One eagle-eye Redditor has spotted that the Aya Neo Founder Edition has gone up for preorder in China. The handheld gaming console will compete with the Nintendo Switch and other rivals, including the Smach Z and the GPD Win Max.
The Aya Neo Founder Edition focuses on gaming portability and possesses a design that's similar to the mainstream Nintendo Switch. The device measures 255 x 106 x 20mm and weights in at 650g. It features a transparent body and --in a nod to the PC gaming word -- RGB lighting.
While you may dig or dislike the design, the Aya Neo Founder Edition's true value lies in its hardware. AMD's Ryzen 5 4500U (codename Renoir) APU is responsible for both processor and graphical workloads. In case you're not familiar with the 7nm APU, the Ryzen 5 4500U is a hexa-core 15W chip that's based on the Zen 2 microarchitecture. It lacks simultaneous multithreading (SMT), but boasts an impressive boost clock speed up to 4 GHZ. The cooling solution appears to employ two copper heat pipes, which are 8mm in diameter, attached to a copper radiator that relies on a small cooling fan.
On the graphics end, the Ryzen 5 4500U is equipped with six Vega Compute Units (CUs) running up to 1,500 MHz, which should be more than enough to push modern AAA titles at the resolution that the Aya Neo Founder Edition displays.
The Aya Neo Founder Edition ships with 16GB of LPDDR4X-4266 memory. Customers have the option to choose between a 512GB or 1TB NVMe SSD. The drive appears to be the SN550 M.2 2280 SSD from Western Digital.
The handheld gaming device features a 7-inch IPS touch display that boasts a resolution of 1280 x 800 with a 215 ppi density. The Aya Neo Founder Edition is based on Windows 10, so the button layout is similar to an Xbox controller, with the addition of an array of task-specific buttons. There's also a gyroscope and gravity sensor present in the design.
The Aya Neo Founder Edition features a pair of stereo speakers, but there's also a standard 3.5mm audio jack for connecting your headphones. In regards to connectivity, the device provides three USB-C ports, Wi-Fi 6 and Bluetooth 5.0. As a result, you can pair a standard wired or wireless keyboard or mouse with the Aya Neo Founder Edition so you can navigate and perform ordinary Windows tasks. Lastly, the miniature gaming device comes with a 47 Whr battery and supports 65W fast charging.
The 512GB version of the Aya Neo Founder Edition sells for around $600, while the 1TB version costs $680. Currently, the company only sells the device in the Chinese market and doesn't accept overseas orders. However, the creator is contemplating whether to start an Indiegogo campaign so that its interested customers outside China can get their hands on the device at a fair price.
