The Steam Deck’s largest weak spot is battery life — and but one way or the other, each challenger has failed to lift that bar. The Ayaneo 2 confirmed us that AMD’s Ryzen 6800U wasn’t able to compete; the Asus ROG Ally revealed that AMD’s Z1 Extreme couldn’t pull forward if Asus insisted on matching the Steam Deck’s 40 watt-hour battery pack.
But Ayaneo might have a solution: it’s stuffing a 75 watt-hour pack into a bigger, heavier handheld referred to as the Ayaneo Kun that — it now claims — can final nearly three and 1 / 4 hours at 15W TDP. That’s nearly double the battery and runtime you’d count on from a Steam Deck at that wattage, although it seems it wasn’t captured whereas enjoying a recreation, precisely.
Image: Ayaneo
We’ve talked about the Ayaneo Kun on The Verge a few instances earlier than, however immediately the firm revealed its full array of options, price, anticipated ship window, and that you just’ll be capable of crowdfund it on September fifth when you’re keen to pay with no ensures.
Personally, I’d wait. But there’s no query that this handheld has the strongest spec sheet but — beginning with a relatively massive 8.4-inch, 2560 x 1600, 500-nit, 90 % DCI-P3 shade IPS display.
Images: Ayaneo, Valve
Ayaneo appears to have heard how some individuals choose the Steam Deck’s ergonomics and a great deal of buttons to its personal earlier handhelds, too — so the Kun provides greater grips, twin touchpads (every with 4 distinct buttons beneath), quad again buttons, beefier triggers, and even a bit kickstand harking back to the authentic Nintendo Switch.
There’s additionally a bit Windows Hello front-facing digicam beneath the again/choose button for face login and streaming, one thing most handhelds have completely omitted — in addition to Hall Effect joysticks and triggers to keep away from drift, HD linear motors for rumble (like the Switch and DualSense), and an non-obligatory 4G module for mobile connectivity. There’s a nano-SIM slot hidden beneath the kickstand.
Image: Ayaneo
And whereas homes the identical AMD Ryzen 7840U chip you’ll discover in lots of boutique PC gaming handhelds this 12 months (the ROG Ally’s Z1 Extreme is a detailed cousin, too), the firm claims its large cooling system can crank that APU all the approach as much as 54 watts in its turbo mode — far greater than the 30-watt turbo on the Asus ROG Ally.
Image: Ayaneo
Is that sensible? Perhaps not, because it appears like largely a 7 % to 10 % enhance in framerates over the 30-watt mode in the firm’s personal exams. (Do, nonetheless, examine the leap from 34fps to 43fps in The Witcher 3.) Ayaneo straight up says “54W is not recommended for daily use as the main TDP.”
But the Kun additionally homes a full-length M.2 2280 SSD slot for as much as 8TB of inner storage, whereas the Deck and plenty of rivals high out at 2TB as a result of you’ll be able to solely match one chip on their single-sided M.2 2230 SSDs.
Image: Ayaneo
Ayaneo is pricing the Kun beginning at $1,209 retail for 16GB of RAM and 512GB of storage, stretching all the technique to $1,949 for 64GB of RAM and a 4TB SSD. Early fowl costs begin round $200 much less.
Image: Ayaneo
If you’re interested by the Ayaneo Kun, I might recommend three issues:
First, perceive that apart from battery, the largest concern with Steam Deck rivals is that they run Windows. It’s a bit counterintuitive (isn’t Windows the place the video games are?) however Windows is critically unoptimized for a handheld gaming PC, trackpads or no, and I run into all types of annoyances that the Steam Deck has already solved.
A observe on crowdfunding:
Crowdfunding is a chaotic discipline by nature: firms wanting for funding are likely to make massive guarantees. According to a examine run by Kickstarter in 2015, roughly 1 in 10 “successful” merchandise that attain their funding targets fail to really ship rewards. Of the ones that do ship, delays, missed deadlines, or overpromised concepts imply that there’s typically disappointment in retailer for these merchandise that do get finished.
The greatest protection is to make use of your greatest judgment. Ask your self: does the product look reputable? Is the firm making outlandish claims? Is there a working prototype? Does the firm point out present plans to fabricate and ship completed merchandise? Has it accomplished a Kickstarter earlier than? And keep in mind: you’re not essentially shopping for a product if you again it on a crowdfunding website.
Second, watch Taki Udon’s video embedded under. He’s a really skilled handheld reviewer who goes over the ergonomic tradeoffs in nice element.
Third, know that whereas Ayaneo has a fairly good observe document of transport slick {hardware}, the firm tends to be fire-and-forget. It has a behavior of very rapidly transferring onto its subsequent handheld gaming PC earlier than the earlier clients are happy. Its software program typically wants a lot of labor, is just not effectively localized for English audio system, and I’ve run into all types of bizarre bugs throughout the three Ayaneo handhelds I’ve tried.
Each Ayaneo handheld I’ve tried has been higher than the final, although, and their new Ayaspace 2.0 isn’t dangerous. I wager they nail it sooner or later.
…. to be continued
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