Are you looking to dive into the world of handheld PC gaming, but you’re put off by some sky-high prices? Then you might want to take a gander at Best Buy’s sales page today. The store is offering the original Asus ROG Ally in its souped-up Z1 Extreme flavor for $449.99. That’s $250 off the retail price and about half the price of the Ally X.
The original Ally was the first handheld gaming PC from a major vendor post-Steam Deck. It’s far from perfect, mostly due to a reliance on Windows 11, which simply isn’t as smooth as Valve’s SteamOS for handling games. But it is more powerful, with a higher-resolution 1080p 120Hz screen and an AMD Ryzen Z1 Extreme processor. It’s also loaded with 16GB of RAM and a 512GB SSD, the latter of which can be upgraded.
At this price, the ROG Ally is probably the best bang-for-your-buck handheld option if you’re sure that you want Windows instead of SteamOS. And there are a few reasons you would — some games just aren’t available on Steam, notably those that rely on proprietary anti-cheat systems like Fortnite.
But for the sake of completeness, I’ll point out that the cheapest Steam Deck starts at $400, albeit with less storage and a screen that’s nowhere near as nice. You might also consider the new Lenovo Legion Go S, which also runs Windows but isn’t as powerful as the ROG Ally despite costing more. There’s a SteamOS version of that design coming soon.
Get an Asus ROG Ally handheld gaming PC for $450