Quirky tech manufacturer Ayaneo has just released a teaser for a new device, which it modestly says is set to “redefine” the experience of handheld gaming. According to the teaser video, the new Ayaneo 3 is codenamed Revo, which is short for “revolution.” We’re then given a few glimpses of the device, although we have to say, none of it looks particularly revolutionary at the moment.
The manufacturer has form for innovation in the portable gaming market, though, with the Ayaneo Slide featuring a physical keyboard under the screen, for example, and the Ayaneo AG01 Graphics Starship upgrading your laptop to an external AMD Radeon GPU, while looking like a retro toy spaceship. Maybe there’s something we’re not seeing in the teaser that will help the new Ayaneo device take the fight to the Steam Deck in the battle to make the best gaming handheld.
According to Ayaneo, the new device’s Revo codename symbolizes “disruption and innovatioon [sic],” so we have to hope that it’s more than just another portable Windows gaming device. In our recent Ayaneo interview, the company’s CEO, Arthur Zhang, told us that it wanted to bring “inspiration and creative new products to players” in the handheld marker.
The company certainly knows how to make a powerful handheld, as we saw with the Ayaneo Kun, which features an 8.4-inch 1600p display and a powerful eight-core AMD Ryzen 7 7840U APU containing a Radeon 780M GPU. With the new AMD Ryzen Z2 Extreme expected to feature a hefty new RDNA 3.5 GPU with 1,024 stream processors in the near future, Ayaneo might have a powerful handheld waiting in the wings.
Even better, it might even be using a full APU again, as it did with the Kun. If it’s based on the rumored new AMD Strix Halo platform, it could potentially have a really powerful GPU with 2,560 stream processors, making its graphics hardware potentially more powerful than the Radeon RX 7600 XT.
This is all just speculation, though. What we do know from the video about the Ayaneo 3 is that it has big curved contours for your hands under the controls so you can grip the device, and that it has a pair of thumbsticks. Unlike the Steam Deck, the latter aren’t placed symmetrically on either side of the screen either, but instead have the left stick at the top, and the right stick a bit further down, a bit like the Nintendo Switch layout. The video also clearly shows shoulder buttons on the top of the device.
Meanwhile, Ayaneo’s blurb says that the device is designed for all gamers, including the “performance enthusiast, hardcore player, or casual entertainment enthusiast,” while also saying it will meet all “expectations for flagship Windows handheld devices.” That’s all we know about it so far. It may not look revolutionary in the teaser images so far, but let’s hope Ayaneo does something interesting with it.
If you’re looking to buy a new handheld right now, check out our Asus ROG Ally X review, as well as our Lenovo Legion Go review, where we take these new devices for a spin.
