The Asus ROG Ally has fallen to an all-time low ahead of Black Friday

theverge.com:

By Brandon Widder, a senior editor overseeing deals, gift guides, and commerce. He spent six years spearheading buying guides and consumer tech coverage at Digital Trends.

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Thanks to the rousing success of the Nintendo Switch and Valve’s Steam Deck, it’s safe to say that portable gaming is having a moment — something The Verge’s David Pierce discussed at length with the Polygon crew on a recent episode of The Vergecast. Asus also entered the handheld fray earlier this year with the ROG Ally, and now, thanks to an ongoing Asus promo, it’s available with an AMD Z1 Extreme chip for an all-time low of $599.99 ($100 off) with offer code NC100.

We had some serious reservations with the ROG Ally when we first reviewed the handheld gaming PC. Asus has since ironed out some of our initial concerns, but some remain, including the console’s mediocre battery life and a bizarre performance gap between the retail units and our original review units. However, it still outperforms the Steam Deck in several notable ways — which it should, given the loftier price tag.

The portable Windows machine is equipped with a quieter fan, for one, along with a larger 1080p display with a 120Hz variable refresh rate and beefier performance thanks to the Z1 Extreme. The said chip performs even better when plugged in and using the handheld’s apt-titled “Turbo” mode, which increases the power draw to 30 watts and results in markedly improved performance while gaming.

Just don’t expect a flawless Windows 11 experience, plugged in or not.

The ROG Ally is Asus’ first crack at a Steam Deck rival. It’s a Windows-based PC gaming handheld with a seven-inch, 1080p,