AYANEO NEXT Lite debuts with retro gaming handheld credentials lacking HoloISO for $299

AYANEO has now released the NEXT Lite, shortly after confirming that it had ditched HoloISO as the device's default operating system. Arriving a day after the launch of the FLIP DS and FLIP KB, the NEXT Lite arguably has more in common with the original AYA NEO and NEO 2021 Pro than its recent peers. In short, AYANEO is shipping the NEXT Lite with the Ryzen 5 4500U and Ryzen 7 4800U, although only the former is available for now.

Thus, the NEXT Lite utilises six Zen 2 CPU cores, two more than the Aerith APU that powers the Steam Deck, which AYANEO ultimately seemed to be targetting with its $299 launch pricing and initial HoloISO commitment. However, the lack of Simultaneous Multi-Threading (SMT) support that the Ryzen 5 4600U means that the NEXT Lite actually offers two fewer threads than the Steam Deck, coupled with a much weaker Radeon RX Vega 6 iGPU. Thus, the NEXT Lite will be less powerful than the Ryzen 7 5700U version of the AM01, a mini-PC that AYANEO launched in November.

Typically, AYANEO funds new devices through Indiegogo before releasing them on its e-commerce platform. For some reason, the company has skipped straight to the latter with the NEXT Lite, which is only configurable with 16 GB of RAM and 512 GB of storage for $299. Similarly, the company's product page lists the device's 'Sky White' variant as being unavailable, with 'Starry Black' and 'Pastel Blue' remaining orderable at the time of publication. Allegedly, AYANEO will only sell 100 Next Lite units before raising its price to $349. Unfortunately, it is unclear how many units have sold so far and when the device's powerful options will go live.

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