Asus has announced that the ROG Ally gaming laptop will launch on June 13, and you can pre-order one starting today. It launches with AMD’s new Z1 Extreme processor, and a 512GB SSD $699.99 – Only $50 more than Valve’s most equipped Steam Deck. A less powerful version is coming for $599.99 In the third quarter of 2023.
After the slightly misleading appearance of the ROG Ally on April Fools’ Day, all days long, we’ve learned a lot about how gaming laptops stack up against Steam Deck, as well as other competing models. Is it worth the price? Check out Chris Plante’s full review to find out.
The pairing of the AMD Z1 Extreme processor and 16GB of fast LPDDR5 RAM seems capable of running PC games with fewer visual compromises than what we’re used to on Steam Deck (which itself isn’t as slow). Not to mention, the 1080p display has a higher resolution, and it doubles the refresh rate—up to 120Hz—for a smoother gaming experience.
Notably, it has a special slot where you can plug in one of Asus’ capable XG Mobile external GPUs, which is essentially a docking station packed with an Nvidia GeForce RTX 4090 and plenty of ports. With it, the graphical bottlenecks will disappear. But in addition to being expensive (over $1,000), using it comes at the expense of portability. You will be wired. If you want to learn more about how that works (warts and all), check out this video I did in 2022 at the edge.
All of that being said, there’s a lot to get excited about. If you’d like to pre-order the ROG Ally, we’ve got some info below that should come in handy.
Where can I pre-order the Asus ROG Ally?
Best Buy is the only US retailer that accepts pre-orders. You have to be able to pre order $699.99 model online starting today. Best Buy listing is currently available for $599.99 A model with an AMD Ryzen Z1 processor and 512GB of storage, but it won’t ship until the third quarter of 2023. We’ll be watching for links at other retailers.
Read more
“Writer. Friendly troublemaker. Lifelong food junkie. Professional beer evangelist.”