ASUS ROG Ally Powered by AMD Ryzen Z1 Extreme Priced at $700

[Colddecked]

All of you saying how insanely good the price is, yet you all assume I think otherwise...

Is that me gaslighting or you all throwing out common sense in order to be able to oppose me?

"That price is brutal".

Brutal: direct and lacking any attempt to disguise unpleasantness.

Maybe try a different word then to convey a feeling of pleasant surprise?

 

[Nostras]

All of you saying how insanely good the price is, yet you all assume I think otherwise...

Is that me gaslighting or you all throwing out common sense in order to be able to oppose me?

No, I'd wager the vast majority will understand 'that price is brutal' as 'too expensive'.

 

[CosmicWanderer]

All of you saying how insanely good the price is, yet you all assume I think otherwise...

Is that me gaslighting or you all throwing out common sense in order to be able to oppose me?

"Brutal" has negative connotations.

And your comment was literally the first comment, so you cannot assume people will know what you mean because "all of you saying how insanely good the price is, yet you all assume I think otherwise...".

 

[bug]

Does anyone have an idea what Dolby Atmos means in this context? Can you output sound over HDMI or smth to get a nice atmosphere?

 

[enb141]

Does anyone have an idea what Dolby Atmos means in this context? Can you output sound over HDMI or smth to get a nice atmosphere?

Maybe they mean that can decode Dolby Atmos, for example a lot of sound bars have dolby atmos but they only have 3 speakers (best case scenario), so in other words they "fake it" to sound in 2 or 3 speakers, so that means they can understand atmos but in reality the sound is not a real Dolby Atmos.

For Dolby Atmos anyways (the real one) you need at least a setup of speakers 5.1.2 (2 front, 2 back, 1 center, subwoofer, 2 ceiling).

 

[pressing on]

Well, not exactly cheap but I expected at least a 999$ price tag, so colour me surprised. After seeing the success of the Switch, the Steam Deck, and now this, I cant help but think this is what Microsoft or Sony should have released, a portable Xbox or a new Sony PSP/Vita. The Steam Deck is for all intents and purposes a cut down Xbox Series/PS5.

It might be worth noting this wording from the Asus website about the ROG Ally

"...Play any PC game on the go. With Windows support, access over thousands of game titles through XBox Game Pass*, Steam, Epic Games Launcher, the EA App, and Uplay to name a few. Or, use your handheld with cloud and remote gaming services like AMD Link, Amazon Luna, GeForce Now, and many more.

*Subscription Required"

so it can be used as a portable Xbox or with Steam etc.

 

[wNotyarD]

After seeing the success of the Switch, the Steam Deck, and now this, I cant help but think this is what Microsoft or Sony should have released, a portable Xbox or a new Sony PSP/Vita.

It should be quite possible technically, as both MS and Sony's offerings use AMD hardware not unlike the Deck or the Ally.
Coming from them, though, what would the approach be? MS would push for Game Pass and xCloud, so no issues. Would Sony make it like the PSP and Vita, exclusive devices for their own games, or would it make a portable device capable of running PS5 games (and sharing its library through PSN) on its own?

 

[R0H1T]

All of you saying how insanely good the price is, yet you all assume I think otherwise...

Is that me gaslighting or you all throwing out common sense in order to be able to oppose me?

Not sure if English is you're first language, it's 3rd on the list for me, but that's why I asked compared to what? Your comment was at least somewhat ambiguous.

 

[Mindweaver]

I would not pay 700 for this when I only paid 399 for my steam deck. I know someone is going to reply to this with but the Ally hardware is better than the steam deck. Hardware is only as good as the software behind it and I don't have high hopes for this having good software. Valve is constantly updating my steam deck to make it better. It works great with emulators and other store fronts. The ally comes with windows which is another price hike for that license. If you want windows you can still load it on the steam deck. Proton has been fantastic on the Steam deck. Plus, we don't even know the battery life of the higher end 700 unit. It might only last an hour.

 

[agatong55]

Im torn do you spend the 700 on this or 650 on a fully loaded steam deck..

 

[wNotyarD]

I would not pay 700 for this when I only paid 399 for my steam deck. I know someone is going to reply to this with but the Ally hardware is better than the steam deck. Hardware is only as good as the software behind it and I don't have high hopes for this having good software. Valve is constantly updating my steam deck to make it better. It works great with emulators and other store fronts. The ally comes with windows which is another price hike for that license. If you want windows you can still load it on the steam deck. Proton has been fantastic on the Steam deck. Plus, we don't even know the battery life of the higher end 700 unit. It might only last an hour.

2 questions here:
1 - How much does the most well-equipped Deck cost?
2 - How low will the lowest-equipped Ally cost?

 

[Colddecked]

I would not pay 700 for this when I only paid 399 for my steam deck. I know someone is going to reply to this with but the Ally hardware is better than the steam deck. Hardware is only as good as the software behind it and I don't have high hopes for this having good software. Valve is constantly updating my steam deck to make it better. It works great with emulators and other store fronts. The ally comes with windows which is another price hike for that license. If you want windows you can still load it on the steam deck. Proton has been fantastic on the Steam deck. Plus, we don't even know the battery life of the higher end 700 unit. It might only last an hour.

The 512gb Deck is 650. 50 dollars for a much better soc and screen is fair to me.

Don't get me wrong, when I had my Steam Deck I thought it was a great piece of tech. But Valve HAS to constantly update the OS because its Linux. They needed to prove to the world Linux and gaming work, and god bless them they're doing it. But the Ally won't need to do that since its running Win11. It'll work with Store fronts better than the Deck.

 

[R0H1T]

Hopefully they improve the font scaling & smoothing with this tiny screen, it's appalling how depending on the display or sub pixel layout arguably the most modern OS out there still cannot render text properly!

 

[bug]

I would not pay 700 for this when I only paid 399 for my steam deck. I know someone is going to reply to this with but the Ally hardware is better than the steam deck. Hardware is only as good as the software behind it and I don't have high hopes for this having good software. Valve is constantly updating my steam deck to make it better. It works great with emulators and other store fronts. The ally comes with windows which is another price hike for that license. If you want windows you can still load it on the steam deck. Proton has been fantastic on the Steam deck. Plus, we don't even know the battery life of the higher end 700 unit. It might only last an hour.

Based on the software Asus installs for my motherboard, that better hardware is required to run just that

 

[R0H1T]

Or maybe if Asus is feeling cheeky after the latest x3d fiasco they might allow the "Ally" to be overclocked too

Spoiler

 

[Mindweaver]

2 questions here:
1 - How much does the most well-equipped Deck cost?
2 - How low will the lowest-equipped Ally cost?

1. The highest steam deck is 649. It has the "better" screen with "Premium anti-glare etched glass". It has the faster m.2 512gb drive. All 3 variants have the same hardware overall. I was able to buy my Steam Deck and upgrade the MMC 64gb to 512gb gen4 nvme m.2 for 89 bucks. I find the screen on the lower and mid tier to be fantastic. It's still an IPS screen.
2. Not sure of the lower price article says, "with speculations pointing to $499", but again it's not as fast as the higher end model.

The 512gb Deck is 650. 50 dollars for a much better soc and screen is fair to me.

Don't get me wrong, when I had my Steam Deck I thought it was a great piece of tech. But Valve HAS to constantly update the OS because its Linux. They needed to prove to the world Linux and gaming work, and god bless them they're doing it. But the Ally won't need to do that since its running Win11. It'll work with Store fronts better than the Deck.

I'll agree if I were paying for the higher end model sure I would pay the 50 bucks for the best hardware, but as simple as it is to upgrade the deck I would still pick the lowest end model Steam deck over the highend ally. Again that's just me. I just purchased my steam deck and I have made a bunch of mods (I like modding it). Also, I like the touch pads. I don't find the updates intrusive as say Windows. Plus, whoever buys the Ally will need the extra hardware to run steam on windows. I haven't had any issues with the Steam OS, but I do like Linux.

Also, I'm not knocking anyone that wants to buy the higher end Ally. I truly expected it to be 999 to 1200 bucks. If you are not comfortable modding hardware and just want the best out of the box with windows then the ally seems to be a good deal. I just would not purchase one. I just don't think anyone is looking at how hot this unit will run and what kind of battery life they will get with this extra performance.

 

[bug]

Maybe they mean that can decode Dolby Atmos, for example a lot of sound bars have dolby atmos but they only have 3 speakers (best case scenario), so in other words they "fake it" to sound in 2 or 3 speakers, so that means they can understand atmos but in reality the sound is not a real Dolby Atmos.

For Dolby Atmos anyways (the real one) you need at least a setup of speakers 5.1.2 (2 front, 2 back, 1 center, subwoofer, 2 ceiling).

That's just the thing, Atmos doesn't require anything. It's positional audio that gets decoded for as many speakers as can be detected. The magic is in the decoder, not the speakers.
That's in contrast to traditional surround, where if you have the sound set for 5.1, but missing the surround speakers, the surround channels get sent into the void.

 

[Selaya]

this ...
... is better than expected tbh

 

[R0H1T]

I just don't think anyone is looking at how hot this unit will run and what kind of battery life they will get with this extra performance.

You can nominally restrict clocks on a laptop with tuning the power plan & IIRC the battery saver also does the same. Purely in terms of options available directly through the OS Windows is much better than Linux in that regard.

 

[CyberCT]

This is an incredible price considering what you get. It's supposed to have a VRR screen too (which is huge).
In the next 1-2 years, if I continue to use my Deck often (hopefully), I may upgrade to ROG Ally. AMD's latest APU hardware is very impressive for its size and power consumption.

I bought a Steam Deck about a month ago. Bought the 64GB $400 version with the intention to upgrade it per the multitude of guides and suggestions online: Added:

SABRENT Rocket 2230 NVMe 4.0 1TB SSD ($150).
JSAUX 2-Pack Anti Glare Screen Protector 9H Hardness ($15)
SAMSUNG EVO microSDXC 512GB 130MB/s ($40)
Thermalright TFX 2g Thermal Paste 14.3W/m.k, 2Grams ($11) ... this dropped the CPU and GPU temps 3C to 5C for high demand games.

With the above mods, I'm very happy with the Deck. I play it more often than I thought. The Steam games are on the SSD and emulation games are on the SD (overkill space at this point). The interface works great and there's desktop mode to do "behind the scenes" tinkering like a typical Windows PC The great thing about the Deck is that it's been out a while and a few million units have been sold so there are tech savvy people that made software mods and enhancements (CryoUtilities, EmuDeck, Decky, etc). The Deck is a popular static platform like a console, so it's easy for these people to make these easy "enhancements" for it. I enjoy tweaking things so the Deck works great here. And playing NES, SNES, Genesis, N64, GC, Wii games on it are nearly flawlessly, which is awesome. I'm going to try a Switch game on it this weekend.

BUT ... the Deck's hardware is inferior to run modern demanding games. Even at 1280x800, there's no way to get 60fps in CyberPunk or Dead Space, for example. Even on lowest settings. Even RDR2 struggles (yes I read the many Deck tweak guides online). Other Deck players are satisfied playing these games at 30FPS in combinations of low to high settings. I don't do 30fps. 60fps was bare minimum. 120 is optimal. On the Deck, playing some favorites like Dying Light or Crysis Remastered at low-medium settings locked at 50hz play at 50fps nearly the whole time. I can live with this but don't prefer it. Valve should have sourced a VRR display.
Older favorites like Dirt 2, Dirt 3, Half Life 2, Trine, classic 90s games, etc always stay at 60-fps. Often I'll jump into classic favorites that run flawlessly on the Deck. I would also bring my gaming PC to friends' houses and play multiplayer games together for the night. Dead Island Remastered and Left 4 Dead 2 run flawlessly on the Deck so it's my new LAN party machine. MUCH easier to lug around lol. I tried a few other demanding LAN party favorites (COD, BF V). I hear COD runs great on it but haven't tried it. I'd want keyboard and mouse for it though.

My home gaming PC is an 119000K with a RTX 4090 connected to a 4k 120hz Samsung 9 Series QLED 75" that's GSYNC compatible, so I'm used to high refresh, max settings PC gaming. I find that, the smaller the screen, the less 60fps or even 50fps bothers me. Having a mobile PC gaming device is awesome. Not gonna lie.
Coming from that perspective, here's the synopsis:

Buy the Ally if you play newer games at medium-high settings (hopefully) and see yourself playing on the go or newer multiplayer games with friends at their place, or deck or patio.
Buy the Deck if you play older games, indie games, console emulation, don't mind 30fps for newer games, or play older multiplayer games with friends at their place, or deck or patio.
Don't buy either if you only play, or only intend to play, games at home in your room.

 

[CosmicWanderer]

I just don't think anyone is looking at how hot this unit will run and what kind of battery life they will get with this extra performance.

I would much rather have the option to go full performance + heat + short battery when I want to, than be stuck with mediocre performance permanently.

With the Ally you can always dial down the power when needed, and still take advantage of the better performance-per-watt that Zen 4 + RDNA 3 have to offer. And you'll also be able to install SteamOS on it eventually.

Seems like what you have is buyer's remorse.

 

[wNotyarD]

I just don't think anyone is looking at how hot this unit will run and what kind of battery life they will get with this extra performance.

This here is the question worth millions: how efficient is the Z1(X) with its Radeon?

 

[R0H1T]

If it's clocked appropriately it would be near chart topping in terms of efficiency, even comparable or better than Apple. Same goes for Radeon graphics although Nvidia might come on top with ADA if they release a modern (SoC) upgrade to switch.

 

[TechLurker]

What would make this perfect is if ASUS follows Valve and releases CAD files to design accessories around (or 3D print backplates) while also offering in-depth iFixit repair and modding guides. Bonus if they also sell more common replacement parts such as the backplate, sticks, D-pad, as well. It would greatly encourage adoption.

 

[Mindweaver]

I would much rather have the option to go full performance + heat + short battery when I want to, than be stuck with mediocre performance permanently.

With the Ally you can always dial down the power when needed, and still take advantage of the better performance-per-watt that Zen 4 + RDNA 3 have to offer. And you'll also be able to install SteamOS on it eventually.

Seems like what you have is buyer's remorse.

No remorse here. I enjoy my Steam Deck. I think Ally will be great for the 9 people that will buy it.