Last month, ASUS cut the price of both ROG Ally variants with the less powerful Ryzen Z1 variant costing only $399. Less than a month later, Best Buy is now selling the ROG Ally with the Ryzen Z1 for just $299.99, a $100 discount over the previous deal. According to slickdeals, the new ROG Ally price is a record low rate for the handheld, making ASUS’ answer to the Steam Deck a potential impulse buy.
The ASUS ROG Ally on sale features a Ryzen Z1 APU with six Zen 4 cores, 12 threads, and a boost clock of 4.9 GHz. The APU bundles a Radeon 740M iGPU that utilizes the latest RDNA 3 graphics architecture. Moreover, the Z1 ROG Ally rocks 16 GB of LPDDR5 memory, 512 GB of PCIe Gen 4 storage, and a 7-inch FHD display. The panel operates at a silky 120 Hz refresh rate and boasts 500 nits of brightness.
While the Ryzen Z1 is considerably weaker than the Ryzen Z1 Extreme, the ROG Ally on sale should suffice for casual gamers looking for a handheld primarily for older titles and emulation. For instance, Retro Game Corps showed the ROG Ally Z1 playing lighter titles like Minecraft Dungeons in 1080p at more than 50 FPS as well as emulated games like God of War 2 at 60 FPS.
Long story short, the ASUS ROG Ally with the Ryzen Z1 APU, although not suitable for playing AAA titles, is an intriguing option for anything other than demanding modern games, especially at the latest reduced price.
Disclaimer: Notebookcheck is not responsible for price changes carried out by retailers. The discounted price or deal mentioned in this item was available at the time of writing and may be subject to time restrictions and/or limited unit availability.
Source(s)
slickdeals, Best Buy (linked above), Retro Game Corps on YouTube