Entry Level Asus ROG Ally dips to $399 at Best Buy
How low can you go?
The deals do not stop rolling it seems. Even with the Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales period coming to a close, the price drops are still happening and extending sales days into sales weeks.
We reported only recently the low price of the two versions of the Asus ROG Ally handheld at Best Buy, and low and behold they've only gone and lowered the price yet again - no complaining here, of course, I love a great deal.
One of the main competitors to Valve's impressive Steam Deck, the Asus ROG Ally has fallen in price to just $399 for the Asus ROG Ally AMD Ryzen Z1 Processor version. Boasting 512GB of storage for your games (expandable with a larger 2230 M.2 SSD) and a nice and bright 7-inch, 1280 x 800 display, this handheld can play your favorite PC games truly on the move.
You can also still pick up the more powerful version of the Asus ROG Ally for the same reduced price of $599, but you're going to pay a $200 difference for the pleasure of having the AMD Ryzen Z1 Extreme processor inside. Yes, it's a better gaming experience, but for half the price of the slightly less powerful handheld. It's a tough choice.
Asus ROG Ally: now $399 at Best Buy (was $599.99)
The Asus ROG Ally is a lightweight Windows gaming handheld running AMD's Z1 APU. It has a bright, 7-inch display.
Asus ROG Ally (Z1 Extreme): now $599.99 at Best Buy (was $699.99)
The Asus ROG Ally is a lightweight Windows gaming handheld running AMD's more powerful Z1 Extreme APU. It has the same display and 512GB of storage as the cheaper model.
The Z1 processors used in the Asus ROG Ally are great on battery life combined with the right screen settings being used, but they really shine on mains power compared to the Steam Deck, seeking out those extra frames for game smoothness.
Pulling off performance slightly better than the chip in the Steam Deck, the Ryzen Z1 extreme lets you get the maximum out of the 7-inch 1080p screen. We've gotten to test this more powerful version and were suitably impressed with its weight compared to the Steam Deck, and its bright, vivid display. Being that the Ally runs a version of Windows 11, it's pretty much compatible with most PC games, making it a true mini-Windows gaming machine.
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Stewart Bendle is a deals and coupon writer at Tom's Hardware. A firm believer in “Bang for the buck” Stewart likes to research the best prices and coupon codes for hardware and build PCs that have a great price for performance ratio.
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usertests You can go lower than $399 with Open Box at Best Buy.Reply
Tough to say it's worth it, but CPU-intensive emulation has been identified as one area where the Z1 could excel over the Steam Deck SoC.