Ayaneo Pocket Micro Classic: Pre-orders open for new pocketable retro gaming handheld

The Ayaneo Pocket Micro (curr. $246.95 on Amazon) is less than a year old. Nonetheless, Ayaneo has decided to release the Pocket Micro Classic, which is already available to order from the company's website. Broadly speaking, the Pocket Micro Classic has the same features as the Pocket Micro, including the former's CNC aluminium housing.

For example, Ayaneo continues to include a MediaTek Helio G99 chipset backed by a 2,600 mAh battery, LPDDR4X-4266 RAM and UFS 2.2 flash storage. The Pocket Micro Classic also brings across the Micro's 3.5-inch IPS display, which outputs at 960 x 640 pixels with a 330 PPI pixel density, 400 nits peak brightness and a 3:2 aspect ratio. Likewise, the Pocket Micro Classic runs Android 13 with AYASpace and AYAHome pre-installed.

Effectively, Ayaneo has created the Pocket Micro Classic by removing the two joysticks its includes in the Pocket Micro. As a result, the former is said to be 6 g lighter than the latter. Currently, the Pocket Micro Classic starts at $179 with 6 GB of RAM and 128 GB of storage. By contrast, Ayaneo charges $209 for variants with 8 GB of RAM and 256 GB of storage. In other words, the Pocket Micro Classic is a mere $10 cheaper than the Pocket Micro, despite its reduced functionality.