As memory shortages continue, somehow, the Asus ROG Xbox Ally is $100 off with three months of Game Pass for free

While the Steam Deck continues to receive all of the love in the PC handheld market, the Asus ROG Ally remains an excellent second place, with the newer Xbox Ally giving you a console-style experience – perfect for those who want to get stuck into some Game Pass titles without messing about with settings. And, even though AI is taking away all of our hardware and raising prices, this gem is $100 cheaper right now – and it comes with three months of Game Pass Premium for free. What a bonus.

As a contender for one of the best handhelds right now, the Asus ROG Xbox Ally finds a balance between great performance at a reasonable price. The 16GB of RAM is plenty for most modern games, and it helps the device breeze through anything relatively older or any indie games in your backlog, and the AMD Ryzen Z2 A chipset is no slouch either – it’s slightly slower than the Steam Deck, but you’re also avoiding the trials and tribulations of Linux. It also sacrifices some CPU power for better GPU performance, which in many cases is a preferred trade-off.

You’re still able to play all of your favorite Steam Deck games, installing Valve’s marketplace on the Xbox Ally, but you also have the benefits of being on a Windows operating system. That means no issues with some titles not booting up or anti-cheat systems blocking you. Destiny 2? Playable. Genshin Impact? Playable. There’s no need to work around some frustrating issues like the Steam Deck may have.

While we didn’t do a review of the base model, we do have an Asus ROG Xbox Ally X review, where Sam calls it “a comfortable, powerful piece of kit that will serve you well if this is your first handheld PC.” His 7/10 score points towards a lacking upgrade over the standard Ally X, as well as the high price, but if the standard Xbox Ally is cheaper and is your first handheld, this shouldn’t be a worry, and you’re benefiting from three months of Xbox Game Pass Premium, too. That’s seemingly endless amounts of games, so you don’t have to worry about shelling out more money to buy some.

Typically, the standard Xbox Ally goes for $599.99 for the 512GB model. Despite PlayStation raising its prices on PS5 consoles and the whole AI takeover causing tech to get stupidly expensive, the Asus ROG Xbox Ally is only $499.99 / £449 on Amazon right now, making it $100 (£50) cheaper and with the same Game Pass offer. Not a bad deal, in my eyes.

So, if you’ve been looking for an excuse to spend all your free time playing on a new PC handheld, this Xbox Ally deal isn’t one to pass on. Now, if you don’t mind me, I’ve got to play Stardew Valley again on my Ally.