Saturday, April 29th 2023
Base Model ASUS ROG Ally Said to Cost US$599.99
If something seems too good to be true, then it often is and the earlier rumoured price point of the "vanilla" ASUS ROG Ally at US$499.99 was apparently one such instance. Pricing information from serial Twitter leaker SnoopyTech suggests it will instead be priced at US$599.99, which seems a lot more realistic. Aside from using the 6-core CPU with a more limited GPU, the cheaper ROG Ally will also see its internal storage cut in half to 256 GB, compared to 512 GB for the "Extreme" version.
The rest of the specs appear to be identical, with both models sporting 16 GB of LPDDR5 memory, the 7-inch, 120 Hz 1080p display and possibly even the same 40 Whr battery pack. At US$70 more than the equivalent Steam Deck, it might be a tough sell, especially as it's only US$100 to upgrade to the fully featured version, a much smaller cost increase compared to each of the Steam Deck SKUs, where you're looking at spending more to get more. It could simply be that this is a sales tactic by ASUS, to push most of its potential customers to buy the more expensive model.
Source:
@_snoopytech_
The rest of the specs appear to be identical, with both models sporting 16 GB of LPDDR5 memory, the 7-inch, 120 Hz 1080p display and possibly even the same 40 Whr battery pack. At US$70 more than the equivalent Steam Deck, it might be a tough sell, especially as it's only US$100 to upgrade to the fully featured version, a much smaller cost increase compared to each of the Steam Deck SKUs, where you're looking at spending more to get more. It could simply be that this is a sales tactic by ASUS, to push most of its potential customers to buy the more expensive model.
13 Comments on Base Model ASUS ROG Ally Said to Cost US$599.99
1 - 699 USD for top model has been a wrong leak, and the price is likely to be 799 or even 899 USD
2 - This base model is a simple decoy product to make the top model look like a lot better deal if it is priced at 699 USD
This would mean the Ally is using, at best, LPDDR5 6400Mbps (total 102GB/s) instead of the SoC's maximum LPDDR5X 7500 (120GB/s). On such a bandwidth-starved GPU this should make a substantial difference.
I wonder if Asus will let people overclock the LPDDR5, as it could be very beneficial to performance.
But the answer is probably yes; I'm starting to see these more often even in my local area (and it's not a progressive city by any means). Even saw a group of players just chilling at the park playing on their Decks.
videocardz.com/newz/aokzoe-a1-pro-console-with-ryzen-7-7840u-phoenix-apu-has-a-retail-price-of-999
That being said, still happy I only paid $360 for my Deck, it's been the best $360 I have spent in ages.