AYANEO Pocket Micro Review – A Beautifully Crafted Overpowered Handheld

The Pocket Micro is AYANEO’s first attempt at entering the “affordable” Android handheld market, primarily focusing on creating a device that can emulate an array of retro consoles while keeping a slick, modern and minimal design, built with high quality materials.

It’s a device that will scare other handheld manufacturers in the space and it’s a look at what AYANEO can do on a tight budget. I have wanted AYANEO to enter this space ever since I tested the AYANEO 2 early last year.

After interviewing Arthur Zhang, the CEO of AYANEO, I was intrigued to see how they get on with building a £189/$219 device of this calibre. It has a metal shell, hall-joysticks, a stunning display covered with a glass front that wraps around the buttons and a custom built front-end to organise your games.

Now that it’s in my hands and I have had plenty of time to test this device, I want to share my initial thoughts, what I love about it, what I dislike about it and if it’s worth the current price tag in a market that is over-saturated with handheld emulators.

Disclaimer: I do want to mention that AYANEO sent this sample unit out to us for review purposes, however it is not the final product that will be shipped once their crowdfunding finishes. AYANEO informed me that this unit could have slight light bleed, a problem with the TF card slot, and some software bugs that I will go over in this review, but they promised that these issues would not be found in the final units sent to its customers. The unit I am reviewing today is the 8GB+256GB model (their most powerful model which costs $249).

AYANEO Pocket Micro Specifications

• 3.5” Borderless IPS Display (3:2 @ 960 x 640) with 330PPI
• MediaTek Helio G99 SoC
• 6GB-8GB RAM LPDDR4X
• 2600MAH Battery
• Wifi 5 & Bluetooth 5.2
• Android 13
• Weight: 233g
• Hall Sensing Joysticks
• Vibration Motor
• Gyroscope

Is The AYANEO Pocket Micro Comfortable?

There’s no denying that AYANEO put a lot of time and effort into creating beautiful handhelds, and the AYANEO Pocket Micro could be their most beautiful yet. Arthur Zhang mentioned that they have taken design inspiration from the Game Boy Micro (hence the name), and wanted to create a small, pocketable device that retro gamers can enjoy on the go.

Size wise, it’s not small, and it’s not big… it’s certainly not “Micro”. It’s the same size as a typical smartphone and weighs the same as on too. It has the same thickness as a deck of cards. So although it is pocketable, yes, its length makes it only fit larger pockets comfortably. So I am on the fence when it comes to stating that this is actually “small”, but I can agree that it is indeed portable.

One question that our community asked us on Twitter after announcing that we have a sample into review was “is it comfortable due to the square nature of the device?”.

As you can tell, it’s certainly a sharp handheld, with squared corners, flat design and minimal shoulder buttons that hide somewhat in the shell. My answer to that would be yes, it’s comfortable for what this handheld is designed to do.

This is not a device that you spend 4+ hours on at a time, rather 1-2 hours maximum, and that’s because of two things. Firstly, the battery capacity is small here, coming in at just 2600 MAH’s, meaning I could only push this to about 4 – 6 hours of gameplay on a single charge (depending on what games I was emulating).

Secondly, it’s designed for older consoles within the 32-bit era and those are typically games that you don’t play for hours on end in one session. The sharp edges do add some strain when compared to rounded edges, but you won’t feel the strain unless you’re trying to drain the battery in one go.

The AYANEO Pocket Micro has purposely been designed like this to follow AYANEO’s minimal, modern goals. They don’t want to make a handheld that looks like something on the market, and they’ve made something incredibly unique.

Build Quality & Design

AYANEO have wrapped this device in a CNC aluminium alloy metal, which makes this device feel incredible in the hands, and adds to the premium nature of this device. The CNC machine used must have been incredibly accurate, because I can’t find one scratch, or slightly misaligned cut, the shell is literally flawless.

To add to the premium feel of the handheld, AYANEO continues to add a solid block of glass to the front of the handheld, which wraps around the buttons to create a visually pleasing device that is becoming a signature in many of AYANEO’s designs.

AYANEO stated in their disclaimer email that the buttons “may not be good quality” on my device, but I have yet to find one flaw with them individually. The DPAD is great and has good diagonal movement but you do really have to “dip” your thumbs over the analogue sticks to stop your thumb from touching them, there were times where I did touch the left-stick accidentally because they are located so close to the DPAD or action buttons, this happened frequently when playing fast paced games.

The analogue sticks themselves use hall-sensing technology and sit high out of the shell to give them increased movement. However the height sacrifices portability, and as mentioned does get in the way. I would have liked to see the analogue sticks sit deeper into the shell, this would have removed the touching issue and made it more portable, because let’s face it nobody likes snagging their sticks on things when putting the device in a bag or in your pocket for example.

The start, select, AYANEO and Android buttons are located on the edge of the chin, raised enough so that they can’t be pressed when standing the device up, and wrapped under enough so that they seem hidden. It’s a great location and keeps the face from looking cluttered. You’ll find two speakers ont he button, alongside a USB-C port for charging.

On the left side you have your Micro-SD card slot to insert your files and ROMs. I did have an issue here as the silicon door seems to fit far to tightly, showing bends in the rubber if not shut incorrectly. I really had to shove this into the cutout to get this to stick, and because the door has a small attachment so that it doens’t fall out, i found myself having to slap away the door everytime I wanted to place in my SD card, as if i was constantly fighting it to move out of the way.

However, once you finally get it locked in it does stay there. I think this was the “TF card slot issue” that AYANEO mentioned previously, and I can confirm, it is an annoying door.

On the top of the AYANEO Pocket Micro you will find your shoulder buttons. Now, on any other device I would have disliked this layout, as some of you may know from many of my other reviews, I am a big fan of the stacked format. However, these are incredibly slim, feel sturdy and accompany the minimal design, so I believe stacked shoulder buttons would have completely changed the design to a point where it would have lost its “minimal” attributes.

These shoulder buttons work well, have a responsive soft click and the L2/R2 buttons are slightly raised so that you can feel the difference, however these are not analogue shoulder buttons which I think will start to become a common feature in handhelds within this price range in the future. There are a selection of retro games that do use analogue triggers, so that would have been nice, but again, it would have needed to be completely different triggers.

Between the triggers you’ll find a volume button, a large ventilation grill and a fingerprint reader that opens up and secures your Android OS. It’s a nice feature, easy to set up and adds to the premium line of features that this device offers. Again, I believe this will make its way into more $200 Android handhelds in the near future.

Then finally, on the back you will find another large ventilation grill that allows the fan to push out hot air. When the fan is in use at max speeds there is no ignoring it, it’s fairly loud and you can feel the air being pushed out from every direction, more noticeably the top.

It’s one of the most beautiful handhelds on the market right now, I would put it on the same level as the metal analogue Pocket that was recently released, and although you do pay a premium for it, I hope companies like this scare the likes of ANBERNIC, Powkiddy and GoRetroid to great higher quality products.

The minimal nature of this device and the modern design has made me fall in love with it, no it’s the most ergonomic but it’s undeniably stunning in a stealthy way thanks to the glass front and dark metal shell. It’s why I love AYANEO, their products are a piece of art and that’s what gamers have to understand.

AYANEO mixes portable gaming with physical art, and that’s why they charge a premium for it. It’s a device that will last a lifetime thanks to this too.

Setup & The User Experience

Where AYANEO succeeds in creating physical beauty they lack that skill in creating a fluid library experience. They have been working on creating AYASpace for Android for some time now, and it is constantly getting updated to become a better place to explore which I respect, however it’s still clunky in some areas and for newcomers to the scene who may be buying their first Android gaming handheld, it’s just an overwhelming and confusing experience at times.

First of all (and this may be just my review unit), the device was set to Chinese, meaning the Android setup process was all in a language I could not understand out of the box, so I had to guess my way through the setup process and search how I changed Android from Chinese to English. Even after changing language there are some areas in AYASpace that stay Chinese, for example entering your phone number and selecting a country of residence.

Once that was done, I then had to download my own Android apps, emulators and games via the Google Play Store. This isn’t a big issue but GoRetroid and even ANBERNIC (two budget handheld makers) are pre-installing apps for you, alongside creating an easy step-by-step front-end that sets up the device for you straight out of the box.

AYANEO needs to implement this, because devices that are half the price of this are doing just that.Plus, it’s what users want. I don’t want to be putting in an hour of work and setup before jumping into my games, this should be assisting customers with that process as swiftly and efficiently as possible.

Once your Android apps are downloaded you then have to set up AYASPACE. AYASpace is getting much better as the years go by, but it still requires a bit of work to build the front-end that you want.

Pulling ROMs into the space is pretty easy, and it will eventually look like a Netflix home screen, with recent games showing, your library of consoles and tagged favourites which is nice, however because most of my ROMs do not have the box art, my library looks incredibly repetitive with the basic AYANEO logo showing everywhere instead.

Typically you can find the box art by using AYANeo’s data manager. You click on the game, click on data management, type in the game you want and AYANEO will show you the box art, the data, description and more for you to download.

The box art can be seen in the preview, but when I download the data, everything but the box art can be seen, almost as if its a bug. I did contact AYANEO and they stated “this may be a lock of data from our end”, but I can see the box art in the preview, so the file is there, it just can’t be ported to my device.

I am not sure if this is an official bug, but it means that me and users who come across this will have to download ROM files with the specific box art, and if you’re anything like me, my whole collection does not have box art, and I was relying on the AYASpace feature to do that for me. So I currently have a library without box art, unless I put in hours of work sourcing game files with box art…

AYASpace uses RetroArch to play the games from the main library, which is pretty fluid but again, must be downloaded manually before playing. Games are organised into their own consoles, and can be easily found and organised once downloaded. Once in RetroArch you can use the emulators settings to save, change resolution and so on. To enter the handheld’s settings simply press the “AYANEO” button on the chin to slide in the shortcuts, here you can see FPS, chang performance modes, and change fan modes on the fly, this works great and is an easy way to increase output.

99% of the time this buttons works, however there has been a few games that for some reason close when I press the AYANEO button. This can be very annoying as gamers would lose their saves. It seems to happen with random games too, more prominently GameCube games which doesn’t use RetroArch as an emulator.

So these are some of the bugs that AYANEO need to fix, and are easy to slip pass AYANEO’s quality control team. That said, once you’re setup, moving between consoles, organising your library and downloading apps is a breeze.

I just think a lot of gamers will find themselves not using the AYASpace at all, and instead using the basic Android homepage to navigate their collections. I am still on the fence with which one I prefer.

Emulation Quality

Let’s talk about emulation, because this is what the device does best, and what it’s designed for. The 3.5” display  partnered with the powerful MediaTek Helio G99 CPU is a very odd relationship because it has the power to emulate larger consoles, but playing them on a 3.5” display can be a little claustrophobic.

This is a powerful device compacted into a small frame at a $219 price tag. which certainly generated attention in the handheld space. With that power you can emulate a lot of retro consoles.

On AYANEO’s marketing material the console they shout about the most is Playstation 2. The exact words are “Powerful enough to handle PS2 games”. Is that true? Technically, yes.

It can handle some PS2 games, but the larger, and more popular PS2 games that we all want to play certainly struggle here.

This is quite common in the handheld industry right now. Brands will state it can handle certain consoles, where in reality it can only play a small portion of the games without hiccups, and that’s the case with the Pocket Micro. It does not handle Ratchet & Clank for example, in certain areas it will drop frame rates and slow down considerably, so I would advise only loading smaller, less power intensive PS2 games on here, and even then, on a 3.5” display PS2 games just aren’t comfortable to play. The text is small, it’s hard to find objects at times and icons put strain on the eyes, so I can comfortably say this is not a device I recommend playing PS2 games on.

The same goes for GameCube games in a way, it has a much higher hit rate playing games incredibly well. I only encountered a couple of issues with games I tested, but some games with small text and areas that need high concentration do feel a little cramped on here. I find myself rarely playing GameCube games because of the small display. When emulating both of these consoles you will notice that the fan kicks in too.

And it REALLY kicks in. This thing will get pretty loud, so loud in fact that my partner could hear it from the other side of the room. I mention this because if you are planning to play higher end games in bed, on a plane or on a bus for example, you may get some odd looks because it sounds like a small drone.

But in reality, this isn’t why you buy this handheld. The Pocket Micro excels in playing games within the 32 and 64 bit era, with a sprinkling of Dreamcast.

Nintendo 64, Dreamcast, and Playstation 1 games were an absolute pleasure to experience. Yes you could argue that Dreamcast may have similar issues in terms of text size, but it was less of a worry. These consoles played without any hiccups thanks to the CPU, and are just about comfortable to play using a 3.5” display.

But, the most beautiful console to play on here is the Game Boy Advance. This thing is pretty much built for GBA enthusiasts thanks to the 3:2 display and the perfect 4x resolution to make the games look beyond beautiful.

80% of my time using the device was spent exploring my library of Game Boy Advance games. The display makes them so vibrant and transforms them into a way that feels like you’re playing them like never before, matched with premium build quality, it makes you feel like a kid again.

Sega Mega Drive, NES, SNES and original Game Boy games were also a go to of mine, which is when I soon realised that I believe this handheld is overpowered for myself personally.

It doesn’t need all that power on a 3.5” display, it’s overkill, and is a recent negative I had about the ANBERNIC RG Cube, wishing that they lowered the power and the price slightly to make it more affordable, and that’s where I am at with this device.

I love it, it emulates everything I want and more, but I don’t want to pay for that “more” if I can. The specs would fit more naturally on a 4” – 5” display. The power aside, it’s pleasurable experience which is thanks to the display and the design, AYANEO have done well to partner modern hardware that amplifies retro software.

Android Gaming On The Pocket Micro

For those interested in Android gaming, then you won’t be disappointed because every Android game I threw at this performed well, so although I do complain about the specs being overkill, I could argue that it comes in handy for larger Android games.

I personally don’t play larger Android games, but I do like to dive into Stardew Valley, Minecraft and Diablo which at times requires some CPU power, which it consumed joyfully. Again the 3.5” does struggle to pair nicely with some Android games so you have to pick them wisely, anything fast paced is a no go on here, and because the Android 13 OS thinks its a Xbox controller all the buttons are mapped and working in most Android games too.

I see Android games as a bonus. I didn’t even attempt at streaming games to this thing because it just won’t look good on a screen of this size. Typing on the tiny display is awkward too, which is required in a lot of Android games setup process which makes its a cumbersome at times.

Overall Opinion

This has quickly become one of my favourite retro handhelds of the year. The market is oversaturated with average to poor retro gaming devices, and AYANEO knows that, so they have created a premium handheld that feels better than most of the devices launched in the last four years, targeting a small niche who wants to experience 32-64 bit retro games in a premium manner and are happy to spend over $200 to get that.

It’s not a cheap device, but AYANEO understands that and uses premium materials in a way that feels nostalgic yet modern. It’s a device that I will be playing with for years on end, unlike many other handhelds that come through my doors.

That said, it’s certainly not perfect and the specs used are overkill for what I need to play on this device, so I recommend taking a look at the 6GB version to save you a little bit of money, especially if you won’t be touching PS2 games at all.

The AYASpace needs more work, the battery life will catch you out at times and the analogue sticks needed to sit lower into the device. If you can live with those tiny flaws then this is an incredibly built handheld that I have fallen in love with. I am excited to see what else AYANEO do in this space, because the market needs more handhelds like this to spice up the oversaturated and boring products that we have seen this year.

AYANEO has entered the affordable handheld emulator chat.

The AYANEO Pocket Micro can currently be pre-ordered on Indiegogo, once the crowdfunding has ended it will be available on AYANEO’s official website.