Summary
- Ayaneo 3 is a newly announced handheld that offers modular inputs for customized gaming controls.
- Ayaneo 3 features powerful AMD Ryzen chips and a choice between LCD and OLED screens.
- Ayaneo 3 is available for pre-order on Indiegogo for $700–$1800 based on configuration choice.
If you’ve been saving your Christmas money for a high-end portable gaming PC, Ayaneo may just have exactly what you need. For the past four years, Ayaneo has been making premium portable gaming machines for both Windows and Android. For most of 2024, the Chinese hardware company focused mostly on Android handhelds, but it’s finally getting back to its roots with the launch of its flagship Windows portable it teased back in November, the Ayaneo 3.
Ayaneo 3
$700 $900 Save
$200
The Ayaneo 3 is the latest flagship Windows handheld from Ayaneo, sporting modular inputs so you can customize your gaming experience to suit your needs. It’s not cheap, but you’ll be hard-pressed to find anything more powerful than the Ayaneo 3
What’s new in the Ayaneo 3?
More control than ever before
The coolest thing that the new Ayaneo handheld does that no one else has done yet is modular controls. The inputs to the left and right of the display can be swapped out (or, in some cases, rotated) to give you a more bespoke gaming experience. For instance, you can pop out the module with four buttons and a d-pad and swap it for a module with six buttons so you can scratch your Street Fighter itch. You could also flip the orientation of the modules so you could put the joystick on the bottom for PlayStation ports, and then put it back on top for Xbox ports. In all, there are six input modules to pop in and out.
Even setting the modular controls aside, the buttons and joysticks on the Ayaneo 3 sound plenty capable, and there are more of them to press. The joysticks and triggers use Hall-effect sensors with a latency of 4ms. The triggers are also redesigned and can be switched between two modes. Linear mode will give you 7.5mm of travel to enable precise analog input, and tactile mode will reduce the travel distance to 3mm, better suited to repeated trigger presses common to FPS games.
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Let’s talk specs
When it comes to gaming power, the Ayaneo 3 offers two choices. There’s the AMD Ryzen 7 8840U chip, and then there’s the AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX 370. The 8840U has eight cores and 16 threads and runs at 3.3GHz (the same as the Rog Ally X). It also has an NPU that puts out 16TOPS. This chip will be available in all configurations except the 4TB hard drive. The AI 9 HX 370 offers 12 cores, 24 threads, and a slightly slower base clock speed of 2GHz, but its NPU can run significantly faster at 50TOPS. This chip will only be available on the units with 32GB of RAM or more, not the 16GB models.
Source: Ayaneo
That’s a lot to choose from, but wait, there’s more. You’ll also be able to choose between LCD and OLED screens for all SKUs. The 7-inch LCD screen has a refresh of 120Hz/60Hz and tops out at 500 nits. If you’d rather go with the 7-inch OLED, you’ll get 144Hz/120Hz/90Hz/60Hz refresh and 800 nits.
Features galore
There’s a lot more going on under the hood of the Ayaneo 3, but I want to leave you with a few more details before we get lost in the weeds. The storage should be upgradable since it uses an M.2 2280 SSD card on PCIe 4.0 with 16GT/s. It will have two USB4 ports (40Gb/s with DisplayPort functionality), microSD 4.0 (>300MB/s), and a 64Gb/s OCuLink port for external graphics cards.
The Ayaneo 3 has a 49Wh battery (Rog Ally X has 80Wh), which can handle up to 65W charging and also supports bypass charging. When things start to get too hot, in addition to its large fan, it has over 30,000mm² of copper and heat fins to dissipate the heat.
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Get them while they’re hot
If you want to get your hands on the hot new Ayaneo 3, you can pre-order it now on Indiegogo for between $700 for the 16GB/512GB model without a full set of input modules and $1800 for the 64GB/4TB with a full set of input modules. If you want a full set of input modules, that will run you $100 extra. Likewise, a bespoke storage case for the Ayaneo 3 will cost $33. It will be available in three different colors — Starry Black, Sky White, and Retro Power — but not all colors will be available for each SKU.
Source: Ayaneo
Just looking at those prices lets you know that Ayaneo sees the Ayaneo 3 as a premium device. Both the Legion Go and the Rog Ally X (both under $1000) have comparable specs to the more affordable Ayaneo units, but they can’t quite keep up with the more expensive models. The Onexfly F1 Pro is available with nearly identical build and specs as the top Ayaneo 3 at $100 less, but it doesn’t offer the modular buttons. Choices choices …
|
Early Price (Before Feb) |
Regular Price |
CPU |
RAM |
Storage |
Colors |
Modules |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
$699 |
$899 |
8840U |
16GB |
512GB |
Black |
No |
|
$899 |
$1099 |
8840U |
32GB |
1TB |
Black |
No |
|
$1199 |
$1399 |
8840U |
64GB |
2TB |
Retro |
Yes |
|
$1299 |
$1499 |
AI 9 HX 370 |
32GB |
1TB |
Black |
No |
|
$1599 |
$1899 |
AI 9 HX 370 |
64GB |
2TB |
Black/White |
No |
|
$1669 |
$1949 |
AI 9 HX 370 |
64GB |
2TB |
Retro |
Yes |
|
$1799 |
$2099 |
AI 9 HX 370 |
64GB |
4TB |
Retro |
Yes |
Given the Ayaneo’s modular input, there’s literally nothing like it on the market. Yes, the nicest model costs as much as a decent gaming PC, but that’s what handhelds like this are trying to replace. Whether this is the gaming device for you will depend entirely on your needs, but if you’re in the market for a gaming PC, you could do worse than the Ayaneo 3.
