AYANEO Pocket Ace Review: The "One & Done" Retro Handheld

• Where To Buy: Indiegogo & AYANEO
• Price: $349 - $600+
• Direct Competition: Retroid Pocket 5 & Steam Deck
• Watch our video review on YouTube.

We only just finished our review of the AYANEO Pocket DMG after having it for a few months, and although we loved it, the form factor was odd when you consider the sheer power it has, yet it’s partnered with a square display and a single analogue stick that pulls it back from its potential.

If only that power was in a horizontal form factor… well here it is, with similar specs and the same minimal design, the AYANEO Pocket Ace is a wonderful device that feels organic in the hands and has easily been my all-round powerhouse handheld over the last couple of weeks.

This device ranges from $340 to $600 depending on how much RAM you go for and whether or not you want to pre-order it on Indiegogo. The price will go up considerably for non-backers after the crowdfunding finishes.

This means it’s located in the premium handheld category, which puts it in the battlefield with the Nintendo Switch, the Steam Deck and even the Nintendo Switch 2 when it launches soon. There are far more capable handhelds than this in that price range, but AYANEO doesn’t care and wants to build the go-to portable handheld for retro gaming and Android gamers, which it has done exquisitely.

AYANEO Pocket Ace Specifications

• Snapdragon® G3x Gen 2 SoC
• 4.5" IPS Borderless Display - 620 x 1080 - 433PPI
• 8GB - 16GB LPDDR5X 8533Mbps RAM
• 6000mAh Battery
• Hall Joysticks & Triggers
• Android 13
• 128GB - 1TB Internal Storage
• Surge Linear Motor
• High-Speed WiFi / BT 5.3
• Up To 15W Performance

How does it feel in the hand?

In terms of design it looks super minimal, with modern touches around the device, such as the glass front, the retro transparent buttons, hall- joysticks, a gorgeous 4.5” IPS borderless display and analogue triggers. It’s impressive how AYANEO can make a handheld look so unique in an oversaturated market, so kudos to them for that.

The build quality is superb, but not on the same level as the recent AYANEO Pocket Micro which has a gorgeous metal shell that actually stops me from wanting to take it out of the house. The Ace’s plastic body still feels smooth in the hands, and sturdy enough to feel comfortable using it daily on the go. I feel more confident taking this one out into the wild, that’s for sure.

The buttons across the face are very comfortable and perfectly located so that I have full motion, the DPAD flexible for a wide amount of different gaming genres, the action buttons are clicky, yet reactive with just enough travel and pressure to them, and the hall-joysticks have great a great feel to them, although no signature LED’s behind them like they usually do with their “higher-end” products.

The chin houses four buttons that do different things, such as opening up your apps, a turbo button that switches output modes, a AYANEO button that opens up your console preferences, allowing you to see usage and change performance details on the fly, and then there’s an Android button that opens up your tabs.

These work well and are located away from the start and select buttons to not cause any confusion, which helps me dearly as I like to set the start/select buttons for emulation, so it gives me enough buttons to operate on a gaming and console level.

The final features on the chin are the front facing speakers, designed to be super sleek and that they are.

Between the buttons you will find a borderless 4.5” IPS display with a 3:2 aspect ratio, a 1080p resolution and 550nits of brightness, making it easily visible when outdoors. There’s no denying that the colours and brightness partner well with retro games, it’s a truly beautiful screen that I only found one flaw with while reviewing it… and that’s light bleed.

For some reason my unit has serious light bleed, which is made evident when some of my retro games have black borders but even more so when you show a black image entirely. It comes from almost every side and unfortunately for some this will be a big hindrance, and I am hoping it’s just my unit but I would recommend looking at other reviews to see if it's happening on more sample devices because this isn’t good…

I personally can live with it, but this isn’t something that should be happening on devices over $340, it’s simply poor quality control and something i didn’t think i’d say about AYANEO, but here we are. Fingers crossed it’s only happening on my unit, or pre-launch review samples.

Up top you will find large, comfortable shoulder buttons, two analogue triggers which work well on your games that require it, and between them you’ll find your fingerprint recognition sleep button, volume buttons, two small LC/RC buttons that can be mapped to anything you please and ventilation.

There’s no denying this is a well built, beautiful device that will look remarkable for years to come, it’s why I adore AYANEO products as they pay attention to design detail, which isn’t something I can say for many of its competitors.

Ok, it looks good, but let's turn it on

When you turn on the device, AYANEO has now crafted a clean setup process, allowing you to instantly install recommended emulation apps with the press of a button which is appreciated and helps out newcomers who may find the setup overwhelming.

AYANEO Space still needs some time and patience to set up, but once done you have all of your retro games in one space alongside your console settings to tweak as you play.

It’s a nice user interface that brings the entire handheld into one hub, as it’s running Android on the backend which allows you to install other Android games and Cloud Streaming apps to turn this device into a multi-gaming device, which it’s certainly capable of because of the hefty specs.

What I would like to see is an update that automatically finds the box art for my ROM library.

This was available in older updates but didn’t work, so I believe they have removed this entirely, which is a shame as GoRetroid has this feature and its as easy as pressing 2 or 3 buttons which does it for you, so for those like me who don’t have box art files, it’s an easy solution to make your library look nice, or you’re just left with text and no art. Obviously you can download them yourselves but this easy feature would make it easy for noobs and lazy fools like myself.

What can it emulate?

Internally my review unit has a Snapdragon G3x Gen 2 CPU with 16GB of RAM and 1TB of storage, it’s a beast, and so is the price tag. I was excited to see what this could do, and to jump straight in I tested Playstation 2 emulation, which as you may know can be quite power intensive.

Yet, the Pocket ACE exceeded my expectations here and I was able to emulate most of my favourite PS2 games with confidence at 2x native resolution and beyond with zero hiccups.

It required Max or Gaming mode, which turns on the fans and saps a little bit more battery life but due to the 6000MAH battery you can emulate these PS2 games for hours on end in a pocket friendly form factor, with impressive comfortability and a clean user interface, it’s one of those handhelds when tweaked to your preferences it becomes an incredible little device that I am having a lot of fun with.

It’s reliable, and reliable handhelds, come on all my trips away, and not just long weekends, day trips out to the park, or catching the train for example, this comes everywhere with me now.

Gamecube emulation is also great, allowing me to play the classics with all my buttons and sticks, and although there are black borders like many emulators, it looks and sounds gorgeous on this thing.

To fill up more of the screen and take advantage of that 1080p display I emulated PSP games, and I know this is a normal thing to emulate these days, but the formfactor of the device just felt incredibly natural here, as if it was a more square PSP with nicer shoulder buttons and a higher resolution display.

With these consoles playing well it’s obvious that older consoles will also likely perform well, and that it does. Nintendo 64 is a joy to use, especially with plenty of buttons to map, including the shoulder buttons.

Game Boy Advance is a joy to play, thanks to the 3:2 screen ratio on the ACE. It feels up every inch of the display in a bright, colourful way, with loud speakers to accompany it.

You guessed it, NES, SEGA Dreamcast, Mega Drive, GameBoy, SNES, Playstation 1 and more all work well here, that’s due to the power and the sheer price of this thing.

My overall opinion

It’s hard to hate. I feel as if this is the perfect middle of the spectrum gaming device between palm sized handhelds, and the hefty portable PC’s, it has this charm to it that feels… actually portable unlike many devices with this power.

As if AYANEO just created one of the best truly “portable” handhelds on the market and I am here for it. But there’s no ignoring the price of this thing and it’s certainly going to be out of sight for many retro gamers, alongside to the fact most of us already have a device that can emulate most of our retro games, or we already have a Steam Deck that competes with this on a power level.

So, this is again, a super niche device aimed at retro gamers who don’t have a budget and want one of the best portable retro handhelds on the market with a sprinkling of Android and Cloud Gaming, wrapped in a beautiful body.

It feels much better in the hand in comparison to the Retroid Pocket 5, AYA Space is a little more professional and it’s much higher-tech, but it is again more expensive, so it has impressive competition in every direction.

For newcomers the Retroid Pocket 5 is likely a better choice, it’s slightly cheaper, easier to understand and set up. But for those who want more power, better design and a handheld you won’t need to update for 5 years, this is it.