Ayaneo 3: Five things you need to know about the new Steam Deck rival

Ayaneo has announced the Ayaneo 3, a gaming handheld out to mop the floor with the Steam Deck.

This powerhouse portable PC is the successor to the brilliant Ayaneo 2S, and will let you play countless AAA games on the go. Want the good news or the bad news first?

Starting with the bad stuff, there’s plenty we don’t know quite yet. When is the Ayaneo 3 out? How much will it cost? We’re not sure, although you can get a pretty good idea of pricing by looking at the numbers for current models over at the Ayaneo store.

We do know plenty about the Ayaneo 3 already, though. Here are the top five Ayaneo 3 facts you need to know.

1. You can pick between OLED and LCD

There are two display technologies on offer in the Ayaneo 3. Both panels are seven inches across, just like the Ayaneo 2S, but you can pick between OLED or LCD.

Each is described as a “high refresh” screen so we don’t think it’s necessarily the case you’ll pick the LCD for a more responsive panel. It’s much more likely you might pick LCD because it saves money. While OLED gadgets are far more affordable and approachable than they once were, the Steam Deck and Nintendo Switch prove it’s still seen as the luxury option next to LCD

With OLED you also get HDR and higher brightness, although we’re still waiting to hear quite how bright these things can go. The Ayaneo Pocket Evo from earlier this year has a 7-inch OLED with a 120Hz refresh rate and 800 nits — we’d be pretty happy with that, and it may well be exactly what we get.

2. It’s way more powerful than a Steam Deck

There are also two processor options with the Ayaneo 3, the AMD Ryzen 7 8840U and the AMD Ryzen HX 370 AI.

Yep, it's that old buzzword again: AI. However, the important thing is these processors are a generation apart, and the HX 370 AI represents such an efficiency boost it may well be worth forking out the extra cash for.

It also has a better graphics chipset, one likely to bring around a 20-35% performance boost. You can dig out plenty of comparisons of the graphics hardware on YouTube. Below you'll find one by Hubwood. It compared an older cousin of the 8840U, the Z1 Extreme, but the real-world results are likely to be similar.

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For the higher-end chipset we’re looking at performance more than double that of a Steam Deck, in some tests at least.

3. It has trigger locks

The Ayaneo 3 has a feature we typically only see on a few pro-style gamepads, trigger locks. This is where you can lock off the movement of the triggers, to give FPS games a faster feel, and to made gamepads a bit more retro-friendly.

We didn’t have super-high travel triggers back in the 16-bit era, after all.

The trigger lock sliders sit on the back, just next to the triggers themselves. And there’s one per trigger control.

4. There are bonus buttons on the back

Around the front, the Ayaneo 3’s button configuration is pretty familiar. We also get a pair of bonus buttons around the back, designed to sit right under your fingers.

"The back button blends seamlessly with the device’s handle design,” says Ayaneo.

Similar back buttons were added to the giant Ayaneo Kun. We got four there, but then the Kun is an even bigger device. The buttons are fully customisable, as they are sure to be in the Ayaneo 3 too.

5. Ayaneo has gone big on sound quality

You don't always hear too much about the specifics of gaming handhelds’ speakers. These things are pretty tiny, so expectations need to be kept sensible.

Ayaneo is bigging-up the Ayaneo 3’s audio in a pretty bold way, though. It promises "immersive audio beyond expectations” and a rendering of “every low rumble and crisp footstep with depth and clarity.”

This could just be Ayaneo getting a bit loose with its description of some bog-standard stereo speakers. But it’s one to look out for when the first Ayaneo 3 reviews start appearing.

Ayaneo says there are “more innovations to be revealed” and we’ll be keeping an eye out for those, as well as the final release and pricing details.