Aya Neo Next review: a Steam Deck alternative with Windows

theverge.com:

Portable gaming PCs have come a long way. Much of the recent attention has fallen on Valve’s Steam Deck, which just started shipping, but Valve didn’t invent the category — it’s following in the footsteps of several other products from smaller companies.

A few years ago, I reviewed the GPD Win, a breakthrough device that essentially repurposed netbook hardware into a pocket-sized Windows gaming laptop. Performance in this category has been steadily improving, and the new Aya Neo Next is the most advanced Windows gaming handheld we’ve seen yet. Aya Neo is a relatively young company that formed in 2020, but it’s already put out a few well-regarded portables, and the Next is its first big redesign. It’s available to preorder now on Indiegogo with shipping set for mid-April.

Comparisons to the Steam Deck are inevitable, and I encourage you to read our review of that device as well. In some areas, like price and performance, Valve has a clear advantage. In others, though, the Aya Neo Next stakes a strong claim for relevance.

The Aya Neo Next has a more conventional design than the Steam Deck. Both devices are built around similar 7-inch 1280 x 800 LCD panels, but while Valve has added haptic trackpads and stretched the D-pad and face buttons way out to the edges, Aya Neo has opted for a more straightforward layout in line with a Nintendo Switch. This makes for a smaller device than the Deck — 267mm wide versus 298mm, and 30mm thick versus 49mm — at the cost of a little control flexibility. Valve included haptic trackpads so that the Steam Deck can play games that weren’t designed to work with controllers, which isn’t really something that the Aya Neo Next will support unless you want to hook up a mouse. (As we’ll get into