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I’ve been a PC gamer for practically my entire life. Even as a youngster on my dad’s boxy beige work computer, I spent hours playing the only game I had installed: Microsoft Golf 1998 Edition. I loved the glorious Flash era of browser games, and bought a lot of magazines just for the demo discs.
Growing up, I had my daliances with console gaming, but once I got my first gaming laptop as a teenager, we were back in familiar territory. It wasn’t long before I built my first gaming PC, and the rest, as they say, is history.
I’ve never thought about ditching my trusty gaming desktop — maybe the fourth or fifth PC I’ve built just for myself over the years, not counting the literal dozens I’ve built while working at Maximum PC magazine — and yet Today, I find myself using it. it’s still less for the game. I used to spend hours sitting at my desk in my live service game of the day, but now I mostly just sit in that chair to write articles like this one. The reason for that? I have an Asus ROG Ally.
The revolution of the hand
PC gaming laptops have been floating around for a while in early forms, but it wasn’t until Valve released their successful and popular. Ships Handheld deck that interest has really started to pick up. It wasn’t long before other manufacturers wanted to muscle into the scene; Asus was the first major rival of Valve with its ROG Ally (and the new ROG Ally X), after which it began to appear more: the MSI Claw, Lenovo Legion Go, and more recently the Zotac Zone all offer quality portable gaming experiences that beat anything in the existing console space.
I’m not ragging on consoles here; I have a Nintendo Switch, and it was thanks to it (and a second Switch for my boyfriend, and two copies of Animal Crossing: New Horizons) that I made it through the block and the cancer treatment in one piece. I’ve owned every Game Boy, and I was one of eight people who actually bought a PS Vita in 2011—a terribly misunderstood handheld, by the way.
But the ROG Ally is a different beast entirely; my huge game libraries on Steam, Epic, GOG, and more mean I can enjoy a huge variety of games, with better graphics than anything the Switch has to offer. Plus, as a fan of indie games, I have the added bonus of playing all the cool stuff on Itch.io, most of which isn’t available on consoles.
What makes handheld PCs so great?
My love for the ROG Ally has grown so much that I’ve taken to actively recommending it and its ilk – ditching my usual advice on gaming laptops and PC builds. The first reason, quite simply, is the price. The ROG Ally can be had regularly for around $400/£400 if you keep an eye on the sales – and frankly, good luck finding a gaming laptop capable of offering the same performance for that price, even during the events of sale
Speaking of performance: the Z1 Extreme APU chip in the ROG Ally and some other laptops works great, offering strong 1080p gaming performance. Of course, you will need to tone the graphics in some more demanding games to hit that coveted 60 frames per second, but the performance for such a compact device is really excellent and would have been unprecedented just a few years ago.
And, of course, it’s that compact nature that makes the Ally much more appealing to me than a desktop PC or bulky gaming laptop. I sit at my desk all day; why should I continue to sit there during my free time after work, when I could take my laptop and go to the living room on the sofa while playing the same games? It’s a benefit you may not notice until you have the option. During a recent storm here in the UK I stayed warm and cozy in bed with a hot water bottle and the rather excellent. Afterpartyand it was great. Although the Ally is a bit heavy, it’s a comfortable design and the sturdy thumbsticks are much easier on my hands than a mouse and keyboard.
So yeah: I’m done with gaming laptops, and while I’m not about to throw my power desktop in the trash anytime soon, I’m definitely putting a lot less mileage on it now. It’s probably good for my electricity bill too, now that I think about it – the RTX 4080 is definitely a power hog.
