AYANEO 2 Review – AAA gaming handheld PC!

In our AYANEO 2 review, we will be taking a close look at the handheld and comparing it with the others that have the 6800U processor.

AYANEO 2 Review Video

Unboxing the AYANEO 2

First a quick unboxing. We have a bunch of user guides covering the AYANEO 2 and AYA SPACE launcher. Next we have the AYANEO 2 handheld PC itself, we will show it in more detail shortly.

Underneath we have all the accessories including charger and plug adaptors for most regions around the world. There is also a USB Type-C cable, two USB Type-C to A adaptors and some replacement screw covers for the handheld.

AYANEO 2 Overview

The AYANEO 2 handheld PC measures around 10.4 x 4.1 x 1.42 inches (26.45 x 10.55 x 3.61 cm) and weighs 680g. It will be available in four colours, Starry Black, Sky White, Retro Power shown here and B.Duck.

The display is a 7” touchscreen LCD with a native resolution of 1920×1200. The front of the handheld is covered with a single sheet of glass which supposedly has an anti-fingerprint coating.

All of your usual gaming controls are present, including LED lit hall sensor analogue sticks, a comfortable to use D-Pad and gaming buttons. There are two additional buttons which are shortcuts to the AYA SPACE overlay and desktop toggle.

Along the top are the shoulder buttons and hall sensor triggers. There are two small shortcut buttons which can be configured in the AYA SPACE software. There is a power button with a built-in fingerprint sensor and a volume rocker. And last but not least there are two USB Type-C ports.

On the bottom is a USB Type-C port, a micro SD card slot and a 3.5mm headphone jack.

AYANEO 2 Technical Specifications

CPU	AMD Ryzen 7 6800U. 8 cores & 16 threads up to 4.7GHz with max recommended 28W TDP
GPU	AMD Radeon 680M with 12 cores at 2200Mhz
RAM	16GB / 32GB LPDDR5-6400 MT/s
STORAGE	512GB / 1TB / 2TB PCIe 4.0 M.2 2280
DISPLAY	7 inch LCD 1920*1200
COMMUNICATIONS	WiFi 6 Bluetooth 5.2
BATTERY	50.25 Wh battery
BATTERY LIFE	Idle on desktop at 28W TDP: 4 hours 27 minutes Cinebench on a loop at 28W TDP: 1 hour 12 minutes
FAN NOISE *	69 dB
HIGHEST TEMPERATURE *	45 °C

*While running Cinebench we tested the highest temperature and fan noise. We got the highest temperature of 45 degrees and fan noise of 69 decibels. It’s a little cooler and 1dB higher than the ONEXPLAYER Mini Pro!

AYA SPACE

We continue our AYANEO 2 review with a quick mention for AYA SPACE. The included AYA SPACE software is great to use and transforms the handheld into a more console like experience. Your installed games are shown on the Home and Games screen and you have shortcuts to commonly used settings. You can also customise the RGB lighting that is around the two analogue sticks. 

While playing a game you tap the Aya key and it will bring up an overlay where you can access shortcuts such as changing the fan speed, resolution, TDP and more. 

It is a very useful app and we are happy to see that it is constantly being worked on adding new features.

System Benchmarks

We are running the benchmarks at 28W TDP to keep in line with our handheld gaming PC benchmark format. We will be comparing the results with the other handhelds at the end of the benchmarks. 

PCMark

PCMark runs a series of tests covering day to day tasks from web browsing to image processing. It gives us a good overview of the general performance.

The AYANEO 2 scores 6,384 which is in the same ballpark as the other handhelds.

Cinebench

Cinebench tests the CPU to see its performance with either single or multi-core tests. For the multi-core test, the AYANEO 2 portable gaming PC scores 10,989

3DMark

The 3DMark benchmark tests the CPU and GPU to see how well they work together in video processing tasks.

For the Time Spy benchmark the AYANEO 2 handheld PC scores 2,710 which is in line with other handhelds.

For Fire Strike we got a score of 6,689. And for Night Raid we got a score of 25,081

CrystalDiskMark

CrystalDiskMark runs a series of tests on the storage to see its performance across different reading/writing patterns. We get a highest read speed of 2,573 MB/s and write speed of 1,775 MB/s.

Gaming Benchmarks

The new format for the games benchmarks we used in our ONEXPLAYER Mini Pro review did not get any complaints, so we guess you liked it? We run the benchmarks at 11W, 20W and 28W at the devices maximum resolution. And to find a common ground with other handhelds we also run at 28W on 800P resolution so we can compare performance between them.

Shadow of the Tomb Raider 

We start the gaming benchmarks with the old but gold Shadow of the Tomb Raider running on the Lowest graphics settings.

At 1200P at 28W we get an average frame rate of 68. At 800P at 28W we get an average frame rate of 93.

At 1200P 20W we get 62, and 11W we get 31 frames per second.

Cyberpunk 2077

On to something a bit newer with Cyberpunk 2077 running on the Low graphics settings.

At 1200P at 28W we get an average frame rate of 48.78. At 800P at 28W we get an average frame rate of 69.3

At 1200P 20W we get 42.5, and 11W we get 23.45 frames per second.

Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2

And we get bang up to date with Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2 running on the Minimal graphics settings.

At 1200P at 28W we get an average frame rate of 67. At 800P at 28W we get an average frame rate of 94

At 1200P 20W we get 59, and 11W we get 32 frames per second.

Benchmark Summary

First a summary of the benchmarks across the different TDP.

	28W TDP	20W TDP	11W TDP
PCMARK	6384	–	–
3DMARK	2710	–	–
CINEBENCH	10989	–	–
TOMB RAIDER	68 FPS	62 FPS	31 FPS
CYBERPUNK 2077	48.78 FPS	42.45 FPS	24.43 FPS
COD: MW2	67 FPS	59 FPS	32 FPS

We saw a similar pattern with the other 6800U handhelds in that around the 25W TDP area the returns on performance start to drop. There is a large difference in performance between 11W and 20W, and less so between 20W and 28W. We did run a couple of benchmarks at 33W and saw little difference between it and 28W, its not worth going this high at all.

And now to the 1200P 28W results compared with the ONEXPLAYER Mini Pro, GPD WIN MAX 2 and a pre-production sample of the AOKZOE A1 for reference.

	OXP MINI PRO	WIN MAX 2	AOKZOE A1	AYANEO 2
PCMARK	6414	6346	6496	6384
3DMARK	2748	2805	2720	2710
CINEBENCH	11357	11142	10899	10989
TOMB RAIDER	69 FPS	69 FPS	65 FPS	68 FPS
CYBERPUNK 2077	52.68 FPS	48.24 FPS	48.73	48.78
COD: MW2	64 FPS	65 FPS	59 FPS	67 FPS

We can see that excluding the AOKZOE A1, the scores for the most part are very similar to each other. As always if we were to run the benchmarks a few times we get different scores, so we can take from this that the performance is essentially much the same as each other.

In our ONEXPLAYER Mini Pro review we mentioned that not having an outright fastest handheld is good as it gives us a choice based on the handhelds design, price and other features, rather than being pushed towards one because it is the fastest.

Games Performance 

Continuing our AYANEO 2 review we will try some games at playable graphics levels for best visual quality and for best battery life. We are essentially using the same settings for games as the ONEXPLAYER Mini Pro due to the similar performance levels.

Forza Horizon 5

With Forza Horizon 5 you can run at 1200P with a mix of Medium and High graphics settings. For best battery life you can go with 800P on Very Low graphics at 11W TDP.

Overwatch 2

At 1200P 28W we can run Overwatch 2 on the High graphics settings with no upscaling. There may be some occasional drops below 60FPS but nothing that will ruin the gameplay. At 800P at 11W you can run the game just fine with the Low graphics settings.

Doom Eternal

For Doom Eternal we tried it at 12900P and a mix of Low and Medium settings for 60FPS. If you drop the resolution to 800P you can get up to High graphics settings. For best battery life you can run at 800P on Low graphics settings at 15W TDP

Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2

For the campaign we recommend 800P 28W on the Balanced graphics settings which will keep you above 60 for the most part. For the multiplayer mode you probably want as high FPS as possible so we went with 800P 28W on minimal graphics with no upscaling. 

Emulator Performance

Again the emulation performance is much the same as the other handhelds. You can run everything up to the PlayStation 2 era on the AYANEO 2 handheld PC with no issues at all. You can even run them at lower TDP to save battery life. We will take a brief look at some of the newer systems to see how well they run.

Xbox – Xemu emulator

Providing the games are compatible you should see very good performance on the Xbox emulator Xemu. We tried a few different games and had no issues with games running at their native full speed. But it does depend on the game being compatible.

Citra emulator

Performance is mixed on Citra. Games such as Sonic Generations will see shader caching lag upon first playthrough of the game, after that it is fine. Other games such as Ridge Racer 3D pretty much works fine on the first playthrough with some minor shader cache lags occasionally. Other less demanding games will run great.

Xbox 360 Xenia emulator

Compatible games work quite well on the Xbox 360 emulator Xenia. Vanquish, Sonic Racing Transformed and PGR2 run at full speed. On Halo 3 you may see some drops while the next part of the map is loading in. Overall the performance is very impressive!

PS3 RPCS3 emulator

Again providing the game is compatible you get some great performance with near solid 60 FPS on many games. Tekken 6, Wipeout HD, OutRun Arcade and Skate 3 all work with next to no issues. If you are a PS3 fan then the 6800U based handhelds are perfect for you.

Yuzu and Ryujinx emulators

For YuZu and Ryujinx it again depends if the emulators support the game. If it does then you will generally get decent performance with games running at full or near full speed for third and first party games.

Final Thoughts

Overall the AYANEO 2 is very impressive. In terms of performance it’s the same as the other 6800U based handheld PC’s which I am happy to see. You can run the latest AAA games and actually be able to play them. Though with some it may be on lower resolutions and graphics settings, but you can still play them. And for emulation, the 6800U processor is great with games running full speed on the 360 and PS3 amongst others. I have nothing negative to say about the performance at all.

The design of the AYANEO 2 is good, it feels comfortable in the hand and it’s not too heavy to play for long periods of time, though you will likely be resting on your lap or table while playing. The single sheet of glass covering the front is a nice touch, something we haven’t seen before. Talking about touches, it’s definitely not fingerprint proof as they claim.

As mentioned earlier in the video it does come down to the design and features etc of the handheld as to which one you should buy. The AYANEO 2 does have the excellent AYA SPACE which others either do not have or have relatively basic features in comparison. So this could be a deciding factor in your choice for example.

Where to buy the AYANEO 2?

You can learn more and buy the AYANEO 2 here. Use the discount code AYANEO25OFF on the checkout! You can browse our range of handheld gaming PC’s here.

That wraps up our AYANEO 2 review, we hope you have found it useful. Let us know in the comments what you think of the AYANEO 2, which is your favourite of the 6800U based handheld PC’s?