AYANEO intros a new lineup of its handheld consoles named "AYANEO AIR 1S," targeted towards a lightweight and performance-efficient design.

AYANEO "AIR 1S" Handheld Models Are Focused on Being Lightweight Without Performance Tradeoffs

For those unaware, AYANEO is a well-established competitor in the industry, offering a wide range of handheld devices focused on gaming. This time the company has introduced a new lineup featuring standard AIR 1S & a lighter version called "AIR 1S Ultra-Thin & Light" suggesting that the company has concentrated on making a device that "weighs" less and is easy to carry.

Moving on to the specifications, the AYANEO 1S is powered by the Ryzen 7 7840U Phoenix APU based on Zen4. It includes eight cores & 16 threads powered by the latest Radeon 780M iGPU featuring RDNA 3 architecture. This specific APU is power-efficient and performs exceptionally at just 15-28W power draw. The AIR 1S models have LPDDR5X memory onboard and the company hasn't specified the clock speeds or the memory options the device will come with.

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The AYANEO AIR 1S provides optimal display quality with a native resolution of 1920 x 1080 on an AMOLED panel. It also has a wide color gamut featuring 99% DCI-P3 coverage; hence, this lineup shouldn't have any display quality tradeoffs. Moreover, one intriguing feature of the handheld is an M.2 SSD slot with support for up to M.2 2280. Judging by the size of the device and the weight, AYANEO has impressed us.

The standout point for the new AIR 1S models is the weight that comes with the device. The handheld industry has been able to incorporate high-tech components into its products, but this has come with the cost of increased weight and size. However, AYANEO has kept this in mind, so their standard AIR 1S consoles weigh 450g, muchlower than what we have seen with the ROG Ally (608g). Moreover, the "Ultra Thin & Light" variant weighs only 405g but this comes with a cost of less battery size.

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Regarding pricing, the AIR 1S variants are currently available for discount and are listed on a crowdfunding platform. The consoles start from $899, although you can snag one right now for a $100 discount as a pre-release bonus. You can view the variants being offered and their respective prices below:

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Overall, the "AIR 1S" models are a great option if you are looking for a lightweight device to play the latest titles. The decisive factor will be the performance benchmarks of the device along with battery timing; hence you should wait for the console to get into the hands of reviewers before purchasing one. The consoles are expected to hit the retail market by early August as revealed by the company.

Handheld Gaming Console Lineup: