The AYA Neo Air Plus is a handheld gaming PC with a 6 inch, 1920 x 1080 pixel IPS LCD touchscreen display, built-in game controllers with hall sensors and hall trigger buttons, stereo speakers, dual microphones, and four different processor options including Intel Alder Lake, AMD Mendocino, and AMD Rembrandt chips.
When AYA first announced plans for the Air Plus last summer, some of those chips hadn’t actually been released yet and AYA promised an extraordinarily ambitious starting price of less than $300 for entry-level configurations. Now the company is preparing to launch a crowdfunding campaign and the actual prices are a lot higher. The AYA Neo Air Plus should begin shipping to backers in April, 2023.
Prices will start at $549 during crowdfunding for the cheapest model, which features a 15-watt AMD Ryzen 3 7320U processor with 4 Zen 2 CPU cores and 2-core RDNA 2 graphics. While that’s $50 off the $599 retail price, it’s still about twice as much as the company had originally said its entry-level model would cost.
And, as it turns out, while AMD’s Mendocino processors offer decent bang for the buck when it comes to CPU performance, they aren’t exactly graphics powerhouses. So while a $250 – $300 handheld with a Mendocino chip might be compelling, I’m less certain that a model that sells for $600 and up is a good buy.
AYA is also launching a version of the Air Plus with a 15-watt Intel Core i3-1215U Alder Lake-U processor featuring Intel UHD graphics with 64 execution units. This is the company’s first Intel-powered handheld and prices will start at $599 during crowdfunding (or $649 at retail) for a model with 8GB of RAM and 128GB of storage.
But if you really like the AYA Neo Air Plus design and want decent gaming performance, your best bet is to pick up the most powerful (and expensive model). Prices start at $889 during crowdfunding (or $979 at retail) for a model with an AMD Ryzen 7 6800U processor, 16GB of RAM and 512GB of storage.
AYA will also offer upgrade options for every model in the series. Intel and Mendocino versions support up to 16GB of RAM and up to 512GB of storage, while the Ryzen 7 6800U version tops out at 32GB of RAM and 2TB of storage.
Each version of the handheld gaming PC has two USB4 ports, a headphone jack and a microSD card reader with support for data transfer speeds up to 100MB/s. The handheld is powered by a 46.2 Wh battery and comes with a 65W fast charger. It has a fan for active cooling, supports WiFi 6 and Bluetooth 5.2 and has a fingerprint sensor in the power button.
Here’s a comparison table showing the similarities and differences between models with different processors:
| AYA Neo Air Plus (Intel) | AYA Neo Air Plus (Mendocino) | AYA Neo Air Plus (Rembrandt) | |
| Processor | Intel Core i3-1215U 2 P-cores / 4 E-cores 8 threads 4.4 GHz max freq 15W |
AMD Ryzen 5 7520U 4 Zen 2 cores / 8-threads 2.8 GHz – 4.3 GHz 15W AMD Ryzen 3 7320U 4 Zen 2 cores / 8 threads 2.4 GHz – 4.1 GHz 15W |
AMD Ryzen 7 6800U 8 Zen 3+ cores / 16 threads 2.7 GHz – 4.7 GHz 28W |
| Graphics | Intel UHD for 12th-gen 1.1 GHz max freq 64 execution units |
AMD Radeon 610M 2 x RDNA 2 GPU cores |
AMD Radeon 680M 12 x RDNA 2 GPU cores |
| Display | 6 inches 1920 x 1080 pixels 368 ppi IPS LCD 400 nits 120{2c093b5d81185d1561e39fad83afc6c9d2e12fb4cca7fd1d7fb448d4d1554397} sRGB color gamut 85{2c093b5d81185d1561e39fad83afc6c9d2e12fb4cca7fd1d7fb448d4d1554397} DCI-P3 color gamut 5-point multitouch |
||
| RAM | 8GB / 16GB LPDDR5-5200 |
8GB / 16GB LPDDR5-5500 |
16GB / 32GB LPDDR5-6400 |
| Storage | 128GB / 512GB M.2 2280 SSD |
512GB / 1TB / 2TB M.2 2280 SSD |
|
| Controllers | Dual analog sticks with hall sensors Hall trigger buttons Action buttons D-Pad Adjustable RGB lighting |
||
| Battery | 46.2 Wh | ||
| Charging | 65W USB Type-C | ||
| Ports | 2 x USB4 Type-C 1 x 3.5mm audio jack 1 x microSD card reader |
||
| Wireless | WiFi 6 Bluetooth 5.2 |
||
| Audio | Stereo speakers Dual microphones 3.5mm headset jack |
||
| Dimensions | 237 x 91.4mm x 23.1mm (at thinnest point) | ||
| Weight | 510 grams | 525 grams | |
| Colors | Glacier Blue Starlight Black |
Glacier Blue Starlight Black Classic Grey |
|
| Starting Price | $599 / $649 (crowdfunding / retail) |
$549 / $599 (Ryzen 3 7320U) $649 / $699 (Ryzen 5 7520U) (crowdfunding / retail) |
$889 / $979 (crowdfunding / retail) |
AYA will also offer optional accessories including a carrying case and a docking station with HDMI, Ethernet, USB-A and USB-C ports. The dock will be available in almond and “graphite black” colors.
via AYANeo