The Asus ROG Ally with the AMD Ryzen Z1 chip is discounted to $350 (was $500) at Target for Black Friday 2024. This matches the lowest price ever for the handheld gaming PC.
Meanwhile, the more powerful ROG Ally Z1 Extreme is on sale for $500 (was $650) at Best Buy. But you can get it for $450 with a My Best Buy Plus membership. If you aren’t a member, it makes sense to sign up since it only costs $50 per year; you’re essentially getting the membership for free.
$350 (was $500)
The base model ROG Ally comes with a sharp 1080p screen, AMD’s Ryzen Z1 processor, 16GB LPDDR5 6400 RAM, and an internal 512GB NVMe SSD.
If that’s not enough space, you can always make use of a microSD card for a quick and cheap storage upgrade. Alternatively, you can upgrade the internal SSD with the WD Black SN770M 1TB or 2TB drive, which is on sale at Best Buy, too. If you want to upgrade your SSD without spending over $100, the Corsair MP600 Core Mini 1TB SSD for only $70 at Amazon.
The ROG Ally offers impressive performance for the price. It’s not going to play graphically demanding games at high settings, but you still can play many AAA titles in 1080p resolution with at least 30fps. It’s an especially great little machine for older AAA titles and indie games that feel right at home on handhelds.
It’s worth noting that Windows can be cumbersome on gaming handhelds, unless you pair it with a traditional mouse and keyboard setup. We’d recommend grabbing a budget-friendly docking station, so you can use the device like a regular desktop PC when needing to do anything complex within Windows. Asus also makes a 65W Charger Dock, which has ports for USB-C, USB 2.0, and HDMI 2.0.
Asus has a proprietary app called Armoury Crate that gives you a more traditional console-like interface for gaming, which is quite helpful after you have things squared away on the Windows side.
The ROG Ally with the Z1 Extreme chip has two additional CPU cores and a better GPU, which can make a difference for newer, more graphically demanding games.
The Z1 Extreme chip is also used in the newest addition to the Asus handheld PC family: the ROG Ally X. The ROG Ally X offers a more substantial performance leap with 24GB RAM and has other welcome improvements, including a 1TB SSD, better battery life, and upgraded joysticks. The ROG Ally X is pricey, though. All of these premium features will cost you $800.
If you’re interested in the ROG Ally X, it’s worth noting Asus is releasing a $900 edition with a 2TB SSD on December 9.
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