Portable gaming pcs are loved by many of us in the PC Gamer hardware office, and we especially like Asus ROG Ally. The only thing I wanted it to have was a large screen, as a 7-inch 1080p panel limits how much you can do with Windows. One creative modder doubled the amount of screen space allies and by making clamshell attachments for extra touchscreens

Using a combination of ready-made parts and self-designed 3D printed items, modder Kira Patel (Via Hot Hardware) is an ingenious solution against the relative lack of display size of ROG Ally. An extra screen is a cheap portable 7-inch 1024x600IPS panel that is usually designed to be used with something like a Raspberry Pi.

The first hurdle to overcome is the fact that Ally can only support an external monitor through a USB Type-C port, whereas a small external screen uses an HDMI port. It was resolved as a result.

Then to get mounted on an ally, Patel designed a mount that could function like a clamshell system — an extra screen is needed The design file is available on Thingiverse, so it consists of only 5 parts that anyone using a reasonable 3D printer can replicate.

Instructions on how to build the whole are on Github, but don't worry — that repository usually hosts coding projects to be honest, it doesn't really need much in a way of serious rewiring, just a spot of cutting here and there, a fair bit of glue, and a whole

I'm not critical here because Moder himself writes that the project is "more for fun than anything else.""It doesn't seem to be possible to keep the screen permanently connected to Ally's USB port, as there is no indication that the design can access the USB-HDMI adapter's charging port.

But it's hardly a big problem and if you enjoy the spot of mods yourself, I'll be interesting to see if someone comes up with a better way to extend ROG Ally's display capabilities in the meantime it's hard to come up with a fix. Another 1080p panel is best, but finding a super slim and lightweight panel is the real challenge.

At least with this mod, you can play Stardue Valley spots while watching your favorite movies at the same time. And you never know, it might inspire Asus to build an add-on for its allies that do the same. oh mods, there's nothing they can't do?