Asus ROG Ally review: close but no Steam Deck

It’s straightforward to neglect: the Steam Deck wasn’t first. 

Home windows handheld gaming PCs existed earlier than the Deck, and there’s been a parade of them within the 15 months afterward. Some are extra highly effective. Many boast premium construct high quality. Nearly all have higher-resolution screens. But none have provided the mixture of battery life, portability, and worth as Valve’s moveable. I gained’t bury the lede: the brand new Asus ROG Ally, formally transport June thirteenth for $699.99, doesn’t change that as of at this time. 

Don’t get me incorrect: at $700, the Asus ROG Ally is an enormous step ahead for Home windows handhelds in necessary methods. It’s not just a bit extra highly effective than the Steam Deck; the AMD Z1 Excessive handheld is considerably beefier, with out being thicker or wherever close to as costly because the Home windows competitors. I want my Steam Deck would run wherever close to as quiet, and I want it had the Ally’s variable refresh price display to make my video games as easy. 

Severely, it’s so easy for a pc this small, and I’m not simply speaking about video games that run at 120Hz. In my checks, the magic of variable refresh price (VRR) and low body compensation (LFC) works proper all the way down to 30fps.  

You’re ready for a “however,” proper? Listed below are three to contemplate earlier than you set down preorder money at this time: 1) battery life; 2) glitches; and three) how the Home windows working system — supposedly a plus! — hamstrings the hand-held expertise.

In its April Fools’ Day announcement, Asus tried to have it each methods: essentially the most highly effective AMD Ryzen processor ever in a handheld but additionally the battery life to “by no means cease gaming once more.” In briefings, the corporate confirmed off impressively easy gameplay alongside claims that battery life could be similar to the Steam Deck. 

However after almost two weeks of testing, the latter declare hasn’t held up.

The excellent news is that the AMD Z1 Excessive chip at its coronary heart is an enormous enchancment over the previous-gen Ryzen 7 6800U, particularly the place decrease wattages are involved. Even when it’s mostly a rebranded laptop chip, the Z1 Excessive doesn’t endure from the “wants extra gasoline!” slowdown I skilled in my Ayaneo 2 overview.

In actual fact, frankly, the ROG Ally has unimaginable vary, letting you configure all of it the best way down to simply 7W TDP or as much as a boosted 35W TDP for brief durations on a handheld battery pack. You may play at one velocity to maximise your battery, one other for Steam Deck-plus efficiency, one other to play video games the Steam Deck can’t fairly run, and you’ll generally even get a small further increase of velocity by plugging within the bundled 65-watt USB-C energy twine. If that’s not sufficient, it’s bought a particular port with eight PCI-Specific lanes so you’ll be able to plug in an exterior GPU. 

That’s nice, however irrespective of how laborious I attempted, I couldn’t method the Steam Deck’s battery life. 

It’s not rocket science: Each the Steam Deck and the ROG Ally have the identical battery capability of 40 watt-hours. You in all probability know meaning they’ll run at 40 watts for a single hour — or 20 watts for 2 hours, 10 watts for 4 hours, and so forth. Besides that, with the ROG Ally, 4 hours appears like the very best you’ll be able to discount for. With the Steam Deck, the best-case situation is nearer to seven.

I did handle to sip simply 9.8 watts of whole system energy in Slay the Spire, however that’s taking part in a 2D recreation with largely static photos and each battery-saving measure turned on, together with the bottom doable processor wattage, restricted to 30fps, whereas taking part in on the minimal display brightness in a darkish room. And but, my Ally truly turned itself off at three hours, 38 minutes, not four-plus hours, maybe as a result of Asus’ battery at all times appears to empty extra shortly when it’s nearing its finish.

Right here’s an inventory of some actions I attempted on the Ally and the way shortly the battery was consumed:

On Steam Deck, in the meantime, the least demanding video games devour as little as six watts (6.7 hours) on a cost, and I can normally handle two hours out of reasonably intensive titles like Management with a tweak or two. With the Ally, I’m seeing an hour and a half. The PC port of PlayStation 2 title Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time consumed round 8.5 watts on the Deck and 12.5 watts on the Ally, to offer you one other level of comparability.  

(Observe: Asus confirms may also promote a second model of the ROG Ally with a lower-end AMD Z1 processor for $600 in Q3. Whereas we weren’t given an opp to check, we do realize it’s designed to run on the identical wattages because the Z1 Excessive, so it’s possible not a silver bullet for battery.) 

On the plus aspect, the ROG Ally is method quicker to cost — I bought 50 p.c in 40 minutes whereas persevering with to play. (It takes possibly half-hour when you depart it alone.) You may fill the system all the best way to 97 or 98 p.c with the bundled charger even when you’re taking part in video games in Turbo mode, although it’d take a few hours to take action. 

And that Turbo mode is a secret weapon the Steam Deck can’t contact. 

Proper out of the field, the ROG Ally runs in “Efficiency” mode, which is barely quicker than the Steam Deck in alternate for considerably extra electrical energy, as I clarify above. There, I really feel comfy taking part in video games like Elden Ring at 720p and medium settings, a recreation my Steam Deck runs slower. However when you’re plugged in, or prepared to play video games for lower than an hour at a time, the “Turbo” mode places video games inside attain that the Deck can barely play in any respect.

The Final of Us Half I, one of many current crop of disappointing PC ports, is one I’d take into account unplayable on the Steam Deck. It’s not significantly better on the ROG Ally’s Efficiency mode, even with fancy upscaling strategies like AMD FSR 2.0; I’d as properly have been taking part in a mosaic at 432 x 240 decision uprezzed to 1080p and nonetheless noticed the sport dip under 30fps as quickly as a single enemy bought shut. 

However activate Turbo, and I used to be capable of double the enter decision to 856 x 480 (which appears a lot higher upscaled to 1080p) and push the body price properly above 40 always. It was the distinction between “I’d completely not play this” and “I performed via all three hours of The Final of Us: Left Behind within the youngsters’ bed room.” I noticed related boosts in Elden Ring and Redfall, too.

It’s only a disgrace I’m averaging 53 minutes of gameplay per cost after I do — and that I usually spend just a few of these minutes combating with the ROG Ally’s controls. 

On the entire, I’m happy with the ROG Ally’s outward bodily design. Positive, the grips aren’t almost as comfy because the Steam Deck’s, the large black display bezels are even bigger and extra obnoxious, the good loud stereo audio system often crackle, and what you are able to do with the joysticks’ RGB lighting is extraordinarily restricted as of at this time. (I can’t even handle the Portal impact.) However the Ally’s smaller, the grips don’t get overly scorching like some Home windows opponents, I just like the pops of rainbow from Asus’ reflective CD-like materials, and a few of the buttons truly really feel higher. 

Additionally, it takes simply seven easy-to-remove Phillips-head screws and a single flick of a spudger to swap the M.2 2230 solid-state drive — fairly a bit simpler than the Deck.

However Asus made two unlucky design selections I’m very a lot hoping you’ll by no means see. First, it determined to create flat ABXY face buttons which can be almost flush with the console when depressed. And second, it determined to deploy all of its gamepad controls via the corporate’s personal Armoury Crate software program. Let’s take these one by one.  

The flat ABXY buttons have a satisfying press at first: mild however agency, with a pleasant springy return, audible suggestions, and loads of buy for a meaty thumb. However after I began hammering on them in some pleasant rounds of Duck Sport, three of them stored getting caught… many times and once more. Swiftly, I couldn’t shoot or leap in a recreation the place split-second reactions are every thing. It’s as a result of the keycaps can barely tilt while you push them at an angle, and their edges can get caught beneath the body. Asus graciously despatched me a second unit, and it had the identical situation.

Asus ROG technical advertising and marketing director Sascha Krohn tells The Verge that no shopper ought to ever see this drawback — it was already caught forward of manufacturing, and retail items will ship with barely bigger keys that may’t transfer round as a lot and gained’t get caught beneath. 

The opposite factor Krohn says gained’t ship to shoppers is the present model of Armoury Crate, which is nice as a result of it tends to hold and / or crash on my overview unit — at which level a lot of my gamepad controls cease working. Simply this Tuesday, I used to be taking part in Management when, unexpectedly, I couldn’t shoot or sprint or leap or run or do something besides stroll and go searching. I couldn’t entry the controller configurator to test what had occurred, both, or swap my controls between desktop and gamepad modes as a result of your complete service had crashed. It took a full reboot to carry my controls again.

It’s additionally, to place it mildly, a little bit half-baked: 

• In Home windows and in video games, my joystick cursors and crosshairs are continually overshooting their targets. Armoury Crate has no sensitivity adjustment. 
• No gyro aiming for precision mousing, both — despite the fact that the Ally has a gyro.
• Armoury Crate doesn’t prefer it while you press a set off on the identical time you’re transferring a joystick and doesn’t at all times settle for the enter. Extra on that in a bit.  
• You can not bind any macros or perhaps a two-key mixture like Shift + Tab. There isn’t any straightforward technique to summon the Steam in-game overlay from inside a recreation. 
• After I change the Ally’s efficiency mode, notably in the course of a recreation, the fast settings menu will usually freeze till it’s kicked every thing into gear. (Asus proactively instructed me this shall be mounted.)
• After I change any of the Ally’s fast settings, it could actually generally take a number of seconds for my controls to return after I resume a recreation.
• Typically urgent a button within the fast settings menu will concurrently press a button within the recreation. 
• Typically urgent the joystick or D-pad will transfer two areas as an alternative of 1 within the Armoury Crate interface.
• The frames per second limiter doesn’t at all times work. (Asus says there’s a identified situation with video games working in windowed mode, however I’ve had some in full display additionally not restrict their frames per second.)
• The decision switcher (between 720p and 1080p) solely impacts the Home windows desktop, not video games, and also will have an effect on extra screens you plug in. 
• Armoury Crate doesn’t scale correctly with different Home windows UI parts; going above the default 150 p.c scaling provides scroll bars to a window that’s now bigger than the display.
• The “mouse and keyboard” template for non-gamepad video games has default bindings that don’t make a variety of sense.
• If you choose a at the moment working recreation in Armoury Crate, it gained’t resume — it’ll attempt to launch a second copy of the sport.

Frankly, the Steam Deck had even nastier points at launch, however I’ve to say the identical factor I stated then: The Verge doesn’t overview devices on potential. We overview what we are able to see and contact. 

And now, a phrase on Home windows. 

You need to perceive that Microsoft is a associate for the ROG Ally — and never simply within the “it runs Home windows 11” sense. The ROG Ally comes preloaded with Xbox Sport Move and features a free six-month subscription to the Final tier. After I opened an internet site on the Ally for the primary time, I used to be greeted with a completely unskippable, un-Alt-F4-able, cannot-Finish-Activity Microsoft Edge onboarding course of. The pinnacle of Xbox units, Roanne Sones, is talking at Asus’ launch event; Microsoft gaming boss Phil Spencer talked up the Ally on a podcast. Asus instructed us that Microsoft assisted with UI tweaks and made a particular exception to certify Home windows 11 for this specific seven-inch show.   

And but… Home windows nonetheless feels largely overseas on a seven-inch gamepad gadget. We all know Microsoft is experimenting with a Home windows gaming handheld mode, or a minimum of it did in a September 2022 hackathon, however there’s nothing of the kind right here. You can not do one thing so simple as kind in letters with the left joystick or D-pad — you both have to go away fingerprints on the touchscreen or hunt and peck every particular person letter with a too-sensitive cursor managed by your proper joystick.

The cut up touchscreen keyboard isn’t optimized for the locations your thumbs will naturally be when holding this gadget. Scrolling web sites and paperwork by joystick occurs in matches and begins fairly than easily because it does on a Steam Deck. The obvious enchancment is a half-height taskbar that saves house on the Ally’s display, however it usually reveals up on my desktop monitor as a traditional taskbar reduce in half. Home windows 11 is simpler to navigate by touchscreen than any earlier model, however I actually don’t need to have to the touch my display when the joysticks are proper there. 

Maybe most significantly, there’s no Xbox button on this PC. Whether or not you’re taking part in on Steam or Xbox Sport Move or just utilizing Microsoft’s personal Xbox Sport Bar, the gamepad controls are incomplete, with out a simple technique to summon the controls that each Valve and Microsoft encourage you to make use of to launch, chat, and multitask in an Xbox gaming surroundings. Asus spokesperson Ester Suh says that the corporate “may have the choice to assign the primary Xbox gamepad button to completely different buttons on the ROG Ally” in some unspecified time in the future sooner or later.

Once we requested Asus “why Home windows?” the reply was mainly that it’s what avid gamers need as a result of avid gamers shouldn’t have to go away any of their video games behind. 

However I’d argue that, as of 2023, Home windows handhelds just like the ROG Ally play fewer video games than the Steam Deck. 

Sure, it’s a lot simpler to put in the Epic Video games Retailer, Battle.internet, the EA app, GOG, Genshin Influence, and a wide range of anti-cheat-enabled video games on a Home windows handheld, with out the entire workarounds you’d want on the Deck. Gamepad video games usually work nice! However with out touchpads and gyro aiming and community-built controller profiles and a decade-plus of compatibility work, video games constructed for mouse and keyboard are being left behind by Asus and Microsoft. 

Max Payne 2 is a recreation that doesn’t run correctly on the Steam Deck, however it doesn’t run correctly on the Ally, both. Your complete recreation is constructed round dodging bullets in slow-motion “Bullet Time” when you’re capturing, however I couldn’t pull the set off whereas utilizing the joystick. The default keyboard bindings make little sense in different methods, too, fully omitting widespread keys like C (crouch) and E (work together) and inexplicably binding Escape to the B button whereas the gamepad’s View and Menu buttons (used to summon menus in XInput video games!) keep fully unbound. I needed to redo many of the controls and was nonetheless and not using a set off or any type of precision goal (bear in mind, no gyro and no simply customizable sensitivity) when all was stated and performed. 

The primary time I launched Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time on the ROG Ally, it crashed. Then it crashed once more after I tried to entry the graphical settings and once more when it tried to load a part of the primary stage of the sport, generally throwing unusual error messages. I needed to obtain a particular widescreen fixer patch to get it to run in any respect. Then, I bumped into a few of the identical points with the keyboard template and triggers: no technique to land a leaping sword combo, no technique to crouch or drop to a decrease ledge, no technique to stab with the Dagger of Time with out remapping all of my controls. 

The primary time I launched it on the Deck, it simply labored. The 2003 Home windows recreation ran in Linux, tricky-to-render fog and all. It routinely loaded a neighborhood controller profile that sure my buttons precisely as I remembered on the PlayStation 2. The suitable joystick swung the digital camera a little bit too shortly, however I mounted that in 10 seconds by summoning the controller configurator and turning down the joystick sensitivity. And that widescreen Home windows patch? I dropped the exact same information into my Linux recreation folder with zero modification, and it labored immediately. 

There are over 9,000 titles rated Verified or Playable on Steam alone. It’s the facility of a decade of Linux avid gamers plugging away. 

I essentially consider a transportable gaming PC isn’t actually moveable if the battery life and consumer interface aren’t constructed for the street. I additionally consider most individuals on this machine could be higher off spending $300 extra for our favourite gaming laptop computer (by Asus, no much less). In case you actually desire a moveable, possibly save a pair hundred bucks by shopping for a $400 Steam Deck and including your personal small SSD.   

However that doesn’t imply the Asus ROG Ally is a poor product general — it’s a robust gaming machine for $700, one which simply wants an influence outlet and a mouse and keyboard close by to succeed in its full potential. In actual fact, I may see some individuals utilizing this as their solely desktop that often transforms right into a couch-locked gaming machine: I spent two full days working from the Ally, writing posts for The Verge and the overwhelming majority of the story you’re studying now whereas plugged into nearly all of the exterior screens and peripherals I exploit with my regular desktop gaming PC. 

I hope this can be a wake-up name for Microsoft. There have been just a few of these lately, and possibly one among them would be the ultimate straw. Nonetheless, the corporate has a protracted and troubled historical past supporting video games on Home windows, and (rumors counsel) it at all times comes all the way down to Xbox being a separate division with conflicting incentives. So far as Microsoft truly constructing that new UI for handheld units, Krohn says he hasn’t heard something greater than I’ve. 

So far as Asus is worried, I ponder if the stopgap resolution is Steam. Perhaps the Ally ought to default to Steam Huge Image or possibly even run SteamOS 3.0 as an alternative of Home windows when Valve makes it broadly out there. Although, I admit, I don’t know the way a lot AMD will proceed to assist SteamOS or whether or not it’ll absolutely assist eGPUs — which have a tendency to come back from its rival Nvidia.

Talking of rivalries, Microsoft might have additionally precluded the ROG Ally’s SteamOS potentialities: “our associate for this gadget is Microsoft, it’s primarily made as a Home windows gadget, and it’s made solely as a Home windows gadget,” says Krohn. However he’s undecided if the deal precludes Asus from supporting SteamOS if customers set up it themselves. 

I didn’t have time to wipe and debloat the ROG Ally and run it completely as a Steam Huge Image or dual-boot SteamOS handheld, however I’d wish to see if that makes a distinction for a future story. It may very well be that the battery life deficit has much less to do with parts and extra to do with Home windows.

Inside pictures by Sean Hollister / The Verge