Ayaneo 3 review – powerful performance and great design let down by Windows

The Ayaneo 3 is highly effective, fashionable, and most significantly, progressive. From the modular controls and the OLED display to the adjustable system reminiscence and improved Ayaspace software program, nearly all the things concerning the Ayaneo 3 makes a handheld just like the Steam Deck really feel entry-level. Sadly, it’s additionally a irritating system to make use of at occasions, however I might nonetheless suggest it to anybody who’s thinking about getting into the world of handheld gaming PCs or is in search of a significant energy improve from the Steam Deck.

The Ayaneo 3 is well among the best handheld gaming PCs in comparison with its rivals, that being different Home windows-based units. The extent of freedom I’ve on this handheld is refreshing, and if classes are realized from the few shortfalls the Ayaneo 3 possesses, future units have an opportunity of actually dethroning Valve, the Steam Deck, and probably even SteamOS within the handheld market.

Specs

Design

The Ayaeno 3’s design is sort of fundamental at first look, but it surely’s upon nearer inspection, and extra importantly, upon holding it in my palms that the significance of delicate design selections shines by. One such occasion is the molding of the rear grips. Quite than utilizing the bulging design utilized by most handhelds to create a generally clunky grip to your palms and fingers to latch onto the console, the Ayaneo 3 as a substitute has two pronounced humps, permitting the hand-held to take a seat rather more naturally in hand like a normal Xbox controller.

My index finger sits naturally within the curvature of the left and proper triggers, with the left and proper mouse click on inputs simply inside attain. Down the rear of the hand-held, it’s easy sufficient to regulate your grip to have both your center or ring finger sit upon the rear buttons. The 690g weight additionally doesn’t really feel too heavy and there’s no weight imbalance or bias to both facet of the hand-held.

On the entrance of the Ayaneo 3, the massive speaking level is the modular controls. On both sides of the Ayaneo 3, the controls are contained in small models that may be popped out of the system, switched round, and even changed with alternate management models. That is the primary Home windows handheld to supply such a characteristic, and it really works very properly.

Within the Ayaspace fast menu, there’s a devoted tab to the controls, and on the contact of a button you may pop up one, or each of the management modules. New modules are put in by gently urgent them into the open slots, with an audible click on letting after they’re related. Whereas this all screamed ‘gimmick’ to me initially, in observe, it’s an excellent characteristic to have.

I’ve discovered that whereas I typically choose asymmetrical controls for many video games, I choose to have symmetrical thumbsticks for driving video games, and it’s good to have the ability to make this change on the Ayaneo 3. It’s actually useful to have this characteristic, even when it wouldn’t essentially be the primary cause you’d purchase the Ayaneo 3.

My one criticism is that the magic modules are offered individually usually. This implies it prices extra, on high of an already massive preliminary outlay, to realize full entry to a characteristic used closely to promote the hand-held.

The thumbsticks are Corridor Impact, that means stick drift is closely decreased, whereas the triggers additionally use what’s listed as “restricted Corridor Impact.” however no additional readability if provided on what precisely is restricted about it. There’s additionally a change to rework every set off right into a micro-action one-click change, decreasing the overall journey distance of the triggers for faster activation. A magnetic suspension motor is used to energy vibration, and whereas it isn’t overwhelmingly highly effective, it nonetheless gives a good kick when activated, and its energy may be adjusted within the Ayaspace menu.

Elsewhere on the Ayaeno 3, the highest and rear followers do some severe heavy lifting to maintain the console cool beneath heavy hundreds, however they’re extraordinarily loud when working at 100%. The good fan characteristic will be certain that they solely kick in when wanted although, so if you happen to choose gaming at a decrease TDP this shouldn’t be an excessive amount of of an issue.

As for inputs, there are two USB-C ports, one on the highest and one on the underside of the console. The ability button has a built-in fingerprint sensor and sits alongside the quantity controls on high of the console, with an OCuLink enter rounding off the highest I/O. On the underside, along with the USB-C port, there’s a 3.5mm jack and a lined microSD card slot. There’s additionally a button for switching between management profiles. This button has a useful LED to point which profile is chosen.

I’m reviewing the Starry Black mannequin of the Ayaneo 3, and it’s a little bit of a nightmare to maintain clear of fingerprints and smudges. The entrance of the system is usually gloss, whereas the rear is matte. On either side, it’s very straightforward to go away a mark along with your palms, and cleansing the system feels futile given that you simply’re more likely to make it once more the second you choose it up. Ayaneo has additionally made Sky White and Retro Energy colours accessible, each of which appear to deal a lot better with this situation from what I’ve seen up to now.

Working system

That is the one part of my Ayaeno 3 testing that’s largely detrimental, and it’s largely as a result of Home windows nonetheless isn’t a handheld-friendly working system. Whereas I perceive it’s most probably the simplest and most cost-effective working system for builders to make use of, and it gives the widest vary of suitable video games, it additionally opens the door to too many issues and quirks that, whereas minor, are irritating.

Within the case of the Ayaneo 3, usually a sport wouldn’t permit for fullscreen to stretch the chosen decision to the complete native 1080p show, for instance. This implies when attempting to benchmark at 720p, it will appear like a smaller 720p field throughout the 1080p show. The best way round that is easy, simply decrease the default decision of the hand-held, however why ought to I’ve to do that for one thing so simple as a decision change?

Home windows additionally doesn’t take kindly to overlays or further software program programs that should be often accessed on handhelds, so loading the Ayaspace fast menu is usually a sluggish course of. That is the best way for Armoury Crate on the ROG Ally and MSI Middle on the Claw too, that means the widespread denominator is Home windows. The truth that Microsoft hasn’t but, to my data, begun engaged on a streamlined handheld-friendly model of its flagship OS is baffling.

One particular concern I’ve with the Ayaneo 3 is the lack to place the system to sleep through Home windows. The choice merely doesn’t exist while you first boot the console, and upon wanting into this additional, it turned clear that this isn’t the primary time an Ayaneo handheld has had this downside. Nevertheless, the repair is easy, you simply want to go into the facility and sleep settings in Home windows and alter them so the choice for “When energy button is pressed” is switched from Hibernate to Sleep. It’s fairly annoying to have to do that, and I ponder what number of will overlook this repair and simply assume {that a} sleep operate is lacking.

Show and sound

The Ayaeno 3 comes with a 7-inch, 144Hz OLED show with 800nits world brightness, and HDR true coloration. I’ve beforehand said in my ROG Ally X overview that cramming extra element right into a 1080p show over the Steam Deck OLED’s 800p display greater than offsets the colour accuracy and readability of the show.

With the Ayaneo 3, nevertheless, the 1080p OLED display is a giant addition, and the standard of this show when gaming is implausible due to the true blacks, extra vibrant colours, and excessive distinction ratios. The 7-inch show is a limitation relating to the show high quality, as whereas it has a local 1080p decision, it might nonetheless generally really feel compact, and video games which might be sometimes darker can require a little bit of brightness and gamma tuning to get one of the best out of them.

The system is ready to scale Home windows by 175% as a default, however I discovered the candy spot to be 125%, both approach, you’re not caught with Home windows zoomed in by default and this may be adjusted within the decision settings menu.

In the meantime, two front-facing HyperSound 2.0 panoramic audio system are all of the Ayaeno 3 has to supply on the audio entrance, however they pack an unimaginable punch. It is a remarkably loud handheld, competing even with my gaming displays’ built-in audio system, however most notable is the retention of high quality, even at excessive volumes.

That is most notable in a sport corresponding to The Crew Motorsport. There’s one thing intensely satisfying about revving the engine of a 1969 Ford Mustang Boss 429, and the sensory overload of the Ayaneo 3 kicks in with its crystal clear audio and haptic suggestions from the triggers and vibration motor.

At a 30cm distance, the Ayaneo 3 hit a peak of 86.5dB with the common sitting at round 81.1dB when enjoying The Crew Motorsport. In a normal media check, film playback hit related numbers with an 85.1dB peak and a 79.9dB common. That is in comparison with a 76.1dB max and 74.9dB common from the MSI Claw 8 AI+ when enjoying the identical sport.
Storage

The Ayaneo 3 comes with wherever from 512GB to 4TB of SSD storage. No matter which storage choice you buy, you’re getting a PCIe 4.0 M.2 2280 SSD, which is easy sufficient to increase, however the course of is long-winded. It’ll require a full Home windows reinstall which implies having a duplicate of Home windows on a flash drive able to go.

I didn’t hit any bottlenecks with downloading video games and in-game loading occasions are on par with that of my gaming PC which homes an analogous model SSD. You may also increase your storage utilizing a microSD card. Any 4.0 microSD card, or older, will work with obtain speeds of as much as 300MB/s.

Efficiency

The typical body charges throughout the examined video games don’t fairly inform the entire story, which I’ll contact on in a second, however general these efficiency figures are very spectacular contemplating there may be the potential for extra energy that might be squeezed out of the Ayaeno 3, if you happen to’re prepared to spend the time optimizing clock speeds and adjusting CPU core utilization. I as a substitute used a profile and settings that gave one of the best fast efficiency throughout a number of TDP ranges.

The place the Ayaeno 3 shines in its efficiency is body price stability. Whereas testing the MSI Claw 8 AI+ alongside this handheld, I observed that always the utmost and minimal body price would at all times be a lot additional aside on the Claw than the Ayaneo 3. For example, in Murderer’s Creed Mirage, the 900p, excessive settings benchmark returned a mean body price of 63fps on the Ayaneo 3, and 55fps on the Claw. Nevertheless, the Claw has a most body price of 80fps and a minimal of simply 5 whereas the Ayaneo has a most of 91 and a minimal of 15fps.

It’s this stability that’s essential in graphically demanding video games corresponding to Cyberpunk 2077, the place the Claw managed to outperform the Ayaeno in lots of common body price exams, however visually, there was much more stuttering and ghosting when enjoying on the Claw vs the a lot smoother efficiency on the Ayaeno.

The show of the Ayaneo 3 lends itself properly to enabling AMD FSR on the High quality setting as a result of this implies you’re solely dropping the native decision all the way down to 720p, earlier than it’s upscaled again to 1080p. This leads to little or no picture distortion when utilizing it, which usually means you’re higher off sticking to 1080p with upscaling fairly than decreasing your decision. That is the place the Steam Deck generally struggles as its default 1,280 x 800 show with upscaling enabled means you’re dropping the rendered decision to round 1,040 x 650.

I used a customized energy profile to check these video games on the Ayaneo 3. I left the CPU and GPU clock speeds on their default settings, stored the CPU enhance choice turned off, and left the followers on auto to see how they managed warmth dispersion beneath a heavy load. I additionally divided up the system reminiscence to permit for 16GB of devoted graphics reminiscence. I might have chosen 12GB, however the AMD Adrenalin Version software program solely allowed for 8GB or 16GB.

Exterior of benchmarking, the core gaming efficiency of the Ayaneo 3 will see you reaching a stable 50-60fps in loads of triple-A video games like Baldur’s Gate 3, Cyberpunk 2077, Warhammer 40,000 House Marine 2, Ghost of Tsushima, God of Warfare Ragnarok, and plenty of extra.

Optimizing settings for the Ayaneo 3 is so easy as a result of usually the medium graphics profile is ideal for the console at 25W and above. I not often discovered myself having to tweak particular person settings to get one of the best efficiency, and in older video games like Skyrim and Fallout 4, you may simply push into increased graphical settings if you want, simply be cautious that the battery gained’t final too lengthy.

Pushing for increased graphical constancy will naturally convey efficiency down, however as seen within the above benchmarks, it’s solely playable, with Cyberpunk 2077 operating at 30fps utilizing the Extremely settings and AMD FSR 3.0 set to High quality. Once more, one thing that needs to be seen dwell to be appreciated is the power of this efficiency, with subsequent to no stutter or body tearing even when pushing the Ayaneo 3 past its consolation degree.

The place I discover myself consistently compromising to get large video games operating on the Steam Deck OLED, or tweaking minor settings on the MSI Claw 8 AI+ to maximise efficiency, this isn’t the case on the Ayaneo 3. There’s room to push efficiency additional if you happen to’re prepared to drop the decision, push FSR into Efficiency modes, or tinker with a customized {hardware} profile, however no matter whether or not I’m prioritizing graphics or efficiency, the Ayaneo 3 is able to assembly my wants.

In the meantime, on the cooling entrance, the automated fan setting works properly however units the followers to full energy somewhat preemptively at increased TPD settings. This does stop the Ayaneo 3 from getting too scorching, too rapidly although.

In abstract, the Ayaeno 3’s efficiency is nice from a mean body price standpoint, standing tall in opposition to the likes of the MSI Claw 8 AI+ and Asus ROG Ally X, but it surely’s the efficiency stability that’s its crowning achievement.

Battery life

The battery lifetime of the Ayaneo 3 is middling at greatest. That is largely all the way down to the truth that it’s too highly effective for its modest 49Wh battery, particularly in comparison with the 80Wh battery within the ROG Ally X and MSI Claw 8 AI+.

When benchmarking Cyberpunk 2077 at 30W, the best TDP with out being plugged in, the battery lasted round 40 minutes. In additional real looking gaming situations, say one the place I used to be enjoying Two Level Campus on the 18W TDP on its highest settings, the battery lasted for nearer to a few hours. It’ll at all times come all the way down to the TDP setting and the facility calls for of the sport you may have loaded.

A battery bypass choice is out there, which can permit the Ayaneo 3 to be powered completely by the included 65W charger, with out additionally attempting to make use of up the battery. In the event you don’t allow battery bypass, the battery will nonetheless deplete even when plugged in if you happen to’re utilizing the Ayaneo 3 at round 25W or increased, and this might injury the long-term well being of the battery.

Whereas there are not any efficiency advantages, I at all times used the battery bypass choice when docking the Ayaneo 3, or utilizing the system at 35W, to stop harming the battery. Discovering and activating the choice can be tremendous straightforward given how the Ayaspace fast menu works.

Worth

The Ayaneo 3 configuration that I examined prices $1,499 / £1,185. Fashions vary from $699 with no further modular controls to $2,099 with controls included. The prices additionally rely upon the chosen display, system reminiscence, storage, and APU. Each mannequin is out there through Indiegogo for an early entry funding marketing campaign, and $200-$300 may be saved per mannequin.

There’s no avoiding that this value is intimidating, particularly when a handheld I’ve recognized as being near the Ayaneo 3, the MSI Claw 8 AI+ solely prices $899 / £899. Nevertheless, the distinction in energy, show and sound high quality, storage choices, and even the modular controls do add up by way of worth (though it’s nonetheless fairly ridiculous that they aren’t included with most fashions.)

Options

MSI Claw 8 AI+

A mammoth system, the MSI Claw is an in depth second to the Ayaneo 3 relating to Home windows handhelds. It’s Intel-powered, which in some instances limits the power to completely handle energy and reminiscence the identical approach you may with an AMD system, but it surely’s well-tuned from the start and its AI Engine is a giant win for first-time handheld homeowners. Efficiency-wise, the Claw 8 AI+ generally outperforms the Ayaneo 3, however usually with a extra unstable body price, though its big 80Wh battery and AI Engine efficiency administration are big wins for the hand-held.

Steam Deck

If there may be one factor the Ayaneo 3 has bolstered for me, it’s that the Steam Deck is an effective way to get began with gaming handhelds, however its limitations have gotten very clear, particularly on the facility entrance. In the event you’re in search of a easy, handholding introduction to handhelds, the Steam Deck is good, and it comes at a closely decreased value compared, however you gained’t be enjoying the most recent triple-A video games on first rate settings at 1080p on it.

Verdict

No different handheld I’ve used has both impressed me or pissed off me as a lot because the Ayaneo 3. Stepping again, I acknowledge that these moments of frustration are solely all the way down to the Home windows working system. Regardless of this, when the Ayaneo 3 is on kind, there isn’t any handheld that comes near it for secure efficiency from a body price and graphical perspective.

The OLED show is beautiful, the audio system are extremely loud however, extra importantly, very clear, and the overall really feel is ideal with it not being too heavy or sitting awkwardly in hand.

Its improvements are additionally greater than a gimmick. Management modularity isn’t one thing I had thought-about can be essential in a handheld gaming PC till Ayaneo offered it so properly within the 3, it’s only a disgrace it comes at an added value which might come near an eye-watering $2,000 for the best spec fashions.

It’s not the right gaming handheld, however the Ayaneo 3 is a big assertion in a market that’s changing into oversaturated. Most of the fixes I might need from the Ayaneo 3 are software program or OS-related, that means future updates might properly place this handheld into a category of its personal.

There isn’t any denying that the Ayaneo 3 surpasses the Steam Deck in efficiency and with its show. Nevertheless, the core usability and compatibility of the working system is a actuality examine that simply exhibits how good SteamOS actually is, and the way Home windows limits the Ayaneo 3 from ever hitting its full potential.