Portable gaming PCs have come a great distance. Much of the latest consideration has fallen on Valve’s Steam Deck, which simply began transport, however Valve didn’t invent the class — it’s following within the footsteps of a number of different merchandise from smaller firms.
Just a few years in the past, I reviewed the GPD Win, a breakthrough machine that basically repurposed netbook {hardware} right into a pocket-sized Windows gaming laptop computer. Performance on this class has been steadily enhancing, and the brand new Aya Neo Next is essentially the most superior Windows gaming handheld we’ve seen but. Aya Neo is a comparatively younger firm that shaped in 2020, but it surely’s already put out a couple of well-regarded portables, and the Next is its first massive redesign. It’s obtainable to preorder now on Indiegogo with transport set for mid-April.
Comparisons to the Steam Deck are inevitable, and I encourage you to learn our review of that machine as effectively. In some areas, like worth and efficiency, Valve has a transparent benefit. In others, although, the Aya Neo Next stakes a robust declare for relevance.
The Aya Neo Next has a extra standard design than the Steam Deck. Both units are constructed round comparable 7-inch 1280 x 800 LCD panels, however whereas Valve has added haptic trackpads and stretched the D-pad and face buttons method out to the perimeters, Aya Neo has opted for a extra simple structure in step with a Nintendo Switch. This makes for a smaller machine than the Deck — 267mm vast versus 298mm, and 30mm thick versus 49mm — at the price of slightly management flexibility. Valve included haptic trackpads in order that the Steam Deck can play video games that weren’t designed to work with controllers, which isn’t actually one thing that the Aya Neo Next will help except you wish to hook up a mouse. (As we’ll get into later, although, there are many video games it could possibly play that the Steam Deck can’t with out leaping by means of hoops.)
The controls which might be listed below are usually stable. The analog sticks and triggers have a great quantity of journey and use magnetic Hall-effect sensors, which Aya Neo says improves reliability and longevity over conventional bodily elements. I don’t love the D-pad, which has a excessive pivot level that may make it slightly difficult to make use of for quick diagonal enter in preventing video games, but it surely works precisely sufficient for four-way motion. There’s an Aya button under the best stick that brings up Aya Space, Aya Neo’s customized software program layer, whereas one other customizable button subsequent to it takes you to the Windows desktop by default. Up prime, there are quantity buttons and an influence button with an built-in fingerprint sensor. (The Steam Deck doesn’t have any type of login safety when you give it entry to your account, not even the choice for a password.) Aya additionally offers you a USB-C port on each the highest and backside edges, which is a considerate contact that provides you extra flexibility to cost (or dock) the machine whereas utilizing it in varied conditions. A headphone jack is situated on the highest, and there are stereo audio system on the underside.
I wouldn’t describe the Aya Neo Next’s construct high quality as premium, precisely, but it surely’s minimalist and unfussy. The soft-touch plastic on the again (which Aya Neo upsettingly calls a “BabySkin texture”) helps with consolation, as do the controller-like protrusions on the underside. I’ve massive fingers and discover it simpler to carry and use than a Switch, although that isn’t saying a lot. At slightly over 1.5 lbs, although, you gained’t wish to maintain it upright for too lengthy with out having someplace to relaxation your elbows.
The display isn’t spectacular however will get the job finished. It’s an IPS panel with precisely the identical dimension and sharpness because the Steam Deck’s, and whereas I haven’t had an opportunity to match them facet by facet, the Aya Neo Next’s colour copy is sweet. It doesn’t get extraordinarily vibrant, although, and the glass is sort of reflective (there’s no choice for the etched glass of the costliest Steam Deck mannequin) — in addition to being a fingerprint magnet. I’m unsure I’d take this to the park on a sunny day.
The inner {hardware} is centered round an AMD Ryzen 7 5800U or 5825U APU. That offers you eight Zen 3 cores that may run as much as 16 threads, which on paper ought to result in higher CPU efficiency than the quad-core Steam Deck (which additionally runs at a decrease clock velocity). The draw back is the built-in GPU, which is predicated on Vega 8 know-how and isn’t as quick because the Steam Deck’s newer RDNA 2 silicon — and GPU energy is, after all, greater than slightly necessary for gaming. The RAM can be LPDDR4X, whereas the Steam Deck has LPDDR5.
The particular mannequin I’ve been testing is the Aya Neo Next Advance, which not too long ago launched in restricted portions and offered out forward of the broader Indiegogo marketing campaign. The foremost distinction between the Next Advance, the Next, and the Next Pro, is that the Advance makes use of the 5800U, and the opposite two have the 5825U, which has a slight 100MHz velocity improve at a base clock of two.0GHz and 4.5GHz boosted. The Pro additionally has 32GB of RAM in comparison with 16GB on the opposite two fashions.
I can’t actually proceed at this level with out citing the value. The Aya Neo Next begins at $1,385, and the Steam Deck begins at $399. That’s not only a stark distinction; it’s a MacBook Air-sized hole. But there’s slightly extra to the comparability. First, the entry-level Aya Neo Next mannequin has a 1TB NVMe SSD (and a 2TB drive is a $100 improve), whereas the $399 Steam Deck has simply 64GB of a lot slower eMMC storage, and even the costliest $649 mannequin solely has a 512GB NVMe SSD. The Steam Deck does have a microSD slot, however that’s one other slower type of storage, and the largest playing cards obtainable are solely 1TB. It is unquestionably good to put in a ton of video games onto one quick 2TB SSD with out having to consider the place they’re going to be situated or how rapidly they’re going to load.
The Aya Neo Next additionally has to account for the price of a Windows 10 Home license, in addition to being made by an organization that should make a revenue on {hardware}. Valve doesn’t need to make a penny on Steam Deck gross sales so long as it’s helpful for the broader Steam ecosystem. That shouldn’t matter to customers, most of whom will fully understandably think about the Steam Deck to supply a greater bang for his or her buck. But it doesn’t imply there’s no place for the Aya Neo Next.
A giant motive why is that, effectively, it runs Windows. Microsoft’s venerable working system could not supply the best UI for a touchscreen gaming handheld, but it surely does have the benefit of getting offered the software program basis for nearly the whole PC gaming platform for many years. Valve’s Linux-based SteamOS 3.0 has are available in fairly scorching, and there are lots of video games that the Steam Deck can’t run that the Aya Neo Next has no drawback with.
Valve simply enabled Windows compatibility for the Steam Deck last week, but it surely’s nonetheless early days — you may’t dual-boot with SteamOS, for instance, and there’s nonetheless no speaker help. After testing Windows on the Steam Deck for 4 days, my colleague Sean Hollister says he bumped into even nastier glitches than he did with Linux, and doesn’t suggest most individuals attempt it till Valve or the group has secured higher drivers.
Meanwhile, you will get an affordable facsimile of the Steam Deck expertise just by setting the Aya Neo Next in addition Steam in Big Picture mode on launch, which supplies you a simplified interface that’s designed for controllers. It’s nonetheless working the older UI, although Valve has said it plans to interchange Big Picture mode with the brand new Deck interface on all PCs in some unspecified time in the future. If all of your video games are on Steam, Big Picture works effectively and means you don’t need to work together with Windows fairly often. Aya’s personal Aya Space overlay can be accessible with a single button press and might function a recreation launcher whereas additionally letting you replace firmware and regulate {hardware} settings like fan velocity and energy consumption. The Steam Deck helps you to fine-tune energy on Linux, however not Windows, and there’s presently no fan adjustment.
Windows being Windows, although, you may set up something you need. (You might conceivably use the Aya Neo Next as a desktop PC with a USB-C dock, although I didn’t do that out.) The Epic Games Store runs natively on the Aya Neo Next, that means you may play Fortnite, different Epic exclusives like Final Fantasy VII Remake, or the library of weekly free video games you’ll have been amassing for years. Microsoft’s Xbox app is one other helpful choice, that means Game Pass subscribers can play video games like Forza Horizon 5 and Halo Infinite on the Aya Neo {hardware} whereas syncing their progress with Xbox consoles. With Linux, the Steam Deck can’t even play Game Pass video games over cloud streaming, a lot much less set up them.
The Aya Neo Next additionally doesn’t have the problems the place, for varied causes, video games which might be truly on the Steam retailer nonetheless gained’t run on Valve’s {hardware}. Destiny 2, for instance, is completely playable on the Aya Neo Next, whereas Bungie has threatened to ban gamers who try and get it to run on Linux. Other main Steam titles which might be presently unplayable on the Steam Deck embrace PUBG, Lost Ark, Halo Infinite, and Dead by Daylight. I wouldn’t count on anybody to play multiplayer video games at a excessive aggressive stage on the Aya Neo Next, however I’ll say it’s the proper machine for rapidly knocking out some battle go quests.
Of course, Windows’ person interface typically poses issues, and typically you’ll miss not having a bodily keyboard, even a tiny one just like the GPD Win’s. Windows and Steam each have digital keyboards, however not like earlier Aya Neo fashions, there’s now not a devoted button to deliver it up, so typically, you’ll need to deliver up the desktop and faucet the tiny icon on the taskbar. While you may navigate round Windows with the controller to some extent, this confuses the working system once you’re in the course of a recreation, so it isn’t actually sensible in common use. Tasks like putting in mods right into a recreation’s folder are a ache with out connecting a mouse. And you’ll run into bugs typically — one bizarre glitch we discovered on each the Aya Neo Next and the Steam Deck with Windows is that we couldn’t get Red Dead Redemption 2 to run in fullscreen mode, despite the fact that it’s superb on SteamOS.
For the essential use case of putting in and launching video games, although, you not often have to work together with Windows, and once you do need to, it really works kind of as you’d count on. The Steam Deck’s software program is designed for the shape issue however feels unfinished; the Aya Neo Next’s is technically extra stable however simply seems like a clumsy match.
As for efficiency, I might say it’s usually in the identical ballpark because the Steam Deck however nearer to the bleachers than area stage. As anticipated, the Steam Deck’s sooner GPU interprets to higher efficiency in most video games we’ve examined straight towards one another. But I didn’t encounter something that was outright unplayable on the Aya Neo Next — at the least not due to its horsepower. On newer, demanding video games like Cyberpunk 2077, and God of War, I largely performed with a mixture of low and medium settings at native decision — which normally seems good on a display of this dimension — and focusing on 30 frames per second with V-sync on.
Those occur to be examples of video games that help AMD’s FidelityFX Super Resolution (FSR), which sadly isn’t a common function right here like it’s on the Steam Deck however is useful for getting a sharper image when it’s current. It makes use of reconstruction strategies to provide higher picture high quality when rendering at a decrease decision, and a reasonably low-powered machine with a small display is the best match.
As far as I can inform, most video games that run on a base Xbox One will run at the least as effectively on the Aya Neo Next, albeit at a decrease decision. Elden Ring, for instance, isn’t precisely the best-optimized PC recreation on the market, however I might maintain a stable 30fps on low to medium settings, not far under what we’re seeing on the Steam Deck. Most Xbox 360-era video games I examined, like Batman: Arkham Asylum, run on max settings at 60fps. Basically, you may play PC video games from any period so long as they’ve controller help, which sadly isn’t a given. The Steam Deck’s haptic trackpads won’t be an ideal alternative for a mouse, however they do considerably increase the variety of video games that it’ll run in any respect, significantly older titles.
That mentioned, you may obtain user-created Steam Input Xbox controller configurations simply superb on the Aya Neo Next, which could be useful for video games that don’t essentially require a mouse as a part of their design. That’s how I used to be capable of play the unique Half-Life, for instance, despite the fact that it isn’t listed as working with controllers. If it had been launched in 2022 as an alternative of 1998, it could have had dual-analog controller help like another trendy FPS, however that simply wasn’t an element again then.
The Aya Neo Next blows away the Switch on a technical stage, for sure. Monster Hunter Rise is without doubt one of the best-looking video games on Nintendo’s system, however this could simply run it on max settings and double the framerate. Doom Eternal additionally runs at 60fps on medium, an enormous enchancment on what was thought of a technically spectacular however clearly compromised Switch port. And the Switch’s equally herculean model of The Witcher 3 frankly seems unplayable subsequent to what you will get on a tool like this.
Since each the Steam Deck and the Aya Neo Next have 60Hz screens, it is smart to focus on 30fps or 60fps in most video games. The Steam Deck tends to have a framerate benefit in benchmarks, however in observe, the Deck’s further GPU energy will probably be greatest utilized in turning a couple of settings greater up than the Aya Neo Next whereas sustaining the identical locked framerate. Or, if they like, Steam Deck house owners can flip in the identical efficiency because the Aya Neo Next with the wattage turned down, saving energy. I haven’t come throughout a recreation that’s playable on the Steam Deck and never on the Aya Neo Next for pure horsepower causes, but it surely’s inevitable that examples will emerge down the road. There are video games that you simply would possibly wish to run on low settings on the Aya Neo Next which might be playable on the Steam Deck on medium, and ultimately, there’ll be video games that can solely run on the Steam Deck on low.
Unsurprisingly, the Aya Neo Next’s battery life isn’t nice. As with most gaming laptops and the Steam Deck, you may solely actually count on a few hours of high-intensity play once you’re away from an outlet, although the Aya Neo Next does at the least cost sooner than the Deck at as much as 65W with USB-C PD. Endurance varies not solely primarily based on which recreation you’re taking part in however which graphical settings you’re utilizing, whereas the easy Aya Space overlay offers you additional choices to decrease the wattage to increase battery life. The “balanced” choice is 15W, however there’s additionally a 20W “game” setting, an 11W power-saving mode, and a customized choice. You can regulate the fan velocity, too, which isn’t intolerably loud even at full blast however can nonetheless be heard over the audio system.
One unknown concerning the Aya Neo Next is how effectively it’ll be supported. Aya Neo is a comparatively new firm, and it’s at all times a threat shopping for one thing this costly from Indiegogo, although earlier Aya Neo handhelds have shipped efficiently. (Aya Neo even went so far as to ship “upgrade kits” for a latest {hardware} redesign that early adopters might slot their present motherboards and batteries into.) Still, Valve will seemingly be higher outfitted to cope with any Steam Deck issues which will come up. On the opposite hand, Valve isn’t capable of make wherever close to sufficient Steam Decks to fulfill demand — for those who haven’t bought a preorder in already, it appears unlikely you’ll have the ability to purchase one in 2022. That alone might make the Aya Neo Next a lovely choice for some folks since its worth will probably be much more aggressive when in comparison with Steam Deck resellers on eBay.
If you possibly can stroll right into a retailer and purchase a Steam Deck for $399, and its software program was much less buggy, and also you had been capable of painlessly set up Windows, it could be arduous to suggest the Aya Neo Next. But none of these issues are true but, so it’s price contemplating by itself deserves. Yes, you’re theoretically paying (quite a bit) extra for barely worse efficiency. But you’re getting rather more storage, extra suitable software program, and a design you could effectively favor.
The Steam Deck is a extra bold and doubtlessly mainstream product, however proper now, the Aya Neo Next does a greater job of reaching its extra modest, area of interest, pricier targets. Both merchandise are removed from excellent, however they present that really moveable PC gaming is now a viable class that’s solely going to develop from right here on out. I’m impressed with what Aya Neo has been capable of do with the Next, and I count on greater producers will get on board with this manner issue quickly sufficient.
Photography by Sam Byford / The Verge
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