Back in December last year, Ayaneo officially announced the Next 2, the gaming handheld powered by AMD’s Strix Halo Ryzen AI Max+ 395 APU, with no potential launch date. Until now.
The company’s CEO announced that the Next 2 will be available starting July this year, but fell short of an exact date. As for pricing, you’ve probably guessed that the handheld isn’t going to come cheap.
The starting price for the Next 2 with a Ryzen AI Max 385, 32GB LPDDR5X RAM, and 1TB storage is US$2,999 (~RM12,210), while the model featuring the Ryzen AI Max+ 395 APU starts from US$3,699 (~RM15,060), with the top-spec SKU costing US$5,299 (~RM21,572).
Beyond the differences in APU, memory and storage, and the iGPU, the rest of the Next 2 specs remain the same. That includes the 9.06-inch OLED display with a variable refresh rate of up to 165Hz and a 115Wh battery, which technically makes it impossible for anyone to bring onboard a plane. Other details include Hall effect joysticks, Hall linear triggers, dual-mode trigger locks, a floating 8-way D-Pad, and a magnetic levitation haptic motor.
The livestream, if nothing else, also highlighted the frustration of the Ayaneo CEO’s configuration options, as well as the starting price — there’s no barebones variant of the handheld, nor is there a variant with 16GB of memory, which has been the bare minimum for gaming handhelds these days. However, 24GB would’ve really been a sweetspot.
There’s no prize for guessing why the starting price of the Next 2 is as such: the memory chip shortage has hit non-AI markets hard, and Ayaneo’s timing couldn’t have been worse. On another note, it’s also not helpful that AMD has chosen to stop promoting the Strix Halo lineup as a gaming product and more of a Home AI PC alternative. On that note, we’ve seen what the Strix Halo lineup is capable of in the laptop space, both in 395 and 392 flavours, and at this stage, AMD could be focusing on Gorgon Halo.
(Source: Ayaneo, Videocardz)