Just over a month since it first debuted on the global stage, the ROG Ally has finally landed on our shores. The new gaming handheld console from Asus will certainly be of interest to many gamers out there, especially considering that the Valve Steam Deck never made it to Malaysia in any official capacity.
Asus ROG Ally Malaysia pricing and availability
The Asus ROG Ally is now available for purchase at RM3,299, with just one model packing the AMD Ryzen Z1 Extreme processor with 16GB of RAM and a 512GB SSD. You can also opt to get additional accessories for your new handheld, which include the ROG Ally Travel Case priced at RM199 and the ROG Gaming Charger Dock priced at RM299.
As part of their first sales promotion, if you get the ROG Ally from the Asus Malaysia eStore, you’ll also be able to get it bundled with the travel case, charger dock, a pair of ROG Cetra true wireless earbuds, nine months of PC Game Pass and a screen protector, worth a total of RM1,299. This will be only while stocks last though.
Now if you really, really want to power up the gaming capabilities of the ROG Ally, you can also look at getting one of Asus’ external graphics cards though do note that these are laptop grade GPUs housed in an external chassis. The ROG XG Mobile however will not be cheap, with Asus Malaysia currently selling three models:
- XG Mobile NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 (GC33Y) – RM9,999
- XG Mobile NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 (GC31S) – RM7,999
- XG Mobile AMD Radeon RX 6850M XT (GC32L) – RM6,999
On the bright side, you could save up to RM2,000 if you get the ROG Ally from their eStore together with either the RTX 3080 or the RX 6850M XT eGPU, meaning they would cost you RM5,999 and RM4,999 respectively.
On top of that, from 1 July onwards Asus will be having a roadshow at Plaza Lowyat. During the roadshow, the first 100 buyers will also be able to get the aforementioned bundle worth RM1,299, and also stand a chance to win a lucky draw with prizes worth up to RM6,999. Alternatively, if you get the ROG Ally at one of their authorised dealers instead, from 1 July onwards it will come with the nine months of PC Game Pass.
Asus ROG Ally specs and features
As Asus was keen to highlight, the most obvious difference between the Steam Deck and its own ROG Ally is that the latter runs Windows 11 out of the box. This gives it the most compatibility with any games you may already be playing on your PC, as pretty much anything you can run on Windows should work here. On top of that, Asus has added in its own Armoury Crate SE software, giving it a more console-like UI experience for easy navigation and performance tweaking.
Under the hood meanwhile the ROG Ally is powered by AMD’s latest Ryzen Z1 series of processors, with the base model featuring a Ryzen Z1 with six CPU cores and four RDNA 3 compute units in its integrated graphics. However, the only model available in Malaysia will be the one with the more powerful Ryzen Z1 Extreme, packing an eight core CPU with 12 RDNA 3 compute units. This gets mated to 16GB of 6400MHz LPDDR5 RAM and a 512GB PCIe Gen4 SSD. Keeping the lights on meanwhile is a 40Wh battery with 65W fast charging.
It’s display meanwhile is a 7-inch, 1080p IPS touchscreen display that also has support for a 120Hz refresh rate, a peak brightness of 500nits and a 7ms response time. You’ll also find full coverage of the sRGB colour gamut here along with a layer of Corning Gorilla Glass Victus over it for scratch resistance. Weighing in at just 608g, it allows for portable gaming using the built-in controller which should be familiar to Xbox controller users with its ABXY layout, dual joysticks, D-pad, shoulder buttons and triggers and paddles on the back. There’s a slip-resistant texture too for easier grip when gaming.
Other features of note include WiFi 6E and Bluetooth 5.2 support, RGB lighting around the joysticks, stereo speakers and a fingerprint reader for Windows Hello. There’s a microSD card slot too, along with a USB-C port, a 3.5mm headphone jack and Asus’ proprietary ROG XG Mobile port to hook up the optional external graphics cards. While Asus themselves will be the first to admit that you won’t be able to push high settings on triple-A titles like Cyberpunk 2077, with the ROG XG Mobile graphics card you should have no issue cranking up the settings.
