After a mysterious teasing during CES 2024There is Ayaneo revealed its Next Lite is a gaming handheld, and it’s a confusing product to say the least. It’s designed to compete with Steam Deck, but it doesn’t run Valve’s official SteamOS – rather, it uses a forked version. HoloISO. It will cost $299, and while the controls and screen look good, it packs a less powerful processor.
The Next Lite comes with a seven-inch 800p display, 16GB of RAM, and a 47Wh battery, which costs around $549. Steam Deck OLED. However, it runs a Ryzen 7 4500U or 4800U processor with Vega 8 graphics, rather than the Ryzen 7 5825U found in the Ayaneo Next. The previous chips are already several years old, so the Next Lite is likely to be a long way behind the original Steam deck, currently $349.
It also uses Hall effect joysticks to eliminate drift and has a copper heat pipe cooling system. It’s equipped with three USB-C 3.2 Gen 2 ports on the top and bottom, along with a slot for full-length M.2 2280 NVMe SSDs. If you prefer to run Windows most other handheld devicessupports this option and Ayaneo will offer the required drivers on its official website.
The previous press release was confusing because Ayaneo was talking about a “subscription”, but it turns out it’s just about subscribing to get more information. The company also said it would initially ship with SteamOS, which got everyone excited, but it turns out Valve won’t be officially supporting the operating system. Since then the original post has been changed Saying it will use HoloISO, a third-party, community-developed fork of SteamOS, not something created by Ayaneo.
So what does this mean in terms of Steam Deck gameplay? Ayaneo said HoloISO “attempts to bring Steam Deck’s SteamOS Holo redistribution into a common, installable format and provide an official SteamOS experience.” In other words, given the lack of official support from Valve, games may not be guaranteed to work.
As mentioned, the Ayaneo Next Lite will cost $299 and come in “vibrant colors” including seafoam green. It will start shipping on February 10, 2024, just in time for Chinese New Year.
We’re reporting live from CES 2024 in Las Vegas, January 6-12. Stay up to date with the latest news from the show here.
