While bigger players like Valve are entering the handheld gaming PC market with competitively-priced devices like the Steam Deck, it seems like smaller companies still want to be a viable alternative in this space. A few weeks after Valve announced its own handheld, AYA NEO came up with a new device of its own: the AYA NEO 2021 Pro. Their first device based on the AMD 4500U APU, which we previously reviewed, has been rebranded as the AYA NEO 2021. The China-based company released some information about its new handheld over the last weeks and we now have a better idea about its specs and pricing.

While it packs a similar look to its predecessor, the Pro 2021 model has upgraded internals on practically every front. It is based on the AMD Ryzen 7 4800U with an APU of 8 cores and 16 threads and a maximum frequency of 4.2GHz. It comes with 16 GB dual-channel LPDDR4X RAM at 4266MHz and an NVME M.2 SSD, available in 1T and 2T. The AYA NEO 2021 Pro features a 47Wh battery and with the new AYASpace software, users can quickly adjust TDP on-the-fly. For network connectivity, the devices comes with a built-in Bluetooth 5.0 module and a WiFi 6 module. The triggers are also been upgraded to analog ones and there are three color schemes for the console: Retro Power (which comes with a similar, retro-themed dock), dark star and light moon.

As for the dock, it is said to support up to 4K 60Hz Ultra HD and up to 10 Gbps data transfer. It also has up to 8 expansion ports and PD 1.4 fast charging support.

On the official AYA NEO website, the 1TB model of the AYA NEO 2021 Pro will sell for $1,315.00 (excluding shipping) while the price for the 2TB model has yet to be announced (it's not an option on the website either). It is expected to ship in mid-September.

Other themed accessories have also been announced like the mechanical keyboard, the GaN PD charger with 108W fast charging and a mini docking station. More details about these can be found on the official store page or the Indiegogo campaign's updates. However, pricing for these accessories haven't been announced yet.

​

Speaking of the Indiegogo campaign, an update from the company's CEO mentions that those who have backed the first generation of AYA NEO 2021 but haven't had their orders shipped yet can upgrade to the Pro version at an extra cost as shown below (more details in the campaign update):

While the AYA NEO 2021 and Pro versions are pricier than the Steam Deck, hopefully such competition can drive innovation in this space further and it's promising to see that the new management of AYA NEO to come forth with new products and software.

SOURCE

 

[subcon959]

People who sh1t on nintendo are ignorant. Nintendo never has and probably never will go for the latest and greatest hardware.

The Super Nintendo was incredible cutting edge hardware. N64 was lacking an optical drive otherwise it could've competed for a while. The Gamecube was held up by a couple things but on the whole was great tech. Nintendo didn't get into the underpowered hardware business until the Wii.

 

[Tom Bombadildo]

People who sh1t on nintendo are ignorant. Nintendo never has and probably never will go for the latest and greatest hardware.

LOL.

Nintendo always used to go for the latest and greatest hardware, it wasn't until the Wii that they dropped good hardware in favor of low end meh with gimmicks. The SNES had a much better GPU than the Genesis and pushed much better looking games, the N64 had overall better hardware than the PS1 in terms of both GPU and CPU performance, the GameCube's hardware was behind the XBOX (though much more efficient) but it put the PS2 to shame.

EDIT: 'd

 

[pedro702]

LOL.

Nintendo always used to go for the latest and greatest hardware, it wasn't until the Wii that they dropped good hardware in favor of low end meh with gimmicks. The SNES had a much better GPU than the Genesis and pushed much better looking games, the N64 had overall better hardware than the PS1 in terms of both GPU and CPU performance, the GameCube's hardware was behind the XBOX (though much more efficient) but it put the PS2 to shame.

EDIT: 'd

lol so your still caught in the past? gc was released in 2001 so for the last 20 years nintendo never used latest tech so why think they will just change their entire strategy whith the switch selling so well? makes no scene to be stuck on gc days.

Nintendo changed business strategy when both the n64 lost and the gamecube lost(was in third place sadly) so they changed their model 20 years ago and your still stuck on that?

Either go with it or not, but dont expect out of nowhere for nintendo to release a console even that can do 8k ust to go for gpu/cpu power competition...

 

[Kioku]

lol so your still caught in the past? gc was released in 2001 so for the last 20 years nintendo never used latest tech so why think they will just change their entire strategy whith the switch selling so well? makes no scene to be stuck on gc days.

Nintendo changed business strategy when both the n64 lost and the gamecube lost(was in third place sadly) so they changed their model 20 years ago and your still stuck on that?

Either go with it or not, but dont expect out of nowhere for nintendo to release a console even that can do 8k ust to go for gpu/cpu power competition...

You're overreaching... Something fierce. Nobody is demanding Nintendo release an 8k capable console. Let alone 4k.. Just something to bring them into 2021. The Switch has been out 4 years. The only "refresh" they've done short of better battery life is the new OLED model. Whereas their competitors are looking to give power users some hope in this market. No, not Sony and Microsoft. Believe it or not, Nintendo has separated themselves from those two.

Oh well... People will continue to buy the objectively worse product because of the brand. It's like the opposite of buying Alienware.

 

[shadow1w2]

For that price the novelty loses its point.
A more productive gaming laptop covers more bases for the price.
Steam Deck is a tough price to match but the support it'll get and the lower price make things more comfortable atleast fir the end user.

No way Aya Neo can lower the price but hey comes with a dock and Im just happy to see them still trying to inprove this thing but way out of my budget for the use case.

That gameboy controller though, that looks nce.

 

[64bitmodels]

if only nintendo could open their eyes and see that everyone does better than they do and its fans call them "innovative".

they should just shut down because their only use was to revive the gaming market after the 80s crash
if there's an indie alternative/other game that does a concept similar to nintendos, 9/10 its usually better on every front
the exception being Playstation all stars battle royale because it's shit

--------------------- MERGED ---------------------------

Nintendo can't upgrade the Switch's GPU without breaking comparability with all existing games because shaders are precompiled. The most they'd be able to do this generation for a Pro would be a beefier CPU and more ram. Fwiw I think the Switch is innovative. In 2017 how many portable hybrid gaming machines were there? Your only choices were a gaming laptop or a Vita, there was no Inbetween. All these devices are copying the Switch's form factor and dock idea. That doesn't make Nintendo better but it does make them innovative.

giving a handheld tablet a dock with tv out, detachable controllers and controller support does NOT suddenly make it a "hybrid"
and even then the hybrid concept was half assed. they didn't include any extra powerful hardware inside the dock to make the console's power comparable to a home system when docked, the joycons sacrifice comfort for portability while being drifty pieces of shit, and even then the console's OS and system features are shit compared to previous nintendo offerings. there's no personality, hardly any functionality, and it's slow and buggy. it's the complete opposite of the ps3 OS, a system that at the time was over 11 years old.

--------------------- MERGED ---------------------------

Do we really need another one of these?

yes, because i want nintendo to be pushed out of the handheld market and for these new handheld PCs to take over

--------------------- MERGED ---------------------------

lol so your still caught in the past? gc was released in 2001 so for the last 20 years nintendo never used latest tech so why think they will just change their entire strategy whith the switch selling so well? makes no scene to be stuck on gc days.

Nintendo changed business strategy when both the n64 lost and the gamecube lost(was in third place sadly) so they changed their model 20 years ago and your still stuck on that?

Either go with it or not, but dont expect out of nowhere for nintendo to release a console even that can do 8k ust to go for gpu/cpu power competition...

the N64 failed because it used cartridges for storing games instead of CDs and it released WAY later than the PS1, not because people weren't interested in nintendo all of a sudden
the gamecube failed because it used miniDVDs and the controller had not enough buttons for most games at the time, when by 2000 the standard for game controllers were 2 analog thumbsticks with L3 and R3, a dpad, 4 face buttons and 4 shoulder buttons (as well as the obligatory start and select)
also, it's not even entirely nintendos fault the gamecube failed seeing as how the PS2 was dominating at the time. even the Xbox, which had the most power and plenty of great exclusives still failed cuz the PS2 was a super cheap DVD player
nintendo had little reason to go ahead and just make their home console hardware shittier and cheaper, but they did with the wii and now they've alienated the sect of hardcore fans who came because of the power of their consoles
it's not even like most of the gimmicks of their consoles just would never POSSIBLY be able to work with old 8 year old hardware that was shit and couldn't even output HD. The wii used motion control which would have 0 effect on the console's power, the wii u used the shitty gamepad which wouldnt have affected the console's power either, and the switch was weaker than most modern smartphones at the time (also, putting a more powerful external GPU/CPU into the dock would have helped things quite a bit for docked mode games)
and before you bring me that "oh top of the line smartphones in 2017 were super expensive" nintendo was making bank off the 3ds and wii sales, switch games push over 20+ million units, they should be able to take the loss. they would make it up from online subscription sales and the absolute shitton of units their damn games sold

 

[pedro702]

they should just shut down because their only use was to revive the gaming market after the 80s crash
if there's an indie alternative/other game that does a concept similar to nintendos, 9/10 its usually better on every front
the exception being Playstation all stars battle royale because it's shit

--------------------- MERGED ---------------------------


giving a handheld tablet a dock with tv out, detachable controllers and controller support does NOT suddenly make it a "hybrid"
and even then the hybrid concept was half assed. they didn't include any extra powerful hardware inside the dock to make the console's power comparable to a home system when docked, the joycons sacrifice comfort for portability while being drifty pieces of shit, and even then the console's OS and system features are shit compared to previous nintendo offerings. there's no personality, hardly any functionality, and it's slow and buggy. it's the complete opposite of the ps3 OS, a system that at the time was over 11 years old.

--------------------- MERGED ---------------------------


yes, because i want nintendo to be pushed out of the handheld market and for these new handheld PCs to take over

--------------------- MERGED ---------------------------


the N64 failed because it used cartridges for storing games instead of CDs and it released WAY later than the PS1, not because people weren't interested in nintendo all of a sudden
the gamecube failed because it used miniDVDs and the controller had not enough buttons for most games at the time, when by 2000 the standard for game controllers were 2 analog thumbsticks with L3 and R3, a dpad, 4 face buttons and 4 shoulder buttons (as well as the obligatory start and select)
also, it's not even entirely nintendos fault the gamecube failed seeing as how the PS2 was dominating at the time. even the Xbox, which had the most power and plenty of great exclusives still failed cuz the PS2 was a super cheap DVD player
nintendo had little reason to go ahead and just make their home console hardware shittier and cheaper, but they did with the wii and now they've alienated the sect of hardcore fans who came because of the power of their consoles
it's not even like most of the gimmicks of their consoles just would never POSSIBLY be able to work with old 8 year old hardware that was shit and couldn't even output HD. The wii used motion control which would have 0 effect on the console's power, the wii u used the shitty gamepad which wouldnt have affected the console's power either, and the switch was weaker than most modern smartphones at the time (also, putting a more powerful external GPU/CPU into the dock would have helped things quite a bit for docked mode games)
and before you bring me that "oh top of the line smartphones in 2017 were super expensive" nintendo was making bank off the 3ds and wii sales, switch games push over 20+ million units, they should be able to take the loss. they would make it up from online subscription sales and the absolute shitton of units their damn games sold

But nintendo doesn't need to do anything you want it to do, becuase they are profitable and doing incredible well, why would they change their model when its doing amazingly well? nintendo will never make any console at a loss ever again becuase they dont need it, their target audience isnt the same as pc or sony/microsoft, they target the causal gamer and the younger kids, that audience doesnt care if the games does 4k,120 fps or anything, they are the people that buys a console to play like 3 or 4 games a year at best and are happy with it.

Also love how you say anyone that makes a game like nintendo does it better? lol if that was the case why dont they sell more than nintendo version? heck i never saw a kart racer sell even half of a regular mario kart game and so on.Nintendo games are what makes the company going, if they were all inferior to indies and otther publishers they would be dead by now... no one buys nintendo consoles just for the console or 3rd partys, they buy it for the nintendo games.

 

[the_randomizer]

they should just shut down because their only use was to revive the gaming market after the 80s crash
if there's an indie alternative/other game that does a concept similar to nintendos, 9/10 its usually better on every front
the exception being Playstation all stars battle royale because it's shit

--------------------- MERGED ---------------------------


giving a handheld tablet a dock with tv out, detachable controllers and controller support does NOT suddenly make it a "hybrid"
and even then the hybrid concept was half assed. they didn't include any extra powerful hardware inside the dock to make the console's power comparable to a home system when docked, the joycons sacrifice comfort for portability while being drifty pieces of shit, and even then the console's OS and system features are shit compared to previous nintendo offerings. there's no personality, hardly any functionality, and it's slow and buggy. it's the complete opposite of the ps3 OS, a system that at the time was over 11 years old.

--------------------- MERGED ---------------------------


yes, because i want nintendo to be pushed out of the handheld market and for these new handheld PCs to take over

--------------------- MERGED ---------------------------


the N64 failed because it used cartridges for storing games instead of CDs and it released WAY later than the PS1, not because people weren't interested in nintendo all of a sudden
the gamecube failed because it used miniDVDs and the controller had not enough buttons for most games at the time, when by 2000 the standard for game controllers were 2 analog thumbsticks with L3 and R3, a dpad, 4 face buttons and 4 shoulder buttons (as well as the obligatory start and select)
also, it's not even entirely nintendos fault the gamecube failed seeing as how the PS2 was dominating at the time. even the Xbox, which had the most power and plenty of great exclusives still failed cuz the PS2 was a super cheap DVD player
nintendo had little reason to go ahead and just make their home console hardware shittier and cheaper, but they did with the wii and now they've alienated the sect of hardcore fans who came because of the power of their consoles
it's not even like most of the gimmicks of their consoles just would never POSSIBLY be able to work with old 8 year old hardware that was shit and couldn't even output HD. The wii used motion control which would have 0 effect on the console's power, the wii u used the shitty gamepad which wouldnt have affected the console's power either, and the switch was weaker than most modern smartphones at the time (also, putting a more powerful external GPU/CPU into the dock would have helped things quite a bit for docked mode games)
and before you bring me that "oh top of the line smartphones in 2017 were super expensive" nintendo was making bank off the 3ds and wii sales, switch games push over 20+ million units, they should be able to take the loss. they would make it up from online subscription sales and the absolute shitton of units their damn games sold

Not gonna happen

 

[64bitmodels]

Also love how you say anyone that makes a game like nintendo does it better? lol if that was the case why dont they sell more than nintendo version?

Rivals of aether & slap city are better than smash ultimate, SRB2kart and crash team racing nitro fueled are better than mario kart 8, a hat in time and super lucky's tale are better than mario odyssey, witcher 3, genshin impact and ghost of tsushima are better than BOTW, windjammers is better than mario tennis, most arena shooters i can think of are better than splatoon, and so on and so forth. everything nintendo has done has been done better by competitors because they still act like they're in fucking 1998. they have hardly innovated anything in the software scene since 1996, and most of their gimmicks end up being integrated into the playstation controller in a much more useable form (motion control was turned into sixaxis and then gyro, the touchscreen ended up becoming the touchpad on the DS4 &DS5, hell the N64 came out with one analog stick while the dualshock had 2)

--------------------- MERGED ---------------------------

the reasons they don't sell better are simply because of brand recognition and popularity. most people will buy nintendo products purely because it has the fat plumber on the boxart

 

[Budsixz]

Rivals of aether & slap city are better than smash ultimate, SRB2kart and crash team racing nitro fueled are better than mario kart 8, a hat in time and super lucky's tale are better than mario odyssey, witcher 3, genshin impact and ghost of tsushima are better than BOTW, windjammers is better than mario tennis, most arena shooters i can think of are better than splatoon, and so on and so forth. everything nintendo has done has been done better by competitors because they still act like they're in fucking 1998. they have hardly innovated anything in the software scene since 1996, and most of their gimmicks end up being integrated into the playstation controller in a much more useable form (motion control was turned into sixaxis and then gyro, the touchscreen ended up becoming the touchpad on the DS4 &DS5, hell the N64 came out with one analog stick while the dualshock had 2)

--------------------- MERGED ---------------------------

the reasons they don't sell better are simply because of brand recognition and popularity. most people will buy nintendo products purely because it has the fat plumber on the boxart

Wow it's like they robbed you on gunpoint or something. Well atleast you got to vent your frustration.
I don't agree with your points though. Also, you can't really compare tsushima to botw. They're like totally different games.

 

[64bitmodels]

Wow it's like they robbed you on gunpoint or something. Well atleast you got to vent your frustration.
I don't agree with your points though. Also, you can't really compare tsushima to botw. They're like totally different games.

this is all part of my big plan to get GBAtemp to hate nintendo so much they change the name of the site to PSPtemp and make it aesthetically look like an edgy early 2000s forumsite

 

[Budsixz]

[

this is all part of my big plan to get GBAtemp to hate nintendo so much they change the name of the site to PSPtemp and make it aesthetically look like an edgy early 2000s forumsite

You have 64 in your name. Might give the impression that you like n64

 

[64bitmodels]

[

You have 64 in your name. Might give the impression that you like n64

nah man i'm an atari jaguar guy, did 64bits before any other console thought of it

 

[pedro702]

Rivals of aether & slap city are better than smash ultimate, SRB2kart and crash team racing nitro fueled are better than mario kart 8, a hat in time and super lucky's tale are better than mario odyssey, witcher 3, genshin impact and ghost of tsushima are better than BOTW, windjammers is better than mario tennis, most arena shooters i can think of are better than splatoon, and so on and so forth. everything nintendo has done has been done better by competitors because they still act like they're in fucking 1998. they have hardly innovated anything in the software scene since 1996, and most of their gimmicks end up being integrated into the playstation controller in a much more useable form (motion control was turned into sixaxis and then gyro, the touchscreen ended up becoming the touchpad on the DS4 &DS5, hell the N64 came out with one analog stick while the dualshock had 2)

those are your opinions lol neither do critics or sales reflect what you are saying lol

serious i played new super lucky tail and its as generic as they go and the crits relfect that sales too, saying its better than any 3d mario is ridiculous...

Aggregator Score
Metacritic (PC) 59/100[11]
(XONE) 64/100[12]

hat in time is abit better but still very short with very little content and some stiff animations here and there even with all dlc and catching everything which i did.

seriously you are grasping at straws, those games have mostly awful sales besides one or 2 and they have way worse crits and reviews by public and actual critics alike...

Crash team racing isnt even a new game its a remake,, so you say nintendo games dont innovate and yet you bring a remake that is almost 1:1 from the early 00s to compete with mario kart? okay your logic baffles me, they innovated so much that they didnt even made a new game and just remade 2 games from ps1 days how is that an innovation?


i wouldnt call wither 3 or ghost of tushima anything close to even botw, they are apples and oranges, what do they have in comon? being open world? why dont you compare botw to gta then?

Seriously that was a very weak attempt imo, if a game has worse reviews and worse sales from its nintendo conterpart on what grounds do you consider it being better? if its not in score or sales then its you opinion only, and your opinion means nothing to the market since anyone has their own, you got no facts to pull from to show they are better...

 

[64bitmodels]

Crash team racing isnt even a new game its a remake,, so you say nintendo games dont innovate and yet you bring a remake that is almost 1:1 from the early 00s to compete with mario kart? okay your logic baffles me, they innovated so much that they didnt even made a new game and just remade 2 games from ps1 days how is that an inovation?

if it's a remake from a game in the late 90s and it feels better & more fun to play than the newest mario kart with new refined mechanics and tracks, that's a major problem pal
also odyssey is just as short as AHiT, i beat both games in like 20 hours
even then AHiT at least has some DLC to make the game longer
And AHIT in general is better, each time piece has its own seperate mission instead of just being thrown across the map expecting you to just explore throughout the area until you find it, it has more charm, better bosses, more unique planets to explore and it doesnt require you to go and capture some dumbass enemies which control way worse than mario's fluid movement just to beat the game.
also bringing up scores from metacritic and aggregator won't convince me, sony fanboys do the same thing to justify how good their walking simulators/movie games are. i already know that the opinions of the mainstream are objectively shit and that there's way better stuff if you look to the more obscure areas/older areas, and you do too so stop pretending that reviews and metacritic scores are correct when everyone with a brain knows that they don't fucking matter

 

[pedro702]

if it's a remake from a game in the late 90s and it feels better & more fun to play than the newest mario kart with new refined mechanics and tracks, that's a major problem pal
also odyssey is just as short as AHiT, i beat both games in like 20 hours
even then AHiT at least has some DLC to make the game longer
And AHIT in general is better, each time piece has its own seperate mission instead of just being thrown across the map expecting you to just explore throughout the area until you find it, it has more charm, better bosses, more unique planets to explore and it doesnt require you to go and capture some dumbass enemies which control way worse than mario's fluid movement just to beat the game.
also bringing up scores from metacritic and aggregator won't convince me, sony fanboys do the same thing to justify how good their walking simulators/movie games are. i already know that the opinions of the mainstream are objectively shit and that there's way better stuff if you look to the more obscure areas/older areas, and you do too so stop pretending that reviews and metacritic scores are correct when everyone with a brain knows that they don't fucking matter

like i said, you dont care about reviews or sales.. so a game is better because you say its better lol, if you dont care for other people opinions on said games why would anyone care for yours? seriously you contradict yourself.

If you cant backup your claims on why its better without saying because i like it more, that isnt even a discussion, its an opinion, and like you say opinions dont matter so what you say doesnt matter then lol.

have fun with your logic.

 

[GoldenBullet]

I'd say that they should be talking with valve to get steam os 3.0 on it.

 

[pucky]

I want that gameboy looking keyboard :<

 

[darksweet]

Off Topic: What's the best Handled that emulate GBA&PS1 the is good and cheap?

 

[Lodad]

It might end up being a closer match than you'd think once Direct Storage becomes more commonplace. We're talking about fairly comparable TFLOPS (on account of clock differences), but the AYA Neo Pro offers exposed PCIe lanes and fast NVMe storage expansion whereas the Steam Deck has to rely on a slower SD memory card or its limited built-in memory. RDNA 2 is obviously a more powerful architecture, that much is true, but there are other bottlenecks to consider in an all-in-one system like this. Still not worth double the price tag of the Steam Deck, mind.

There is talk of Valve granting access for storage upgrade inside the steam deck, albeit with the very expensive 2230 form factor of nvme (2280 is the more common and larger size for SSD sticks right now). I don't know if this is confirmed currently or if Valve went back on what they said.