No Tricks: AYN Reveals Loki Range of Handheld Gaming PCs
Steam Deck rivals starting at $299
The launch of the Steam Deck seems to have tipped off a great many more handheld PC projects. The latest is the Loki from AYN, a range of five handhelds that starts cheap and can be specced up quite nicely. Thanks to Techpowerup and Liliputing for the lead on this one.
AYN has already released the Android-powered Odin, but Loki runs Windows. The machines come with a range of CPU options, most of them from AMD. The entry-level member of the pantheon, however, comes with an unnamed Intel Alder Lake U chip. The Loki Mini, with Iris Xe graphics and 64GB of storage (no information regarding RAM seems to be available for any of the Loki machines, though Odin came with a choice of 4GB or 8GB), will be sold for just $299. Storage appears to be replaceable across the range, so hopefully, new SSDs can be dropped in easily.
Step up the range a bit, and you get three Lokis with a Ryzen 5 6600U APU with six cores, 12 threads, a boost speed of up to 4.5GHz, and Radeon 660M graphics (six cores). These machines come with varying storage levels, from 64GB to 512GB, and prices range from $499 to $699.
The big boy at the top of the range is the Loki Max, which brings a Steam Deck-matching Ryzen 7 6800U APU (eight cores, 16 threads, 4.75GHz boost, Radeon 680M graphics with 16 cores) to the party. It's only available with 512GB of storage, and the amount of RAM is still undetermined. At $799, it's slightly more expensive than the equivalent Steam Deck, but comes with a copy of Windows instead of Linux, so that needs to be factored into the price.
The Loki range features two analog sticks, a D-pad, the usual four face buttons in an Xbox configuration, plus Select, Start and triggers. The screen looks similar to the Odin's 5.98 inch, 1080p display. There's a USB-C port around the back, plus a headphone jack, but that seems to be it. The Odin had a Switch-like dock that added USB Type-A and HDMI ports (plus, bizarrely, N64 and GameCube controller ports) ready to connect it to a big TV, so it's entirely likely Loki will do the same.
The Loki has yet to appear on the AYN website at the time of writing, but there's a product announcement on Facebook.
Row 0 - Cell 0 | CPU | GPU | RAM | Storage | Screen |
Steam Deck | AMD 6800U | Radeon 660M | 16GB | 64GB to 512GB | 7in 1280x800 |
Loki Mini | Undetermined Intel Alder Lake | Iris Xe | Unknown | 64GB | Unknown |
Loki Max | AMD 6800U | Radeon 680M | Unknown | 512GB | Unknown |
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Ian Evenden is a UK-based news writer for Tom’s Hardware US. He’ll write about anything, but stories about Raspberry Pi and DIY robots seem to find their way to him.
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srimasis This looks awesome. Hopefully they sell one in India. The 6600u option seems the best value for money. Heck even the $299 option is good for casual games and PS2/ Wii emulated games. You are basically getting a small windows tablet for the price.Reply -
SYNERDATA I thought the Steam Deck had a hybrid 4 core on Zen 2 with 8CU RDNA2 GPU.Reply
Ryzen 7 6800U is 8 Zen 3+ cores and 12CU RDNA2, not 16. -
salgado18 I'd love if AMD made a CPU with 6 Zen 3 cores and the RDNA2 680M. It would be cheaper, while keeping the graphics performance high. I bet these portable "consoles" would love it.Reply
Otherwise, these look great. I hope they are as good as they sound in the real world. -
Awev I just took a look at the website for Ayn and they have tabs for the Loki Mini, Loki, and Loki Max, and state 9:00 EST today. I guess it becomes official in less than 24 hours (less than 17 hrs as I type this). It will be interesting what the official specs and pricing will be. No track-pad included.Reply -
mitch074
Except it has the graphics capabilities of a pocket calculator. Base AMD model has twice the graphics power.escksu said:299 for the Intel one looks great. -
rluker5
I went with the Mini Pro Intel version.rluker5 said:I don't need it, but really want the base model.
Please let it have an HDMI out.
Mini Pro Intel has the 8505 and the Mini Intel has the 7305.
Really big difference between those 2 on the CPU side. IGPU on both is the same. I plan on doing a little clock restraining on the 8505 to keep the CPU from throttling the IGPU.
Should be nice for emulating and playing some older games I want to for story that I don't like seeing on my large 4k.
Now I just have to wait :/