Not wanting to be complacent, Ayaneo has dropped its third handheld in the last 12 months. This began with with the Ayaneo Next, then the smaller Ayaneo Air Pro and now the company is taking things to the next level with the newly released Ayaneo 2 which has just hit Australian stores.
The Ayaneo 2 differs from its former two releases in the sense that it’s much more powerful than the Steam Deck and actually feels quite future proof in a lot of its features. The biggest barrier of entry is still the price at $2,099 AUD (grab it here), but at least as far as performance goes, it’s pushed ahead of what the Steam Deck offers.
In case you haven’t read one of my Ayaneo reviews before, these are Windows devices (in this case it comes pre-loaded with Windows 11) that can play games from any launcher, so you’re able to boot up the Xbox Game Pass app, or Steam, or Epic, or any emulator that you like.
The Ayaneo 2 has a 7-inch 1200p display that literally has no bezel, so as far as design goes, not only does the Ayaneo 2 feel great in the hands, it’s a much better looking device than the Ayaneo Next or other handhelds in this space. The biggest compliment that I can offer it is that it feels like the PlayStation Vita re-born.
Whilst other Ayaneo devices have been criticised for being behind or on par with the Steam Deck performance-wise, The Ayaneo 2 sports a Zen3+ 6800U chip which delivers much better raw power compared to the Steam Deck’s custom Zen2 chip, often offering a 15-25% increase in gaming performance.
This is evident when booting up the likes of Cyberpunk 2077 or Marvel’s Spider-Man Miles Morales, I was able to get a lot closer to 60FPS at 800p than I ever have been with the other Ayaneo devices. It felt like a much smoother experience than I’ve had on these handhelds previously, and honestly just impressed with every game that I booted up.
Cranking it beyond what the Steam Deck is capable of to a resolution of 1200p to make full use of the display and this still kept most AAA games at around the 30FPS mark, which was still more than respectable. With AMD FSR getting more advanced and better utilised, this should only get better and better.
Since I got the device, I’ve played Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 in bed most nights, and it just runs flawlessly without ever feeling like I’m dying due to performance issues. This is absolutely the first time I’ve used one of these devices and not felt like I’ve had to dial down settings or look to get that extra bit of performance, with the device being more than capable with anything that I threw at it.
With 16GB of memory and a 1TB SSD, it’s just crazy to me how close these are getting to proper computers, with the specs honestly outperforming a lot of what most everyday people would use as their daily driver. Whilst I’ll talk about the multi docking station a little bit later, this was the first time I actually connected one of these devices to a display and used it for a few days as a computer, and it just worked flawlessly, which goes a bit further in terms of bang for buck.
BUY IT FROM AMAZON FOR $2,099 AUD
As far as inputs go on the device, there’s three USB-C ports, two which can be used for charging and one for data. There’s also a MicroSD slot to easily expand storage and a fingerprint sensor on the power button. You also get two USB-A to USB-C adaptors in the box for connecting keyboards, mice or other accessories that might not have USB-C ports. Pretty much everything that you’d ever need both for gaming or computing is included.
Where this device feels better than the Steam Deck or previous Ayaneo products is that not only does it perform really, really well with AAA games, but it also feels future proof. You can connect an external GPU enclosure to the unit, to beef it up at your desk, and the SSD can be replaced with another standard SSD, if you’re wanting to increase storage. Neither of these things are necessary out of the box, but knowing it can be upgraded goes a long way to knowing you’re going to get long-term value.
It’s no secret that battery life is an issue with any portable device, and once again, it was on the shorter side here. You’re looking at 1.5-2 hours with a AAA game pushing at a 1200p resolution with the grunt required for the performance that I’ve spoken about, with this being a lot longer for indie games. Ayaneo is making some good progress towards getting this higher with a new app called SmartTDP which really cleverly uses only the exact amount of power required to push the desired frame rates, resulting in a longer battery life, but don’t expect to use it on long haul flights and such without a power bank.
As mentioned, the Ayaneo 2 runs Windows 11 which is a huge positive for playing absolutely any game that you already own (and not just on Steam) as well as emulation, which obviously this machine excels at, but it’s also still a bit of a negative in the sense that Windows wasn’t really designed to be used with a touch screen. It’s absolutely fine if you’re just booting a game, and not an issue once you’re in, but it can still have its quirks if needing to navigate around, with it often being much easier to just pair a keyboard and mouse (which is super easy to do with Bluetooth or with a dongle).
AyaSpace is the device’s front-end loader, and it does a great job at providing an overlay with quick access to changing brightness and how much power you’re using, as well as sorting your games from all of your launchers and displaying them. There were still a few bugs, particularly when changing resolution or not loading games in, but it’s constantly being updated and worked on. As cool as a design feature that it is, I still found inconsistencies with the lighting up of the analogue sticks as well, particularly when having the device next to me and trying to sleep.
Ayaneo has launched a new multi docking station alongside this device. It can work with any of its products, but I can’t tell you how much this improved the experience. Not only did it mean that I could easily charge the device at all times, it also made connecting a monitor via HDMI as well as keyboards/mice a breeze. As I mentioned earlier, you could now literally use this as your daily driver without any issues, then pick it up to take it to bed and game.
Really though, this is a versatile portable Windows device, whether you’re playing the latest AAA games, doing some Photoshop work at your desk or wanting a really good emulation device, despite the fact that it’s expensive, it does feel great from a performance point of view, and a lot closer to the uncompromised handheld dream I’ve always had.
