Valve's Linux-based Steam Deck is undoubtedly the most dominant handheld gaming PC on the market, and for good reason; it's long stood as the best value option, but its three-year-old hardware is starting to show its age. Even the later-released Steam Deck OLED variant with its 90Hz screen and slight performance bump can struggle to run some of my favorite games, and I'm finding myself using the Windows 11-based ASUS ROG Ally more and more.
Usually listed for a $649.99 MSRP, Best Buy has the Z1 Extreme ROG Ally for $499.99 in a familiar discount that comes back so often that it might as well just become the new standard price. Not that I'm complaining. It's always easy to recommend this gaming handheld when the price tag drops to this (technically) sub-$500 mark. Don't like Windows 11? Install SteamOS on the ROG Ally instead. You can't lose.
I know how many PC gamers feel about Windows 11 on handheld gaming PCs — it's just not "there" yet, and I can agree to a point. However, once you actually play one of these things for more than a few hours, you fall into cyclical habits that soon have you realizing how little you need to interact with Windows itself.
Besides switching to the desktop to check Windows Update or apply some manual AMD Radeon graphics driver updates, I rarely find myself leaving the ASUS Armoury Crate launcher app. Even then, it's usually only to switch to Steam's Big Picture mode, which looks practically identical to the Steam Deck's UI, or to occasionally boot into the evolving Xbox app for PC Game Pass titles.
Actually playing games on the ASUS ROG Ally is just as enjoyable as Valve's Steam Deck, particularly if you actually launch games from Steam itself. Yeah, ASUS has its own options for tweaking button mapping and analog stick inputs, but community-made Steam Input controller profiles are still the king of the hill when it comes to older games that didn't support traditional joypads.
And, again, if you really don't like the experience of Windows 11 on a small touchscreen (I get it), you can replace it with SteamOS on a ROG Ally. I'm just saying — give the stock install a chance, and play games for a few days. Once you stop thinking of it as "a Windows PC pretending to be a Steam Deck" and just "a handheld console with Windows 11 in the background", it becomes a lot more fun to use.
Besides, our readers already rate it as the second-best option behind the dominant Steam Deck. Disagree? Vote on the ongoing poll and let us know which is your favorite! Personally, if it wasn't for MSI's relentless stock issues, I'd probably rank the MSI Claw 8 AI+ much higher, but the ROG Ally still has my vote for now.
If you haven't tried the Z1 Extreme ROG Ally, head over to Best Buy (use your My Best Buy membership if you have one) and give it a shot — you could always return it (in good condition, anyway). 512GB should be plenty of storage, but you can manually upgrade the ROG Ally SSD to something like a 1TB variant if you want to.
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