Handheld gaming PCs are here to stay: here’s why I’d recommend the Asus ROG Ally over a gaming laptop any day of the week
I’ve actually been a PC gamer all my life. Even as a young child on my father’s boxy beige work computer, I spent hours playing the only game installed on it: Microsoft Golf 1998 Edition. I loved the glorious Flash era of browser games and bought a bunch of magazines purely for the demo discs.
Growing up I had my issues with console gaming, but when I got my first gaming laptop as a teenager we were back in familiar territory. It wasn’t long before I built my first gaming PC, and the rest, as they say, is history.
I never thought I’d abandon my trusty gaming desktop – perhaps the fourth or fifth PC I’ve built purely for myself over the years, not counting the literal dozens I’ve built while working at Maximum PC Magazine – and yet I find myself using it less and less for gaming these days. I used to spend hours at my desk grinding away at my live-service game du jour, but now I usually just sit in that chair writing articles like this. The reason for that? I bought an Asus ROG Ally.
The wearable revolution
PC gaming handhelds have been floating around in early forms for a while, but it wasn’t until Valve released their successful and popular Steam Deck handheld that interest really started to pick up. It didn’t take long before other manufacturers wanted to cooperate; Asus was Valve’s first major rival with its ROG Ally (and the new ROG Ally beat in the market. the existing console space.
I’m not going to deal with consoles here; I have a Nintendo Switch, and thanks to that (and a second Switch for my fiancé, and two copies of Animal Crossing: New Horizons) that I made it through both the lockdown and cancer treatment unscathed. I’ve owned every Game Boy, and I was one of eight people who actually bought a PS Vita in 2011 – a terribly misunderstood handheld, by the way.
But the ROG Ally is a completely different beast; my vast game libraries on Steam, Epic, GOG and more mean I can enjoy a wide variety of games, with better graphics than anything offered by the Switch. Plus, as an indie game fan, I get the added bonus of being able to play all the great stuff on Itch.io, most of which isn’t available on consoles.
What makes PC handhelds so great?
My love for the ROG Ally has grown so much that I’ve started actively recommending it and its ilk, abandoning my usual advice on gaming laptops and PC building. The first reason is, quite simply, the price. The ROG Ally can routinely be had for around $400/£400 if you keep an eye on sales – and honestly, good luck finding a gaming laptop that can offer the same performance for that price, even during sale events.
Speaking of performance, the Z1 Extreme APU chip in the ROG Ally and some other handhelds performs great, offering strong 1080p gaming performance. Of course, in some more demanding games you’ll probably have to tone down the graphics to get that coveted 60 frames per second, but the performance for such a compact device is truly excellent and would have been unprecedented just a few years ago.
And of course, it’s that compact nature that makes the Ally so much more attractive to me than a desktop PC or a chunky gaming laptop. I sit at my desk all day; why would I sit there in my spare time after work, when I could grab my handheld and lounge on the couch playing the exact same games? It’s an advantage that you won’t notice until you have the option. During a recent storm here in the UK I stayed warm and cozy in bed with a hot water bottle and the rather excellent Afterpartyand it was great. Although the Ally is a bit heavy, the comfortable design and sturdy thumbsticks are a lot easier on my hands than a mouse and keyboard.
So yeah: I’m done with gaming laptops, and while I don’t plan on tossing my powerful desktop in the trash anytime soon, I’m certainly getting a lot less mileage out of it now. That’s probably good for my electric bill too, now that I think about it: the RTX 4080 is definitely a power guzzler.