Ayaneo Air 1S review – ‘air’ on the side of caution

I like taking part in video games on my Nintendo Swap sat on the couch subsequent to my accomplice – it’s how we spend most of our time collectively – however typically I need to play one of many many cool video games that I’ve on PC whereas nonetheless spending time with them. Normally, that is fairly unimaginable as my PC is in a very totally different room of the home, which is why I used to be tremendous excited to present a handheld PC a attempt for this Ayaneo Air 1S overview. Attending to expertise PC-level gameplay from the consolation of my couch seems like an ideal mixture. Let’s see if this highly effective little bit of equipment lives as much as my expectations.

The Ayaneo Air 1S is much from the one handheld PC in the marketplace, so for those who’re after one thing a bit of totally different we’ve bought a complete information to the very best moveable gaming consoles so that you can peruse, plus deep dives into some in style picks in our Steam Deck overview, Aokzoe A1 overview, and Ayaneo 2 overview. Plus, yow will discover out extra about how we check these units on our devoted web page.

Proper, strap in for a doubtlessly bumpy journey as we embark on this Ayaneo Air 1S overview.

Professionals:

• Play your whole PC gaming library on the go
• Lovely design and ergonomic type issue

Cons:

• The display will get so scorching that it glitches
• Poor sound high quality
• Costly
• Extraordinarily fiddly to make use of

Worth and availability

The Ayaneo Air 1S is at present accessible to buy through Ayaneo’s Indiegogo web page with a barely lowered MSRP and a present bundle as an ‘early fowl’ perk. This machine could also be highly effective, however it comes at a worth. Right here’s a breakdown of all of the totally different variations:

• 16GB+512GB – $799 early fowl/$899
• 32GB+1TB – $955 early fowl/$1,099
• 32GB+2TB – $999 early fowl/$1,129
• 32GB+2TB Ayaneo Air 1S Skinny – $999 early fowl/$1,129
• 32GB+2TB Ayaneo Air 1S Retro Energy – $1,029 early fowl/$1,179
• 32GB+4TB Ayaneo Air 1S Retro Energy – $1,099 early fowl/$1,259

The entire listings on Indiegogo supply free worldwide delivery and from our expertise, they ship from a warehouse in China. You could be topic to customs expenses relying on the place you’re primarily based, however we didn’t face any points with that.

Whereas not fairly as expensive because the Aokzoe A1 or Professional, the Ayaneo Air 1S is fairly up there in comparison with a few of its rivals, significantly the Asus ROG Ally which may begin at slightly below $600. The Steam Deck is even cheaper than this, however it doesn’t afford you an identical flexibility because the Ayaneo given its Steam-specific OS.

Specs

Design

Once I first opened the Ayaneo Air 1S, I used to be instantly impressed. I’ve bought the Retro Energy model and whereas it’s not my first alternative of design, I like how reminiscent it’s of the unique Sport Boy. It’s actually mild at 450g – barely heavier than a Nintendo Swap – and a pleasant, compact dimension that feels nice in my arms.

The curved form of the again makes for a extremely ergonomic design, because it doesn’t trigger the identical wrist fatigue that I can get from holding my Swap for too lengthy. The refined RGBs within the joystick ring are a pleasant contact too, turning purple if you’re operating low on cost.

The entire buttons have a terrific tactile really feel to them and the triggers really feel nice. I’m often not a fan of a matte end on issues however it works very well on the Ayaneo, particularly with the beige-brown colour palette of the Retro Energy. The Corridor sensing joysticks are a pleasure to make use of too, particularly when utilizing one among them instead of a mouse to maneuver your cursor. I haven’t had any points thus far with misinterpret inputs and the caps are replaceable for those who handle to put on them down.

The 2 USB-C ports are positioned on the highest and backside of the Ayaneo, that means you may cost your machine whereas utilizing a docking station (try our Syntech docking station overview for a terrific suggestion) and swap out the hand held controls for a Bluetooth controller or mouse and keyboard. Sadly, the Ayaneo doesn’t include a docking station of its personal as commonplace, however you should buy one for an additional $89 (ouch). Nonetheless, the USB-C port ought to make it suitable with most third-party fashions in the marketplace.

Efficiency

Sadly, that is the place issues begin to get a bit of bumpy. I’ll begin with the positives – every thing seems lovely when it’s operating on the Ayaneo. The excessive pixel density and brightness of the AMOLED display make for a colourful, vibrant show that places my PC monitor to disgrace. The factor is, this solely lasts for therefore lengthy. Throughout my testing, I used to be initially operating Honkai Star Rail on the very best settings as a result of that’s what it defaulted to, it seemed phenomenal and ran with none lag.

I solely managed to play for about ten minutes earlier than your entire backside half of the display started to visually glitch, making every thing fuzzy and unreadable. On prime of that, the display was so scorching that it felt prefer it might soften at any second. The console itself didn’t really feel too heat, however the warmth emanating from the display was terrifying. I’ve since fiddled with the fan settings a bit of and adjusted my graphics settings all the way down to medium, however I nonetheless expertise this visible glitch after taking part in for greater than twenty minutes or so.

Because the Ayaneo is actually a tiny PC that runs Home windows 11, it’s fiddlier than different handhelds with devoted OSs constructed for gaming just like the Steam Deck and the Nintendo Swap. Ayaneo’s distinctive AyaSpace 2 is a reasonably helpful device that collates your whole video games from throughout Steam, Epic Video games, Battle.web, and different launchers into one place so you may change between titles simply. At the very least, in principle. I had a extremely laborious time getting the Ayaneo to acknowledge the entire video games that I’d downloaded and type them into the AyaSpace, so I discovered myself launching video games through their desktop shortcuts like I’d on a PC.

The Aya button can also be the way you navigate the console whilst you’re taking part in a sport, protecting every thing from adjusting the FPS and fan pace on the fly to supplying you with button shortcuts if you’re not utilizing a keyboard. That is the place I performed about with the fan settings to try to resolve the HSR downside, however to somebody comparatively un-tech-savvy, I discovered all of it actually laborious to navigate. There’s little or no by means of an instruction booklet that comes with the Ayaneo, so I’ve discovered myself studying via trial and error, which isn’t actually my desired technique after I’m dealing with a bit of equipment price over $1k.

The Aya button’s helpful taskbar ought to be the equal of a plumber’s device belt, supplying you with every thing you can want precisely if you want it. However I’ve discovered it virtually unimaginable to make use of. Any time I take advantage of the directional pad to navigate the Aya menu and modify the FPS or fan settings, my character or cursor in my chosen sport continues shifting. Equally, I’ve put in a shortcut within the taskbar to shut the sport I’m at present taking part in so I can get again to my desktop, and for some motive, this simply doesn’t work. I do not know why! It’s extremely irritating, having to make use of the window button to basically Alt+Tab out of the sport after which use my finger on the molten scorching display to pressure shut the sport.

The display dimension, whereas nice for truly taking part in video games, is lower than ideally suited when you’ll want to use an on-screen keyboard or go a captcha check. It’s just a bit bit too small, making typing fairly troublesome for those who don’t have essentially the most slender fingers on this planet. I attempted utilizing my accomplice’s Microsoft Floor Pen to see if that might be suitable, because the Ayaneo is technically a pill pc, however no luck there. I used to be simply left struggling to sort. I’ve discovered the simplest approach to navigate this situation is definitely to show the machine on its facet so the display is longer moderately than wider, and sort on it like a smartphone.

The battery life isn’t precisely nice both. I can get a strong 90 minutes of gaming in earlier than I drain it from full cost to virtually dying. It looks as if that is pretty frequent throughout handheld PCs although, so it’s not just like the Ayaneo is doing any worse than its rivals in that regard. My important situation with the battery is that I’m afraid to make use of it whereas it’s charging in case I add much more warmth to an already scorching console and harm it.

The sound can also be sub-par, with the Hyper Sound stereo audio system sounding tinnier than my iPhone. Fortunately this appears to be a speaker situation moderately than an audio processing one because the sound is nice via wired headphones, however I don’t need to sit there carrying headphones the entire time whereas I’m making an attempt to play video games and socialize with my accomplice on the identical time.

With 2TB of storage plus room for an SD card, there’s greater than sufficient room to your whole video games assortment, which I do admire, particularly as I play quite a lot of video games with huge file sizes ( you, Genshin Affect). However sadly this doesn’t make up for the entire different pitfalls.

Verdict

Total, I feel the Ayaneo Air 1S has quite a lot of potential, particularly for somebody extra tech-savvy than me. I like which you could play video games from a wide range of companies, the show is beautiful, and video games run easily on it earlier than the display begins to glitch. I simply suppose there’s much more that might be completed to make this the optimum handheld console for me.

I’d moderately use one thing with much less energy and a less-open OS that doesn’t make me really feel unhappy and disenchanted each time I boot it as much as board the Astral Categorical or pocket heal in Overwatch 2. The worth level additional solidifies this for me, as I’m not getting the additional benefit that I’d be paying for.

When you don’t thoughts having to tinker a bit along with your tech earlier than it’s able to go, otherwise you’re simply on the lookout for one thing actually fairly to play some low-intensity video games on, the Ayaneo Air 1S could be for you. I’m not fully counting it out, however it’s left a little bit of a bitter style in my mouth.

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