Antec Core Micro debuts as the company's second rebranded gaming handheld

Antec entered the gaming handheld market with the launch of the Core HS, a rebrand of the Ayaneo Slide. Now, the company has introduced the Core Micro, which is also a rebrand of an Ayaneo device. To be specific, it's the Pocket Micro but with a new name.

Like the Core HS, nothing except the name of the gaming handheld has changed for the Core Micro. That means Antec's new offering has the same specs as Ayaneo's Pocket Micro, which is more of an emulation handheld running on Android than a competitor to the likes of Asus ROG Ally or Legion Go.

Under the hood, this Android gaming handheld features the MediaTek Helio G99, meaning it sits in the same performance league as the KT-R1 and similar options. According to Ayaneo, this SoC enables up to PS2 game emulation, and thanks to the active cooling solution (a fan), the G99 in the device is said to offer stable performance even under heavy loads.

The MediaTek SoC is paired with 8 GB of RAM and 256 GB of storage, but the Antec Core Mirco has an SD card slot that can further expand the storage. A 2,600 mAh battery powers the internals, which is said to offer 6 hours of gaming easily (24,000 mAh Anker 737 power bank curr. $106.48 on Amazon). As for the screen, the handheld sports a 3.5-inch IPS display with 960 x 640 pixels resolution, a 3:2 screen ratio, and 100 % sRGB coverage.

Other highlights of the gaming handheld include WiFi 5, Android 13, Hall effect joysticks, and a CNC aluminum body. Antec has yet to share pricing details, but the Ayaneo Pocket Micro with 8 GB of RAM and 256 GB of storage has a retail price of $249.