AYANEO has just announced the price and CPU for their upcoming budget-minded NEXT LITE handheld, and we were absolutely shocked by the markdown!
AYANEO had just revealed the Next Lite a few days, and we discussed everything we knew at that time.
Which, honestly, was not a whole lot.
We knew that the intention was to offer one of their flagship devices at a much more affordable price, which would also mean that there would need to be some sacrifices made in the hardware.
Our early estimations – AYANEO would choose a more cost effective CPU to get the device closer to the price of one of the strongest competitions for them – the ASUS ROG Ally (which starts at $599USD).
I had proclaimed that if they could get the NEXT Lite at $599, that would be a huge win for those desperate to finally get an AYANEO device, but could never afford the price.
Today, AYANEO took to Twitter to share both the CPU and price for the Next Lite. You ready for this? The AYANEO Next Lite will offer the following models:
- AMD Ryzen 5 4500U / 16GB / 128GBssd at $299USD
- AMD Ryzen 5 4500U / 16GB / 512GBssd at $349USD
- AMD Ryzen 7 4800U / 16GB / 512GBssd at $399USD
An Incredible Markdown
Yes, all three new Next Lite models come in at a much lower price than I anticipated, putting the Lite in VERY strong competition with all of their peers.
Obviously the CPU did have to take a bit of a power cut to get the price that low. The original Ryzen 7 5825u chipset was quite the powerhouse.
But the new high end Lite model is still packing the fairly strong Ryzen 7. And at $200 less than what we’d expect the base model to debut at.
So overall, we’re incredibly happy with AYANEO’s efforts to finally give us a handheld that the common folk can afford!
What About Steam OS?
A lot of people had questions about AYANEO’s announcement that the new Next Lite would be the first device to feature Steam OS (other than the Steam Deck, of course).
AYANEO doubled-down and clarified that the Next Lite does come with Steam OS pre-installed and is leveraging their own “HololSO” Windows based solution to make it all work seamlessly.
I’m also not sure if they have a spelling error in their marketing and should have had it as “HololOS“… but I guess we’ll find out soon!
With AYANEO’s track record of polish in their hardware and making sure things work as well as possible at the software level, we have no doubt that the NEXT Lite will ship tuned up and ready to rock & roll. We’re okay with mistakes in English if the device is awesome.
