ASUS ROG Ally
The ROG Ally isn’t a direct Steam Deck competitor, but it’s a more affordable and more powerful alternative. However, it is not better in every way. ASUS scores especially with hardware; The cpu and gpu are much faster, so the screen resolution can be increased to 1080p. The screen is good and the ease with which you can take the Ally apart for repair or upgrade will undoubtedly satisfy a true junkie. The Ally runs on Windows, which means you can play any PC game, but also counter the OS’s not-so-great tablet experience. And while ASUS has made serious strides since our initial pre-release experience, its proprietary software could be better. The Ally is not recommended or not, but it is a device with obvious advantages and disadvantages, which you should consider carefully before purchasing, whether or not it is suitable for your intended use.
The Steam Deck is undoubtedly the most successful laptop to date, but it has one major drawback: all compatibility layers Unfortunately, not all Windows games run on it. How do you solve that? Simply put, by installing Windows on it, ASUS should think when developing its own ROG Ally. Now that the dust of the turbulent launch had settled a bit, we tested the device.
Is ROG Ally a Steam Deck competitor?
Over the past year and a half, Steam Deck has become almost synonymous with mobile gaming on the PC platform, so the name of this device always comes up in a few sentences when you talk about the ROG Ally. However, there are fundamental differences. ROG Ally may belong to the same type of product, but with the Windows operating system, the more powerful the hardware and the higher the price, the situation is obviously different. It’s a bit like a Chromebook, while a laptop is rarely placed in front of a Windows laptop.
In the table below, we have listed the main differences between Steam Deck and ROG Ally. On the following pages, we take a closer look at the housing, hardware, and software of our ASUS laptop, and of course you’ll also find all the benchmarks you’re used to from us.
| steam surface | ROG ally | |
| CPU | 4C/8T Zen2 @ 3.5GHz | 8C/16T Zen4 @ 5.1GHz |
| GPU | 8 CUs RDNA 2 @ 1.6GHz | 12 CUs RDNA 3 @ 2.7GHz |
| tdp | 15 watts | 10, 15 or 25 watts |
| ram | 16GB LPDDR5-5500 | 16GB Lpddr5-6400 |
| storage | 64 GB eMMC or 256 / 512GB SSD PCIe 3.0 |
512 GB PCIe 4.0 |
| OS | Steam OS 3.0 (Arch Linux) | Windows 11 Home operating system |
| a screen | 7 inches 1280 x 800 IPS 60Hz | 7″ 1920 x 1080 IPS 120Hz |
| Wifi | Wi-Fi 5 | Wi-Fi 6e |
| battery | 40Wh | 40Wh |
| Dimensions | 29.8 x 11.7 x 4.9 cm | 28 x 11.1 x 3.2 cm |
| Weight | 669 grams | 608 grams |
| price | 419 euros – 679 euros (from 377 euros during the summer sale) |
799 euros |
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