Just a few months after releasing its 2021 Pro, Ayaneo has three new models of handhelds. The Next series includes the base model, the Next Pro, and the Next Advance, which all have a 7-inch LCD touchscreen with 1,280 x 800 resolution, a fingerprint sensor, and Hall effect joysticks and triggers.
The three Next models won’t include AMD’s just-announced Ryzen 6000 series processors for laptops, but Ayaneo CEO Arthur Zhang said that exclusion was on purpose. The Next series is built with 47Wh/4,100 mAh 11.55V Li-ion batteries, USB PD 3.0 and DisplayPort 1.4 ports, and 3.5mm jacks. The Next models come in at 720 grams, or about a pound and a half, so you can easily bring this handheld anywhere.
“AMD's 6000 series APUs will be released soon and, not surprisingly, availability may take until the end of the year,” Zhang said in a blog post. “It's not our intention to release the Next and then make people wait until the end of the year to get their hands on the device.”
Ayaneo’s Next base model starts at $1,265, which is about $700 more than the Steam Deck’s base model. It’s not clear if Ayaneo is positioning themselves to be a direct competitor to Steam Deck or to dominate the higher end of the handhelds market, but all of their models so far have leaned towards powerful specs and steep price tags.