You could buy a gaming laptop for college, but you could also get the excellent Asus ROG Ally for just $499 instead

Headed off to college soon and need a gaming setup? One option is a gaming laptop. Another option is a powerful gaming handheld like the Asus ROG Ally, which, conveniently, is currently on sale for just $499 (was $649) at Best Buy today.

Today's deal is for the higher-end 'Extreme' version of the handheld, which is the one I'd recommend to most people since it's capable of squeezing the most out of this model's 120Hz 1080p display. While it's been $50 cheaper on one occasion, this is still a great deal for one of the best-performing handhelds on the market right now.

You can check out our Asus ROG Ally hands-on review to see why we called this model 'A worthy competitor to the Steam Deck'. We're particularly big fans of the minimalist and lightweight design, and performance, as expected, is fantastic for such a small device.

Asus ROG Ally deal at Best Buy

Asus ROG Ally Z1 Extreme: was $649.99 now $499.99 at Best Buy

The Asus ROG Ally could be your new favorite handheld gaming PC to take out and about with you – especially if you pick one up with such a good deal. It has a seven-inch 1080p full HD touchscreen with a smooth 120Hz refresh rate so it looks great. Powered by AMD’s Ryzen Z1 Extreme CPU, you can play plenty of games without any hassle while 512GB of storage means you can store many at once. You can also dock it to play on your TV or monitor.

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• See more: check out all of today's gaming deals at Best Buy

Today's deal on the ROG Ally at Best Buy makes it a very, very compelling alternative to the more well-known Steam Deck. If you're interested in seeing how these two models stack up, then I'd recommend checking out our Steam Deck vs Asus ROG Ally page. The Ally is the more powerful of the two, but the Steam Desk does have a better OS and battery life. That said, they're both great choices if you can get them at a discount.