Following in the footsteps of the AYANEO Slide, AYANEO has announced the follow-up to the well-received AYANEO Air, the AYANEO Air Plus is now live on the crowd-funding site IndieGoGo.
Revealed originally during the AYANEO conference, the new device boasts a larger screen, stronger performance, and as if listening to feedback, will include a longer-lasting battery.
That last part is worth focusing on as despite how wowed critics were with the AYANEO Air, its 30 to 90-minute battery life wasn’t ideal especially as it’s a Windows device that requires more juice than, say, the Steam Deck.
In an email to RetroResolve, AYANEO had the following to say regarding the move to IndieGoGo:
“After [the] new release event of the Air Plus on February 28, in order to meet the expectations and needs of users, we have pre-launched it on Indiegogo.”
AYANEO Air Plus Specifications
Three different models of the AYANEO Air Plus will be available, each of which utilizes a different processor.
At the lower end is the Intel i3 1215U, the medium offering comes equipped with the AMD Ryzen 5 7520U, and the biggest of the bunch makes use of the AMD Ryzen 7 6800U.
Just to put these specs in the perspective, the AMD Ryzen 7 6800U offers up more power than the Steam Deck. Of course, specs are never quite that simple, but in theory, the most powerful AYANEO Air Plus should outperform Valve’s handheld purely on a numbers basis.
- CPU: Intel i3 1215U/AMD Ryzen 5 7520U/AMD Ryzen 7 6800U
- Screen: Six-inch IPS display
- RAM: 8GB
- Joysticks: Hall effect
- Cooling: 28W heat dissipation
- Battery: 42.6 Wh
- USB: USB 4.0
- Misc: Fingerprint reader, RGB lighting
Price and Availability
AYANEO has yet to reveal any pricing info for the Air Plus yet, nor when it plans to launch the handheld. As noted above, mass production begins in February, so expect pre-order info to arrive once AYANEO knows how many consoles it can manufacture.
Conclusion
The AYANEO Air remains one of the most popular devices on the market. It feels great, the screen stuns, and there’s enough power there for PC gaming and emulation. But that battery, though. It wasn’t great.
The AYANEO Air Plus, then, aims to remedy its biggest flaw. While I don’t have pricing info as of yet, the idea of a more powerful AYANEO Air model with a larger battery capacity is exciting. That said, it’s all going to come to price.
For the specs AYANEO can charge more than the Steam Deck. But how much more are consumers willing to pay? That’s the question AYANEO will need to answer. Especially with the AYANEO Geek on the horizon.
