Handheld gaming consoles have witnessed a second coming, with the Valve Steam Deck and the Razer Edge joining the well-entrenched Nintendo Switch in a bid to garner the growing portable gaming market.
With the Republic of Gamers (ROG) Ally, Asus wants to compress its experience of building ROG gaming laptops into a handheld device—with one crucial difference. The Ally runs Windows 11, which opens up a wide catalogue of games, just like on any other PC. On paper, it packs good internals too.
Is the ROG Ally worthy of the hype, and, more importantly, worth putting down ₹69,990 for? I think it is. But it entails a few compromises buyers should be fully aware of before proceeding.
It certainly looks the business -- even if the white finish may not be to everyone’s tastes. You get a familiar if functional look—a centred seven-inch screen with a joystick on each side, Xbox-style ABXY buttons, a directional pad, two triggers and bumpers on the top and two quick access macro buttons on the rear. While a touchpad would have made it easier to control mouse-based games, you can connect an external keyboard and mouse over Bluetooth—this is a PC, after all.
There are dedicated buttons to invoke the ROG Armoury Crate SE software that controls every aspect of the gaming experience (from performance to RGB lighting effects) and another to access the Command Center quick settings to switch performance modes, change resolution and frame rates—essentially one-touch access for quick adjustments while gaming.
The top edge has a power button which doubles as a fingerprint sensor to log in to Windows, alongside a good selection of ports—Type-C for charging, microSD for storage expansion, a headphone jack and a dedicated connector for ROG XG Mobile, Asus’ proprietary external graphics processing system for boosted desktop-quality in-game graphics.
All this is packed into a 608g, 2.12cm thick, ergonomically contoured chassis, allowing you to use it comfortably and carry it anywhere.
There’s Gorilla Glass Victus/DXC for added protection but I would suggest you get the carrying case to protect the joysticks in transit. It lacks a built-in kickstand, which would have been handy, but the box comes with a makeshift bracket.
As for the display, the Ally’s IPS LCD panel is one of its strengths, with a 120Hz refresh rate and a sharp 1080p resolution offering a serious step up from the competition. The 500 nits-bright screen pops with colour and detail and blacks are deep for an LCD panel. Dual front-firing speakers are a big plus, and, if you prefer headsets for gaming sessions, there’s a neat AI noise cancellation feature as well.
Yet, it wouldn’t be much of a gaming console if it didn't deliver the goods in gaming performance, now would it?
The Ally is powered by the Ryzen Z1 Extreme, AMD chips designed for handheld consoles, along with integrated Radeon RDNA 3 graphics, 16GB of LPDDR5 memory and 512GB of M.2 storage. It runs Windows 11, so you can install games from Steam, Xbox Game Pass or Epic Games, not to mention a host of emulation software to play practically any game.
I installed quite a few games from the Xbox Game Pass—Asus throws in a limited-time Ultimate tier subscription with the purchase—and faced a few initial hiccups after the multi-gigabyte installs for Forza 5, Fifa 22 and Assassin’s Creed Odyssey. I had to download some of the games again.
Once I got going, the action just wouldn’t let up…until the battery died. Gaming performance was pretty great, even if that meant one had to play around with performance modes and resolution/maximum frame rate settings. Rule of thumb: While it is theoretically possible to run big-name AAA titles at 1080p resolution and 120Hz, you should reserve that for smaller indie titles unless you are fine with taking a hit on frame rates. A game like Forza 5 worked best at 720p resolution, and, with AMD’s upscaling technology, pushed out frame rates in excess of 65 frames per second (fps), but the same game dropped to 30fps when bumped up to the highest settings. This doesn’t show up as badly on a smaller display, though.
Battery life is arguably the Ally’s Achilles’ heel. On AAA titles with Turbo performance mode enabled, you should expect no more than an hour of gameplay on the built-in 40Wh battery, while you could switch to silent mode for more casual games or web browsing/streaming and eke out around four hours of battery.
In the pursuit of portability, Asus has had to compromise on battery size and the power draw of full throttle PC-level gaming takes its toll. If PC-level gaming on the go was the goal, the battery life is a killjoy. It charges up quickly with the included 65W adapter, so playing while plugged into the mains or into a fast-charging power bank is certainly an option.
As a first-generation portable gaming console, the Ally hits it out of the park, with battery life and some tempering of expectations on graphics quality on big-ticket AAA titles the only misses for a device that promises to untether PC-level games from desk-based computing devices.
It’s a solid product, even if it needs a power source at close reach to meet its full potential. One can’t wait to see where this category goes from here.
Tushar Kanwar, a tech columnist and commentator, tweets @2shar.
Also read: Xiaomi Pad 6 review: Fluid, snappy and good for gaming
