$699.99: As of May 11, the Asus ROG Ally(opens in a new tab) portable gaming PC is available to pre-order at Best Buy for $699.99 — snag one now and get it on release day, June 13.
The first big competitor for the Steam Deck has entered the chat.
That's right, the highly anticipated Asus ROG Ally(opens in a new tab) portable gaming PC is finally available to pre-order. As of the time of this writing, you can pick one up at Best Buy for $699.99(opens in a new tab), and it'll be ready for you on release day (June 13, 2023) for shipping or in-store pickup. Now, time to decide if you want an Ally, or a Steam Deck...
The Asus ROG Ally is similar to the Steam Deck in that it's a portable gaming PC, but where the two start to diverge is when it comes to horsepower and overall freedom.
For starters, the Ally is way more powerful on paper than the Deck. It comes equipped with an AMD Ryzen Z1 Extreme CPU, as well as an AMD Radeon RDNA 3 GPU — if that's gibberish to you, all you really need to know is that it's a pretty beefy setup for such a small device. You'll get a clearer, 1080p display too, as well as a 3-month voucher for Xbox Game Pass Ultimate.
The biggest draw, though, is that the Ally gives you access to all of your PC games across all launchers, whereas the Deck is solely beholden to Steam (unless you employ some complicated workarounds to install other launchers). That's not to say the Steam Deck is bad, though — it has a better battery life than the Asus ROG Ally, and a more streamlined UI. There's a tradeoff with each of them, and you can't really go wrong as long as you know your preferences.
Hop in on the ground floor of the brand-new Asus ROG Ally — pre-order one at Best Buy for $699.99(opens in a new tab) and get it on June 13.
