AYANEO Pocket Vert Review: If Apple Made A Handheld

If you've been following us for a long time, you know we make jokes about the sheer number of handhelds being released every year.

ANBERNIC was a company known for quantity over quality, but now, AYANEO are the one revealing more than they can chew.

Backlash happened towards the end of 2025 when many customers were waiting an incredibly long time to receive orders, all while scalpers and third-party retailers were shipping theirs more quickly than AYANEO itself.

AYANEO responded recently, apologising for this and has come up with a new plan to please their community. However, the Pocket Vert is still caught up in all of this, and AYANEO decided to not only move pre-orders to their website away from Indiegogo, but they've also reduced the price to $269 from $339 as an apology for recent events.

Specifications

• 3.5" LTPS Display (1440 x 1600) - 615PPI - 450Nits
• Qualcomm Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 CPU
• Qualcomm Adreno 730 GPU
• 8GB - 12GB RAM
• 128GB - 256GB Internal Storage
• 6000MAH Battery
• Android 14
• USB-C Charging
• WiFi + Bluetooth
• Touch Sensitive Control Pad
• Fingerprint Sensor

What's New?

The AYANEO Pocket Vert is a luxury handheld aimed at those who appreciate minimal design aesthetics, with modern touches, crafted in a way that looks like something Apple would create.

It features a few interesting things that make this appealing to the minimal gamer. For example, it has a stunning front-glass panel that consumes the entire face, and hides a touch-sensitive touchpad underneath the action buttons.

Match that with a beautiful, bright bezel-less 3.5" high resolution display (1600 x 1440), engraving-free buttons and a shell made entirely of CNC'ed metal, there's no wonder why I have fallen in love with this device.

But I completely understand why many don't like the look of it. To some, it's plain, it's too sharp, and the buttons look a little awkward. I get it, for a device that you are spending $269 - $369 on, it needs to fit your tastes.

The Design & Build Quality

I'll be honest. When this landed on my desk, my first thought was "not another AYANEO handheld to review". I get through so many of these that it's now getting a little boring.

But it surprised me, thanks to the craftsmanship, and my love for metal retro handhelds. The minimal design allows me to focus on the games, and the display is beyond beautiful, especially when playing upscaled GAME BOY games that fit the entirety of the screen.

And because it's bezel-less, the display somewhat floats on the glass front. The action buttons are a little hit and miss. They're high gloss, and they're on the small side.

You can see that visually, but they're bigger than the eye perceives, as the transparent plastic wraps around the buttons themselves, making it look as if the white bits are the entire button, but actually, the transparent edging is too. That said, they're still iddy bidy.

The DPAD again, although nice and clicky, with great directional accuracy and travel, it's just a little too modern for me. I like the clunky, thick DPADs of the 90's, but this is simply personal preference.

The menu buttons and start/select buttons are nice and minimal; they're out of the way of your thumbs when playing, which I like.

Around the edges and the back, you'll be greeted with the beautiful metal shell that has a very premium, refreshing feel to it and makes you say "wow" out loud when you first pull it out of the box.

The shoulder buttons are unlike anything I've seen before and are purposefully designed to look sharp, diagonal and boxy. It looks uncomfortable to the eye, but in reality, I've had no issues with this straining my fingers.

AYANEO are calling these "diamond cut" shoulder buttons, due to their polished, sharp look. They even chuck some replacement ones in the box too, which can be changed by just popping them off. And I will say, I do find these pop off a little too easily, so the extra pair is warmly welcomed.

Around the sides of the metal body, you'll find an on/off button that has fingerprint recognition, which is a nice premium touch. Above that, what looks like volume buttons, but is actually just extra buttons, and below it, an SD card slot.

The volume button is actually a wheel on the other side that can be spun and pressed if you want to instantly mute the device, then again above it are extra buttons, which are identical to the other side.

At the bottom of the handheld, a USB-C port, dual speakers and a headphone jack.

It's an "indoor" handheld.

As much as I love the way this looks, feels and performs, it's not a handheld I often take out of my house. It's something that's hard to understand if you've never owned a metal handheld.

The metal and luxurious glass front panel, it means it's a pretty weighty handheld for its size. This comes in at 318g, which is almost double the weight of a normal smartphone.

In the hand, it feels lovely, but in reality, I fear the day I drop this thing. There's no proper case for it, so if you do drop it, I am pretty sure it's going to permanently damage this thing.

Metal and glass do not mix well under pressure and drops, and just like a normal smartphone, it's likely to shatter the front glass panel pretty easily.

I cannot test this, nor do I want to, but it's something worth noting, and it's why I don't feel comfortable taking it out, which is a shame as I want to show off its beauty, but I fear that one small drop could destroy this $300 device.

OS & UX

Like any Android handheld these days, setup is a breeze, and they'll even recommend over 20 retro-focused apps and emulators to download straight out of the box, automatically for you.

AYASpace is a nice, simple, easy-to-organise frontend application that AYANEO preinstalls for you, but I found that it didn't match this device's aesthetic.

So, I went on to install Beacon, a premium launcher that cost me £2.89 on the App Store. This simplistic, minimal launcher organises my games in a way that matches the handheld far better, in my opinion.

Because it's Android, you have a boatload of customisation options, alongside the ability to explore your Android games. Yes, it's a little more clunky to set up and explore applications in comparison to Linux, but for me, it's a great match that allows me to make this handheld feel more me.

Gaming Performance

Now let's talk about performance. This simply has too much power, and I've said this in my AYANEO Pocket DMG review, I do not need this much power in a vertical handheld with a 1:1 display.

As far as I'll go on here is PS1 or Dreamcast emulation, anything more just feels a little cramped on a 3.5" display. You could argue some Android games require a bit more power, but again, I'm not exploring those on a small display like this.

For me, I found myself exploring a lot of GAME BOY, PS1 and Dreamcast games, but even then, Dreamcast was a push because of the lack of an analogue stick, the same goes for Nintendo 64.

It's possible using the touch-sensitive pad, yes, and it is certainly a unique way to use the stick controls, but it didn't feel natural for me when I was using it for more than 20 minutes.

Some will bite back and moan at me that I am complaining about power, but I am paying for the luxury of that power when it comes to the price tag. I would much rather you knock $100 off and give it a less powerful spec, while keeping the premium physical features.

Yes, putting it to the test, it can emulate Gamecube games and even PS2 games for that matter, but I can read most of the text, and it has no physical sticks.

The controls and screen size limit the device's playability. Now, many will know this when purchasing it, but for those wanting to play PS2, Wii, N64 and more, it's not going to be comfortable for you, even if it can do it.

For me, this is a luxurious vertical handheld that I can explore "handheld" games on, and it's a beautiful, pleasant way to do so, thanks to the screen and metal design.

PlayStation 1 is fun, and the controls do allow me to play it for hours on end, but again, that's as far as I'll go on here before I sub-consciously go to pick up one of my horizontal handhelds with a 5"+ display.

Battery Life

They've managed to cram a 6000MAH battery in here, which is surprising, because this isn't a long device, nor is it really that thick.

And due to the nature of my gaming experience, this lasts for days because I am not using all of the power or putting the CPU/GPU under pressure, so I found myself rarely charging it, which is great.

If you do emulate PS2 and Gamecube on here at upscaled resolutions, you'll get anywhere between 4 and 8 hours on a single charge. The superfast charging feature is awesome too. I can fully charge this thing in under an hour.

Overall Opinion

This is a niche device for those who want a vertical handheld packed with the latest tech, wrapped in a premium CNC-ed metal shell, accompanied by a display that I absolutely adore.

This is a handheld that has been publicly caught up in a lot of business-related mess on AYANEO's end, and I can see that only 300 sold during their Indiegogo crowdfunding campaign (which they stopped early), so it's obvious either the market didn't want to pay the original $339 price tag, or it confused the handheld community so much so that they ignored it, knowing AYANEO will likely launch something else in a couple of months.

And that is the price AYANEO are paying right now. It's going to sting them for sure.

That said, this is a beautiful device that not many people will own, and it's a shame because it is one of the most luxurious vertical handhelds I have ever reviewed.

I just wish they didn't pack as much power inside of it and price it at under $199!