The AYA Neo 2S is a handheld gaming PC with a 7 inch, 1920 x 1200 pixel IPS LCD display, an AMD Ryzen 7 7480U processor, and support for up to 64GB of RAM and 4TB of storage.
But if that’s not enough of a spec-overload for you, AYA is teasing an upcoming model that packs something that would be unique in the handheld PC space. The AYA Neo 2S mini-LED could be the first gaming PC with a 7 inch mini LED display.
Mini LEDs have started to show up in TVs in recent years, and a handful of PC makers, including Apple and MSI, have used them in laptops and tablets as well. But AYA is the first handheld gaming company I’m aware of to announce plans to use the technology.
In a nutshell, mini LED displays use thousands of tiny LED lights to illuminate a screen rather than the dozens of LEDs used in typical LCD screens. This can lead to brighter screens (because more tiny lights are brighter than fewer larger lights), but also more precision over which parts of the screen are lit up and how brightly they’re illuminated.
Among other things, that means you get higher contrast ratios, less backlight bleeding, and overall imagery that should look a little more vivid. In other words, it offers some of the benefits of OLED screens, but without the risk of burn-in.
AYA isn’t saying much about the the Neo 2S mini LED at this point other than that it’ll have a mini LED display with support for HDR (high dynamic range) content and an Oculink port for high-speed connections to external graphics docks.
But we also know that it should have all the basic features of the regular AYA Neo 2S, which means you can expect the same Ryzen 7 7840U processor with a Zen 4 CPU and RDNA 3 graphics and a decent set of ports, although it’s worth noting that while the standard AYA Neo 2S has two USB4 ports, the mini LED model has just one to make room for the Oculink port.
AYA plans to officially launch the Neo 2S mini LED by the end of the year.
This will probably look great but I don’t think it’s a good idea. The miniled display on my laptop totally annihilates the battery life even when local dimming and hdr are disabled.
Very glad I have no desire to own a “handheld” form factor. Any extra button controls beyond the standard keyboard: arrow up, down, left, right, pg up, pg down is pretty much useless.
Subjective opinion, as well as being purely ignorant and arrogant in calling out every gamer as somehow being dysfunctionally restricted while gaming without the need for a standard keyboard. Most of us handheld users are doing just fine without it.
inb4 Alienware, Lenovo, HP, and/or Acer release an OLED or Mini LED handheld for less also by end of year, sold at every major retailer, for $100s less.
RIP AYA NEO. Your days are numbered. Your campaign not selling out in hours like they used to is proof positive of this. Either specialize into a niche, like GPD has with mini clamshell 2-in-1s, or you are just going to dry up against the corporate titans.
I agree. I’m assuming AYA is now just hoping to capture sales in the domestic Chinese market. Because there’s no hope of selling these to people who live in countries where the ROG Ally is sold.
I think the only segment that Chinese companies could be successful in now is the sub $500 segment. If someone made a $400 Ryzen 5 7640U handheld with a user-swappable SSD (ideally M.2 2280), I think that would be a real winner.
I know PC gamers wouldn’t be very interested in those specs, but as an Emulation gamer, I would totally be into that. That would be more than enough to handle most of the more high-end consoles (Gamecube, PS2, Wii, Wii U, and maybe some PS3 and Xbox 360).