Aya Neo vs. Steam Deck: Lots of new gaming handhelds with Ryzen

This year there is movement in the handheld market since Valve released the Steam Deck, although the handheld is currently no longer available for purchase. The Americans get competition from China right after the release. Aya offers the Neo Next in different versions from a good 1,200 euros. Now the Chinese have the same three new versions of the Neo presented. In addition to the Neo 2, the entry-level Neo Air and the Neo Slide will soon be on the market.

Aya Neo 2 is said to offer twice the performance of the Steam Deck

The currently available Aya Neo Next contains an AMD Ryzen 7 5825U and an AMD Radeon Vega 8 as graphics unit. The chipset can access 16 GiByte LPDDR4X-4266 RAM and PC games can be stored on an NVMe SSD with one terabyte of storage space. As a successor, Aya has now introduced the Neo 2. With the built-in Ryzen 7 6800U, the upcoming handheld should be twice as fast as the Steam Deck. According to Videocardz, the built-in graphics unit could use twelve instead of six compute units and achieve a clock rate of up to 2.2 GHz. In purely mathematical terms, the Aya Neo 2 would therefore offer 3.38 TFLOPS of performance and thus offer twice as much performance as the Steam Deck. However, it is unclear how the chips are cooled and how severely the performance is throttled during operation due to thermal conditions. In addition to the new chipset, LPDDR5 RAM with a clock frequency of 6,400 MHz and a fingerprint reader are also installed.

• Aya Neo 2021: 7-inch screen with 1,280 x 800 pixels, AMD Ryzen 5 4500U or AMD Ryzen 7 4700U (only in the Pro model), 16 GiByte RAM, AMD Radeon Vega 6 or Vega 8 (only in the Pro model), 1 terabyte SSD or 2 terabyte SSD (only in the Pro model), Windows 11. Price: From around 1,200 euros.
• Aya Neo Next: 7-inch, 1280 x 800 pixel screen, AMD Ryzen 7 5825U, AMD Radeon Vega 8, 16 GiByte LPDDR4X-4266 RAM, 1 Terabyte SSD, Windows 11. Price: $1,315.
• Aya Neo Air: OLED screen with 5.5 inches and 1,920 x 1,080 pixels, AMD Ryzen 5000U, AMD Radeon Vega 8, 16 GiByte LPDDR4X-4266 RAM, 1 Terabyte SSD, Windows 11. Price: 622 euros (converted)
• Aya Neo 2: 7-inch screen with 1,280 x 800 pixels, AMD Ryzen 7 6800U, 16 GiByte LPDDR5-5600 RAM, 1 Terabyte SSD, Windows 11. Price: Not yet known.
• Aya Neo Slide: Same hardware as the Aya Neo 2. In addition, there is a physical keyboard that slides out. Price: Not yet known.

In addition to the Neo 2, Aya also introduced the Neo Air. This should be the new entry-level model of the Neo series. What is new is that the Neo Air comes with an OLED touchscreen that has been reduced to 5.5 inches and has a Full HD resolution. Similar to the previous Aya Neo 2021, an APU based on Ryzen 5000 also works in the Air to keep costs low. In China, the Aya Neo Air is offered at a price of 4,399 yuan, which corresponds to around 622 euros. At that price, even the entry-level model would be more expensive than the Steam Deck. It is still unclear when the two new competitors for the Steam Deck will also be offered in this country. The manufacturer also showed the Neo Slide on Twitter, which will have the same hardware as the Aya Neo 2. What is certain is that the slide model has a physical keyboard hidden in the case, which can be seen under the screen when needed.

Also worth reading: Steam Deck vs Aya Neo Next: Youtuber shows performance test of handheld consoles

Collection for new models of the Aya Neo series:

• The Chinese manufacturer Aya has introduced new gaming handhelds designed to compete against the Steam Deck. The new entry-level model is the Aya Neo Air with a 5.5-inch OLED screen and Ryzen 5000.
• Also new is the Aya Neo 2, which relies on the Ryzen 7 6800U instead of Ryzen 5000 and is said to deliver 3.38 TFLOPS of performance in combination with the new Radeon graphics unit. So the second iteration of the Aya Neo would be twice as powerful as the Steam Deck.
• It is unclear when the new gaming handhelds will be launched. In China, the Aya Neo Air is to be sold for the equivalent of 622 euros. The Aya Neo 2, on the other hand, is likely to be more expensive since the predecessor cost over 1,200 euros.

Sources: Aya Neo, Twitter