AyaNeo Air / AyaNeo Air Pro vs Steam Deck

[Dray hand]

Anyone know how these handhelds compare? 

[Polly Ranton]

The idea of an even more portable Steamdeck alternative (and of course an OLED screen) is nice, but Vega graphics just aren't competitive at all for a gaming handheld PC post-Steamdeck.

As the pretty awesome box plots in the article (which I greatly prefer to video, thanks for still making those) show, the Steam Deck generally delivers 50% more performance at the same power consumption level.

The other point I personally wouldn't want to give up on are the Steam Deck's excellent and varied inputs. I realize that this is probably not as big a deal for everyone, but the fact that the Deck has all the usual dual analog cotnroller inputs plus two touchpads with haptic feedback and 4 back buttons is really quite important to me. I got used to having freely configurable back buttons available with the Steam controller, and the only thing better than 2 back buttons is 4 back buttons.

[Harry Wild]

 feel like all of the Deck's concessions are just necessary for what is a handheld PC.

Navigating desktop mode can already be a pain on the Deck with trackpads and a larger screen but at least you can spend the majority of your time in gaming mode once you've done any necessary setup which is generally controller friendly. Windows only, isn't.

And the emulation performance has been extremely impressive to me as a person that previously didn't use emulation much outside of pre-joystick systems.

[Luke Friend]

Steam input, the controller, and all the input options on the deck are legitimately incredible, it's unreal to me how people keep sleeping on all of it

[Frieda Jones]

I think you actually just highlighted exactly how the Air is competitive: it divides the demand into separate audiences.

For people who want all the input methods, nothing is going to replace the Steam Deck, and you're never going to physically fit all those inputs on a small form factor.

For people who want portability, nothing is going to replace form factor. The fact that the Aya Neo Air can achieve half the performance of a device twice its size and still fit two extra shoulder buttons is an exciting achievement.

For me, there's no price low enough that Valve could sell the Steam Deck—I'd still go with the Air or a GPD Win. How a handheld fits into your life is more important than how it feels in the moment, because the former is what determines whether you will actually use it or not.