In recent years, consumers’ access to high-speed connectivity has seen an uptick. With it, the demand for remote gaming has surged making it easier to play your favorite game from a local coffee shop. Asus’ ROG Ally elevates that experience further offering the ultimate on-the-move gaming device that combines power, portability and precision.
Ergonomics and design
ROG Ally weighs just 608g making it comfortable to hold for extended gaming sessions and easy to carry around in your backpack. Made of reinforced white polycarbonate, it’s durable enough to withstand rough daily usage. On the back, the handheld console has curved handles that are moulded to fit the natural shape of your grip and slants at the edges for better wrist and palm comfort. If you look closely, there is an exclusive micro-triangle texture on the rear with ROG branding, which not only ensures a secure grip but also makes for a sleek and clean look.
Beyond this, ROG Ally screams gaming with tasteful RGB lighting around both joysticks, which can be customized for dead zones on a game-by-game basis. The rear trigger buttons sports highly durable magnetic sensors that enable a hair trigger, which means even the slightest movement is captured. And the face buttons are dome-shaped and made of liquid silicone rubber, which means quiet and comfortable operation.
The beauty of Ally is that its looks and hardware can be customized to suit your needs. For instance, you can use Aura Sync to adjust lighting, and Armoury Crate to tune actuation points and dead zone areas. Not only that, you also have access to various macros and the ability to remap and customize every button on the device, and two extra paddles on the back to suit your playing style. In most high-profile and competitive games, this sort of rich customization can be the difference between winning and losing.
Touchscreen display
Up front, ROG Ally boasts a 7-inch, 10-point, 1080p touchscreen with a 120Hz refresh rate, 100 per cent sRGB coverage and a 7ms response time. The hardware naturally makes elements and animations on the display feel rich and smooth with FreeSync Premium only adding to it. The higher refresh rate on the panel is also great for fast-paced FPS gaming, where tracking enemies or objects is key.
Given that most gaming on ROG Ally is intended on the move, it is nice that Asus has protected the display with Gorilla Glass Victus and also packed 500 nit brightness support, which is higher than the traditional LCD panels. Moreover, you get Corning DXC coating technology, which helps with scratch resistance and better visibility in bright or outdoor conditions. Conversely, critical display features are retained even at lower brightness, which is useful for situations where you want to conserve battery life.
Performance and thermals
No gaming machine is complete without powerful hardware. Inside the ROG Ally, you find AMD’s latest 4nm Ryzen Z1 Extreme APU with 8 cores and 16 threads, no less. The chip features Zen 4 architecture for the CPU cores and brand-new RDNA 3 graphics. ROG has worked closely with AMD to extract maximum power from this combination on the handheld device.
There are two key technologies from AMD that the ROG Ally benefits from, namely Resizable BAR (RSR) and Fidelity Super Resolution (FSR). The former helps the console access the entire graphics card memory in one go rather than in small chunks, which improves performance whereas the latter is to enhance lower resolution visuals to higher resolution in real time. You get accompanying hardware in the ultra-high-speed LPDDR5 memory, up to 512GB of PCIe Gen 4 storage and microSD expansion support for additional storage if required.
With a gaming console as powerful as this, ample cooling is key. Therefore, Ally sports a thermal system that relies on gravity to cycle heat out of the system using a specially constructed pipe. There are also two fans that work together to provide optimal airflow to keep the device running cool alongside a dust filter to ensure that its quiet and efficient performance lasts for years.
Gaming library
ROG Ally comes running Windows 11, which means you have access to any of your favorite games. There is full compatibility for multiple gaming platforms including Steam, Xbox Game Pass, Epic Games and more. A special edition of Armory Create for ROG Ally helps you stay on top of your library and access it all from one place. This also allows you to customize keymaps and manage game footage making for a streamlined and efficient gaming experience. As a bonus, you can enjoy a complimentary three-month trial of the Xbox Ultimate Pass, granting you access to a diverse selection of gaming options.
Beyond handheld
While ROG Ally, with its rich set of connectivity options, presents a strong case for handheld gaming, its utility goes far beyond that. You can pair it with countless accessories to enhance your gaming experience including the ROG 65W Gaming Charger Dock, which allows for a keyboard and mouse connection and in turn connectivity to your TV.
You can even pair the Ally to the ROG XG Mobile, which instantly adds more power to it thanks to the Nvidia GeForce RTX 4090 or AMD latest laptop GPU on-board. This pairing adds more I/O to the console and more power, truly making it the ultimate gaming solution.
Pricing and availability
ROG Ally is a device like no other, and it pushes the envelope when it comes to handheld gaming. It is currently available for pre-order in the UAE at Dhs2,699 and will hit the shelves of all major retailers on June 14.
