After weeks of waiting, we now know the release date for the ASUS ROG Ally portable gaming PC. the Windows 11-based device will go on sale June 13. It's available for pre-order now at Best Buy. The official announcement also confirms that the price of the device will be $699.99.
Here's what you can expect in terms of specs for the ROG Ally:
| Specs | ASUS ROG Ally |
|---|---|
| Screen | 7 inches touch screen, LED, 1080p, 120Hz refresh rate |
| Processor |
AMD Ryzen Z1 Extreme (8-core, 16 threads, up to 30W - 8.6 TFlops) AMD Radeon RDNA 3 Graphics (4GB VRAM, 12 compute units) |
| RAM | 16GB, LPDDR5 |
| Storage | 512GB SSD, with microSD card slot |
| OS | Windows 11 |
| Weight and dimensions |
1.34 pounds 11.04 x 4.38 x 0.84 inches |
| Connectivity | Wi-Fi 6E, Bluetooth 5.2 |
| Ports | 1x ROG XG Mobile, 1x USB-C (USB 3.2 and DP 1.4 support), 1x 3.5mm audio, 1x micro SD slot |
| Battery | 40Whr |
There will also be a cheaper version of the ROG Ally later in 2023. It will have the less powerful AMD Z1 chip, and just 256GB of storage, but it will cost $599.99.
Digital Trends has a review of the device, which finally answers the one remaining question we had about the ROG Ally: its battery life. The gaming PC actually has three modes, Silent, Performance, and Turbo, that can each greatly affect the life of the battery on a single charge.
In 9W Silent mode, graphics at 1080p don't look good, but your battery life can last for 4 hours or more, according to the review. In 15W Performance mode, the battery lasted around 2 hours or so when playing Cyberpunk 2077. In the 25W Turbo mode (30W when the device is plugged in), you can bump the framerate up but the battery life goes down to less than an hour.
All in all, the ASUS ROG Ally sounds like a very capable Windows gaming PC on its own. You also get three free months of Xbox Game Pass Ultimate with purchase which means you will have a bunch of games to play immediately. We will soon see if it can be successful and how it will stack up sales wise against the similar Steam Deck from Valve.
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