Can the ROG Ally run Diablo IV? What about Microsoft 365? | Ask Us Anything ROG Ally Edition

Welcome back to another episode of Ask Us Anything, where we gather your questions from the internet and answer them.

This time though, it’s a special episode of AUA where we’ll be tackling some of the questions you guys have about the new gaming handheld console from Asus, the ROG Ally.

How much does the ROG Ally cost in Malaysia

One of the most often asked questions ever since the ROG Ally debuted on the global stage was just how much it’ll cost in Malaysia. Well, it’s priced at RM3,299, with just one model available here packing the AMD Ryzen Z1 Extreme processor with 16GB of RAM and a 512GB SSD.

There are also some optional accessories you can get with the ROG Ally, such as the ROG Ally Travel Case priced at RM199 as well as the ROG Gaming Charger Dock priced at RM299. If you want to increase the gaming capabilities of your ROG Ally, you can also check out one of the ROG XG Mobile external graphics cards from Asus, which start at RM6,999.

When Asus first launched the ROG Ally in Malaysia, they also had a day one launch special where the first 100 buyers also got a bundle worth RM1,299 for free, which came with the aforementioned travel case and dock along with a pair of ROG Cetra true wireless earbuds, a screen protector and nine months of PC Game Pass. Many lamented that the deal was out of stock in just eight minutes, but you’ll still have a chance to get it when Asus has their ROG Ally road show from 1 July onwards at Plaza Low Yat.

Can you run Diablo IV on the ROG Ally?

Diablo IV, the latest instalment in Blizzard’s long running ARPG series, debuted earlier this month, and with the ROG Ally coming with Windows 11 out of the box, many people were asking if the handheld would be able to run Diablo IV.

The short answer is yes, it will because the ROG Ally does meet Diablo IV’s minimum requirements. However, those requirements from Blizzard are only if you were planning to play at 720p resolution at 30fps with all of your settings set to low. The long answer is still yes, it will play, though you will need to tweak things a bit to get it to run at higher settings with a reasonable refresh rate.

For myself, I managed to get Diablo IV running just fine at mostly 60fps, all while having the resolution set to 1080p with medium settings and AMD FidelityFX Super Resolution 2.0 turned on. This was however running at its maximum Turbo Mode settings, so your mileage may vary if you lower the operating mode on the ROG Ally. You can find some gameplay footage of me struggling to keep up with the hordes of baddies in Diablo IV in the video above.

We will be showing you guys more performance numbers for Diablo IV and other games too on the ROG Ally in our full review of the ROG Ally, so stay tuned for that.

What specs does the ROG Ally have?

Now if you haven’t been keeping up with news on the ROG Ally, you may not know what exactly is under the hood of Asus’ new gaming handheld. Well, for starters it has AMD’s new Ryzen Z1 Extreme processor, which packs eight CPU cores and 12 RDNA 3 compute units in its integrated graphics, Tagging along for the ride is 16GB of 6400MHz LPDDR5 RAM and a 512GB PCIe Gen4 SSD. A 40Wh battery with 65W fast charging meanwhile keeps the lights on.

With the ROG Ally you’ll be staring at a 7-inch, 1080p IPS touchscreen display which also has support for up to a 120Hz refresh rate, a peak brightness of 500nits, a 7ms response time and full coverage of the sRGB colour gamut. There’s also a layer of Corning Gorilla Glass Victus over it for scratch resistance. It weighs just 608g for easy enough portability, and if you’re already using the Xbox controller you should have no issue with the included ABXY button layout along with two joysticks, D-pad, shoulder buttons and triggers along with paddles on the back.

Its biggest selling point is of course Windows 11, allowing you to have wide compatibility with most games that you would already be playing on a regular gaming PC, unlike Valve’s Steam Deck which is mostly limited to games on Steam only. There’s also Asus’ own Armoury Crate SE software pre-installed here for a console-like UI experience that groups all of your games together for easy navigation and performance tweaking on the go.

Can the ROG Ally run Microsoft 365?

We’ve got one person who asked us if the ROG Ally can run Microsoft 365 since it runs Windows 11 out of the box. And yes, yes you can.

In fact, because it runs on Windows 11, the ROG Ally comes with Microsoft 365 and its suite of tools such as Microsoft Word, Powerpoint and Excel pre-installed—just like a regular PC or laptop with Windows would. Of course, you’ll need to have an active Microsoft 365 subscription to use it. You’ll be able to use it for as low as RM27 per month or RM269 for a year of Microsoft 365 Personal, or if you have up to six people to share it with, Microsoft 365 Family is also available for RM36 a month or RM359 for a year of it.

Another thing we should point out is that you’ll want to have a keyboard and mouse along with your ROG Ally to use Microsoft 365 in any actually productive way. It’s also perhaps better to have them connect via Bluetooth as the ROG Ally has just a single USB-C port, though wired connections are still possible is you have a USB-C hub along with you.