AYANEO Air review with video – Does this Windows gaming handheld live up to the hype?

In our AYANEO Air review, we will find out if all the hype for this Windows gaming handheld was worth it as we unbox, run some benchmarks and then check some games and emulators . 

AYANEO Air Review Video

If the video is not showing above, you can watch it via Youtube at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3EoEJhE3OiI

AYANEO Air Unboxing

As always the AYANEO has some great looking packaging, even on this cheaper gaming handheld the quality is very high.

Underneath the protective foam covers are first some user manuals. The first two shows the button layout of the AYANEO Air and how to operate some of the features. The third is for the AYA SPACE app which we will show a little later in the review.

Next we have two USB Type-C to Type A adaptors for connecting any peripherals to. There is a USB Type-C cable which is used for charging the PC gaming handheld. And last but not least is the charger which comes with plug adaptors for just about everywhere.

And here is the AYANEO Air which looks amazing! Let’s take a closer look at it now.

An overview of the AYANEO Air

The AYANEO Air handheld gaming PC measures 8.8 x 3.52 x 0.70 inches (22.4 x 8.9 x 1.8 cm) at its thinnest part, and weighs just 398 grams.

Front of the AYANEO Air

The screen is a 5.5 inch AMOLED high quality touchscreen display. It looks great with bright and vibrant colours as you will see later in the video.

There’s clickable dual hall sensor analogue sticks which are magnetic sensors that reduce wear and tear and also prevent drifting. You have a nicely styled D-Pad and your usual gaming buttons. There are two additional buttons that activate AYA SPACE and show the desktop.

Top of the AYANEO Air

On the top are the left and right shoulder and hall sensor triggers. There are also two additional LC and RC buttons on the end of the shoulder buttons that can be configured for shortcuts such as opening the onscreen keyboard.

There is a USB Type-C port, and beside that is the volume rocker followed by the power button which has a built in fingerprint reader.

Bottom of the AYANEO Air

On the bottom, for the first time on an AYANEO gaming console a much requested Micro SD card slot which is a great addition. Following that are a 3.5mm headphone port and a USB Type-C port.

AYANEO Air Technical Specifications

	AYANEO Air	AYANEO AIR Pro
CPU	AMD Ryzen 5 5560U processor with 6 cores and 12 threads running up to 4.0 GHz @ 8W TDP	AMD Ryzen 5 5560U processor with 6 cores and 12 threads running up to 4.0 GHz @ 8W TDP
GPU	AMD Radeon Graphics with 6 cores running up to 1600MHz	AMD Radeon Graphics with 6 cores running up to 1600MHz
RAM	8GB/16GB of DDR4 RAM	16GB/32GB of DDR4 RAM
STORAGE	Up to 512GB SSD	Up to 2TB SSD
COMMUNICATIONS	WIFI 6 and Bluetooth 5.2	WIFI 6 and Bluetooth 5.2
BATTERY	28Wh 7350mAh rechargeable battery Battery life: Idle with only Battery Monitor & AYA SPACE in background (8W TDP): 2 hours 27 minutes Full load with Battery Monitor & Cinebench running on loop (8W TDP): 1 hour 46 minutes	38Wh 10050mAh rechargeable battery Battery life: Battery life tests TBA

AYA SPACE Frontend Overview

AYA SPACE has continued to improve on its features since we first took a look at the software when it was first released. It is primarily a frontend for your installed games and you can browse your collection and launch them from AYA SPACE. 

Whilst playing a game you can tap the AYA SPACE button to bring up an overlay. From here you can quickly change settings including  the TDP, fan speed and screen resolution.

On the Assistant tab you have access to various stats and it is also where you can do some customising. In the controller mode you configure the joysticks, buttons and gyro. And new for the AYANEO Air is the RGB lighting where you can choose from a variety of patterns. It’s a nice feature.

AYA SPACE is a great addition to the AYANEO range and gives it that premium feel and transforms it into a more console-like than Windows PC experience.

System Benchmarks

As part of our AYANEO Air review we perform some system benchmarks starting with PassMark. We will be comparing all the results with other handhelds afterwards.

PassMark

PassMark pushes the CPU, GPU, RAM and storage to their maximum in a series of tests. We got a score of 3355.8. It’s not the highest or the lowest we have seen on a Windows gaming handheld.

PCMark

PCMark is a series of more natural tests covering day to day tasks from web browsing, working with office documents, media consumption through to image processing. We get a score of 4323 with decent scores across the benchmark categories.

3DMark

3DMark tests the CPU and GPU to see how well they work together in video processing tasks. We get a score of 621, again it’s not the highest or lowest we have seen on a PC gaming handheld.

Gaming Benchmarks

Forza Horizon 5

Continuing our AYANEO Air review we also perform some gaming benchmarks starting with Forza Horizon 5 running at 720P on the lowest graphics settings.

At the end of the benchmark we got an average frame rate of 38. It is quite a bit lower than what we are used to seeing on AYANEO handhelds but keep in mind it is a lower performance model of handheld.

Final Fantasy XIV

For our Final Fantasy benchmark we are running at 720P on the maximum graphics settings.

We got a final score of 2888. It is in the slightly low results category, so dropping the graphics settings down to the Medium area should be very playable .

Street Fighter 5

On Street Fighter V we are running at 720P on the Maximum graphics settings.

At the end of the first match we get an average of 29.10 frames per second. Dropping the graphics settings to Low will get you a solid 60 FPS.

Shadow of the Tomb Raider

For Shadow of the Tomb Raider we are running at 720P on the Lowest graphics settings.

At the end of the benchmark we get an average frame rate of 25 frames per second.  The game would not be very enjoyable on the Air handheld.

Cyberpunk 2077

And for our final benchmark we are running Cyberpunk 2077 at 720P on the lowest graphics settings.

We were not expecting a high frame rate as this is a very demanding game, we got a score of 12.77 frames per second.

Benchmark Comparison & Summary

Let’s have a brief recap of the benchmark results for this AYANEO Air review and compare them with a lower cost Win 600 and higher priced AYANEO NEXT Pro PC gaming handhelds.

	AYANEO AIR	WIN 600 (3050E)	AYANEO NEXT PRO
PASSMARK	3355	1507 (-55%)	4307 (+28%)
PCMARK	4323	2601 (-46%)	5819 (+34%)
3DMARK	621	306 (-50%)	1455 (134%)
FORZA HORIZON 5	38 FPS	N/A	78 FPS (105%)
FINAL FANTASY XIV	2888	1249 (-56%)	5388 (+58%)
STREET FIGHTER V	29.10 FPS	13.45 (-58%)	59.39 (+93%)
TOMB RAIDER	25 FPS	N/A	58 FPS (+132%)

Benchmark Comparison

We see around a 50% area increase in performance over the Win 600 across all of the benchmarks which we hoped would be a little higher, but it is what it is.

And compared to the AYANEO NEXT PRO we are seeing around a 30% increase in performance on system benchmarks on the NEXT Pro. But on the handheld gaming benchmarks we see an increase between 85% to 134% which is a massive difference.

Benchmark Summary

In our Win 600 review we mentioned that it was ideal for playing your older game collection and emulation up to the Dreamcast and PlayStation era. As we will see shortly the AYANEO Air does play newer games, but with many you do have to compromise. It’s fine for older games but you’re not quite sure where the limit is when you try newer ones. And if you want the latest higher end games, then you may not have a great deal of luck. You should probably wait for the next generation Windows gaming handhelds with Ryzen 6000 series processors.

To put it another way, the AYANEO Air kind of reminds me of those awkward teenage years, you’re not a child any more and not old enough to go out drinking with the adults (not that it stopped me). It’s a bit like that with the Win 600, AYANEO Air and any of the higher end handhelds, with the Air sitting in the middle not sure what it is supposed to do.

Gameplay Tests

Continuing our AYANEO Air review, so we know that while the AYANEO Air Windows handheld does struggle with higher demanding games, let’s take a look at some other games at the default 8W TDP with playable graphics settings to see how they perform.

Hades

We are running Hades at 720P and are getting a solid 60 frames per second. We did try it at the native 1080P and got between 45-60 depending on how busy the scene was.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder’s Revenge

Turtles Shredders Revenge at 1080P runs great, we are getting a solid 60 frames per second. No issues at all here and the graphics look amazing on the OLED!

Turbo Golf Racing

Turbo Golf Racing is a fairly recent game and we did have to make some changes to get this running. We changed the resolution to 720P with low graphics and limited the frame rate to 30 frames per second. We do still get drops below 30 though.

Sonic Mania

Some platforming action with Sonic Mania. We are running at 1080P and get a solid stable frame rate. It’s not a taxing game though, so that’s expected.

Neon Abyss

Neon Abyss is running at 1080P with a solid 60 FPS frame rate. I played this for some time and did not have any issues.

Fall Guys

Fall Guys is enjoying some popularity again, now it’s free to play. We had to set the resolution to 720P with low graphics and limit the frame rate to 30 FPS. It remains a solid 30 FPS so you could increase one or two graphics settings if you wanted to.

Emulator Tests

We round up our AYANEO Air review with some emulator performance tests. The AYANEO Air retro gaming handheld is very capable of playing all your favourite 8 and 16-bit consoles with no problems at all. You can even lower the TDP to save battery life. We won’t spend any time looking at those, and instead we will go up through the later console generations and see how they perform.

PlayStation – SwanStation – Colin McRae Rally 2.0

PlayStation 1 as you would expect works great. We had no issues at all with performance and you can also upscale and add graphics filters to make the graphics look nicer.

Dreamcast – FlyCast – Daytona USA

And it’s the same for Dreamcast, all the games we tried ran at full speed and you can if you want to, add Widescreen and tweak a few settings.

PlayStation 2 – PCSX2 – Gran Turismo 3

Overall the games ran fine on PCSX2, Gran Turismo 3 for example ran at full speed but I did notice on OutRun Coast 2 Coast that the frames were dropping to between 45 and 55 fairly often. So that’s something to be aware of.

Dolphin – Burnout 2 & Sonic Colours

The Dolphin emulator works very well and we are getting full frames on the games we tried. There may be one or two games that run slow but that’s generally the emulator rather than the hardware.

For the other console Dolphin supports, we are getting great results. Sonic Colours is running at full speed, we tried a few other games and overall they ran very well.

Xbox – Xemu – MASHED

We tried the OG Xbox emulator Zemu which is still in early development so games may not work or have issues. We tried MASHED and got a solid 60 fps. You wont get this on every game but it’s good to see some games work on this gaming handheld at least.

PlayStation 3 – RPCS3 – Tekken 6

We did not have a great deal of luck with the PS3. We tried a few of our usual games and had to put frame limiters on but still had fairly poor results. There are some tweaks you can do to improve the performance but apart from some PSN games and lower demanding games, you will likely want to give this a miss.

PSP – PPSSPP – God of War – Chains of Olympus

And now onto the PSP, PPSSPP works great! We got a solid 60 frames per second on God of War so pretty much every other game should work fine. You can increase the rendering resolution etc. to improve the graphics quality.

Vita – Vita 3K – TxK and Metal Slug 3

And new in our emulator tests is the Vita. The Vita3K emulator is in early stages of development so not every game will work. But TxK works perfectly, although I could not get the emulator to run in full screen, and the joystick mouse feature interfered while playing. But some games do run very well!

RyuJinx – Crusin’ Blast

And we round off our emulation tests with RyuJinx and Cruisn’ Blast. We are getting around 23 frames per second on the new Vulkan graphics engine and around 20 on OpenGL. You will have better performance for lower demanding games but overall the AYANEO Air is not quite fast enough to play many games on this emulator. An alternative small handheld is the GPD Win 4 which will be available in November. It will feature the high performance AMD Ryzen 7 6800U processor.

Where to buy the AYANEO Air?

You can learn more and buy the AYANEO Air here or the larger battery model AYANEO Air Pro here. Or browse our wide range of handheld game consoles here.

That wraps up our AYANEO Air review, we hope you have found it useful. You can ask any questions in our comments below.