The $900 Ayaneo 3 Is The Most Exciting Pc Handheld The Company’s Yet Made

Ayaneo builds nan best-looking handheld PCs successful nan business, but they’ve ever been boutique. The 2023 Ayaneo 2, for example, costs $1,300 for an arguably worse acquisition than nan $400 Steam Deck. But that acquisition isn’t dampening my excitement for nan caller 7-inch Ayaneo 3.

Not only does this 1 commencement astatine $900, incorrect striking region of nan highest-end handhelds you’ll find astatine retail, it’s nan astir feature-packed portable I’ve seen — pinch 2 USB4 ports and OcuLink and RGB-ringed Hall effect joysticks and your premier of 2 seemingly slayer screens. Perhaps astir exciting: a measurement to yet spread a handheld’s joystick and fastener layout to lucifer your ergonomic preferences!

Just watch:

Ayaneo is calling nan Ayaneo 3 “the world’s first modular handheld,” because there’ll beryllium different modular options too. An different $139 buys a group of six modules that fto you move retired your joysticks for analog sticks, a six-button microswitch pad for fighting games, aliases moreover D-pads and look buttons pinch conductive silicone underneath for a different feel.

But importantly, that basal module that lets you alteration joystick and fastener predisposition and move joystick caps comes pinch nan handheld by default, and it’s not nan only characteristic Ayaneo is impressively cramming into nan $900 kit.

While you’ll “only” get a Ryzen 8840U, 16GB of LPDDR5X RAM, and 512GB of retention that that worth — nary Z2 option, and nan HX 370 exemplary starts astatine $1500 — you do get your premier of OLED aliases IPS correct away.

That OLED aboveground is simply a 1080p 144Hz HDR OLED expanse promising 800 nits of world brightness and 110 percent of nan DCI-P3 colour gamut, specs which propose it could moreover deed nan Steam Deck OLED’s fantabulous screen.

Like nan Deck OLED, it unluckily doesn’t personification adaptable refresh title for added smoothness — but if that’s important, nan IPS expanse action does! That one’s a 120Hz, 500-nit, autochthonal scenery 1080p display, according to nan company, pinch 7ms consequence clip and only 100 percent sRGB sum (read: obscurity adjacent arsenic colorful arsenic nan OLED panel).

On apical of each that, nan Ayaneo 3 comes modular pinch immoderate apical and bottommost USB4 ports, immoderate of which are tin of 65W PD charging, positive nan still-rare-on-handhelds Oculink larboard for eGPUs, and it takes full-length M.2 2280 SSDs for easy retention upgrades.

Plus, there’s a dedicated hardware mode move connected nan bottommost separator to move nan controller and virtual-mouse-and-keyboard modes. I uncertainty that will dress up for nan existent authorities of Windows, but it could help! Also, caller trigger locks for its Hall effect triggers, if you want to move them into a hairsbreadth trigger mode.

I do personification a less hesitations, moreover without having touched nan Ayaneo 3. First, nan institution says its modules electronically latch into nan model — you personification to eject them by pressing a package button, which activates a centrifugal to merchandise nan latch. Sounds perchance fiddly?

Second, I’m sorry to study that this 1.5-pound handheld only fits a 49 watt-hour battery, moreover though nan Asus ROG Ally X manages to caller an 80 watt-hour battalion into astir nan aforesaid weight. Fingers crossed, but I wouldn’t expect awesome artillery life coming pinch neither a elephantine artillery battalion nor a peculiarly handheld-optimized chip.

Lastly, it’s ever important to constituent retired that these products are crowdfunded, and while Ayaneo has a history of delivering its promised handhelds, they haven’t ever been awesome — and this is nan astir eager 1 yet. If that sounds worthwhile, you tin find nan Ayaneo 3 connected Indiegogo here.

The institution says nan handheld should alloy astatine nan extremity of April; here’s nan afloat worth breakdown.