We know more about this future portable game console intended to compete with the Steam Deck

News hardware We know more about this future portable game console intended to compete with the Steam Deck

Vaguely teased by Ayaneo last April, the Ayaneo Air is revealed a little more via a new communication from its manufacturer. As a reminder, the Aya Neo Air is a portable console that is aesthetically halfway between a Nintendo Switch OLED and a Steam Deck. But unlike the Valve machine, it natively embeds Windows (10 or 11, it’s yet to be seen).

Lighter than Switch OLED, cheaper than Ayaneo 2021

To give new information on its new portable console, Ayaneo does not hesitate to put it against the competition. This allows us to learn that the Ayaneo Air will be lighter than the Switch OLED, which weighs 420 grams. However, Ayaneo does not reveal the weight of its console.

The manufacturer continues to provide information by comparison when discussing the price of its new machine, which will be cheaper than the Ayaneo 2021. This model costs 1015 dollars, which is far from negligible. The Ayaneo Air can be expected to cost less than $1,000, a psychological threshold for many potential buyers. We can even hope that it approaches the price of the Nintendo Switch OLED, which is around 350 euros.

On Discord, Ayaneo has released some photos that compare its new console to the Steam Deck, which is much larger. We note that the screen, which will be an OLED panel, is for the time being carefully hidden by the manufacturer.

Some concrete specs unveiled

We know, however, that the Ayaneo Air will be equipped with a Ryzen 5000 APU with an iGPU RX Vega : a configuration that should limit the experience with AAA games to 30 fps at 720p, with low settings most of the time. For less demanding games, it will be possible to run them in 1080p and 60 fps, with default graphics settings. A video shows titles like Axiom Verge 2, Dead Cells, Hollow Knight and Stardew Valley running smoothly, but the graphical slap is not there, as one might imagine.

However, Ayaneo seems to place the interest of the Ayaneo Air elsewhere than in its in-game performance. The manufacturer relies on its featherweight and on its screen, which should cover 109% NTSC color space, a proposal never before seen on the brand’s devices. An X-axis linear motor will be in charge of vibrations and we can count on an RGB backlight, as well as a microSD card reader.

What is the Ayaneo Air release date?

For now, Ayaneo has not yet communicated on the release period of this new console. The manufacturer is still trying to stir up interest around this model, and we imagine that it still has things to say about it. Let’s bet that we will have to find good additional arguments to motivate buyers: the final price could be one, if it is reasonable.