDMI cable from a docking station. At £479 for the basic 16GB 512GB Ally, I would certainly look at buying.
