The Steam Deck is arguably the best gaming PC for on-the-go players, but Ayaneo is looking to steal the crown using a discrete next-gen AMD graphics card. The company’s Next 2 handheld also boasts an 8-inch display, but the whole package borrows aesthetics from Valve’s portable powerhouse.
We’ll probably have to wait a while for the Steam Deck 2, and we’re already holding out for a modular version of the gaming PC. While Valve’s likely cooking up something special, competitors like Ayaneo are working hard to create a handheld with an edge, and the company’s latest announcement suggests it could do so by using an actual GPU in place of an APU.
Announced via Twitter, the Ayaneo Next 2 will apparently pack “new discrete graphics” and a Ryzen 7000 CPU. Again, handheld PCs typically wield an APU that acts as both a GPU and a processor, so opting for something like the upcoming Radeon RX 7600S would help the device trade blows with the best gaming laptop options.
Ayaneo avoids naming the specific GPU in question, so we could be looking at an unannounced AMD product. There’s a chance it’ll use the RX 7600S mentioned above, but when you consider the fact that the chip requires 50-75W, it’s perhaps not the best choice for a relatively dinky handheld.
Of course, Ayaneo’s ‘announcement’ is more of a heads-up than an unveiling, and we’ll have to wait for an official unveiling to learn more. That said, it’s clear to see that the upcoming handheld borrows a few design cues from Valve, as it appears to feature square touchpads, a similar layout and form factor.
