Aya Neo and GPD Win 3 are gaming PCs almost the size of Nintendo Switch

A year ago, at CES 2020 in Las Vegas, Alienware made waves with a modular gaming PC that functioned like a Nintendo Switch, with a pair of gamepads flanking a powerful Windows 10 tablet. Unfortunately, Alienware’s UFO was just a concept , as well as Lenovo’s idea this year – but two companies are now taking the torch with a pair of crowdfunded devices you can see in your life. They look seriously legit.

The 5.5 inch GPD Win 3 and the 7 inch Aya Neo are not doing exactly the same thing; while Ava tries to match the Nintendo console in shape, size and with strictly on-board game controls, the GPD sticks to its palmtop computer roots with a sliding screen that reveals a tiny backlit keyboard. There is also a fingerprint sensor, a microSD slot and an optional Thunderbolt 4 dock if you want to use the GPD as a complete Windows 10 computer.

Images by GPD

What’s the same: the two are really trying to deliver a powerful tablet surrounded by joysticks and buttons for less than $ 1,000 each. With the latest Tiger Lake chips from Intel and Ryzen 4500U from AMD, respectively, each has some of the latest and greatest integrated graphics you can buy and, as a result, claim pretty decent performance – Cyberpunk 2077 can reach 30fps at Aya Neo’s 1280×800 resolution at low settings, and GPD offers a long list of recent demanding game examples that you can persuade well above the 50fps mark with its Intel Xe graphics.

As you can see in the specification comparison sheet I showed below, each has 16 GB of DDR4 memory, a fast NVMe solid state drive, Wi-Fi 6 and Bluetooth 5.0, a pair of stereo speakers, a genuine headset and multiple USB ports. It is not bad!

Just know that these systems will be robust compared to the real 0.55 inch thick frame and 0.88 pound weight of a real Nintendo switch, battery life will be a big issue, with Aya Neo and GPD Win 3 allowing you to adjust the power Chip TDP to get the most out of your tablet-sized cells. NotebookCheck says you shouldn’t expect to get more than 1.5 hours of GPD Win 3 while playing a demanding game, although Taki Udon on YouTube claims that you can get 2-3 hours of an Aya Neo upfront.

Speaking of Taki Udon’s video, it looks like a fantastic overview of the laptop, so I recommend taking a look, and this second video that shows how games like it Cyberpunk 2077 and Sekiro play in the model of its founder. It is not enough to convince me to crowdfund a company I have never heard of, but it is a good start.

You should also know that not all of these handhelds will look and perform the same: the transparent Aya you see in the videos was a limited edition of 15,000 for pre-orders in China, with final black and white models coming out instead of that when they ship in April Aya will launch its Indiegogo campaign in February with a $ 699 limited “early bird price”, without a word about how much the rest of us can afford.

GPD Win 3 is already on Indiegogo, where you will pay $ 799 for the Core i5-1135G7 version, with the most powerful i7 chip starting at $ 899, or $ 949 for a package with optional USB, HDMI and Gigabit Ethernet.

Among these handheld gaming PCs, the beautiful Playdate to come and the beautiful Analogue Pocket, some of the completely clean mods we’ve seen lately, not to mention the popularity of the Switch itself and the increasingly smaller and more powerful chip march. it looks like we may be entering a revival of handheld games. Here’s the hope.