ASUS originally launched the slower of its two ROG Ally gaming handhelds — the ROG Ally with AMD’s Ryzen Z1 APU — at $599, but quickly dropped down to $499. Now, that same gaming handheld is $200 off, discounted down to $299 at BestBuy.
2ASUS ROG Ally Z1 priced at $299 (source: ASUS + BestBuy)
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AMD’s Ryzen Z1 APU comes in two forms: Ryzen Z1 and Ryzen Z1 Extreme, the Z1 has 6 cores of CPU power and a significant downgrade in GPU abilities.
The AMD Ryzen Z1 non-Extreme comes with just 4 x RDNA 3-based Compute Units, while the Ryzen Z1 Extreme features 12 Compute Units, 300% more. The $100 difference between the two gaming handhelds meant you’d be silly to buy the gimped ROG Ally for $100 less when for $100 more you’re getting 2 more CPU cores and 3x the GPU power.
BestBuy is the official retail launch partner of ASUS, with the two discounting the Ryzen Z1-based ROG Ally down to $299, which is $300 off — half — the debut price of $599 (with its quick discount to $499, and now heavy discount to $299).
ASUS pricing its ROG Ally Z1 gaming handheld at $299 is cutthroat, with the closest handheld competitor being the Intel Meteor Lake APU-powered MSI Claw, which is $699 in its cheapest Core Ultra 5 135H + 512GB storage variant.
I don’t think there would be a point buying the MSI Claw over the ASUS ROG Ally when the ROG Ally in Z1 form is half the price.