AYN Odin2 Portal Review – Snapdragon 8 powered premium Android gaming handheld

AYN has stepped up a gear with a premium look and feel Android gaming handheld to rival the AYANEO Pocket S. But how does it compare in terms of price, performance, features and quality? Let’s find out in our AYN Odin2 Portal review.

AYN Odin2 Portal Review Video

AYN Odin2 Portal Overview

Let’s start this AYN Odin2 Portal review with an overview of the Android gaming console. The AYN Odin2 Portal measures 10.1 x 3.8 x 0.6 inches (25.7 x 9.8 x 1.2 cm) and weighs around 430g (0.94 lbs).

Like the AYANEO Pocket S, the Portal features a single sheet glass front which is curved to match the contour of the sides. It looks and feels the part of a higher quality handheld.

Taking center stage is a 7” OLED Touchscreen, with a 1920×1080 resolution at 60Hz or 120Hz. The colours and brightness really look top quality on this handheld!

On the sides we have dual analogue sticks, a D-Pad and the usual gaming buttons. There are two additional Android buttons for Home and Back.

On the bottom is a covered Micro SD card reader, a 3.5MM audio jack and a USB 3.1 Type-C port for charging and data, including video output. The top features left and right trigger and shoulder buttons, volume buttons and a power button. The back has a large grill for air intake, and two customisable buttons.

AYN Odin2 Technical Specifications

Next in our AYN Odin2 Portal review we take a closer look at the technical specifications and run our own battery life, fan noise and temperature tests. The AYN Odin2 Portal features the Qualcomm Snapdragon G3x Gen2 processor with Adreno 740 GPU. It is the same processor used in the current Odin2 series of handhelds and we will be comparing the performance shortly.

CPU	Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 2, 8 cores / 8 threads, (1x Kyro GoldPlus) 3.2Ghz, (4x Kyro Gold) 2.8Ghz, (3x Kyro Silver) 2.0Ghz
GPU	Qualcomm Adreno 740
DISPLAY	7″ OLED, 1080P, 120Hz, 155% sRGB, 800 NITS, 100,000:1 Contrast
RAM	8GB, 12GB, 16GB
STORAGE	128GB, 512GB, 1TB
I/O	1x 3.5mm Audio Jack 1x USB 3.1 Type C 1x Micro SD card reader
COMMUNICATIONS	Wi-Fi 7, Bluetooth 5.3
BATTERY	8000 mAh, 27W charging speed
CASE COLOURS	Black, Indigo & White
DIMENSIONS	10.1 x 3.8 x 0.6 inches (25.7 x 9.8 x 1.2 cm)
WEIGHT	430g (0.94 lbs)

In our battery life tests with Antutu running on a loop, Maximum Performance setting at full brightness, we got a battery life of around 5 hours. Average usage will be even higher depending on demand. 

In our fan noise and temperature tests. By manually setting the fan speed to maximum we got around 58 dB. On the Smart fan setting, unless you are playing something really demanding you will barely hear the fan in say an average office environment. We got a highest temperature of only 45 °C on full load and a little lower on average usage. It is very quiet and runs very cool as expected with an Android gaming device.

System Benchmarks

As always we perform some benchmarks to see the performance as well as compare with other similar devices as part our AYN Odin2 Portal review. We will be comparing with the other Odin2 models which have the same processor, and the AYANEO Pocket S with higher performing processor as well as cost. And for a lower cost Android handheld we are comparing it with the Retroid Pocket 5.

Geekbench 5

We start with Geekbench 5 for legacy testing. It performs a series of benchmarks on the CPUs single and multi cores. We see near identical scores with the other Odin2 models in single core performance. The multi-core scores are varied between the Odin2 models, with the AYN Odin 2 Portal taking second place between them.

Geekbench 6

In the newer Geekbench 6 benchmarks, we again see similar scores with the other Odin2 models for single-core. In multi-core the Portal does drop to third place between the three models.

Antutu

Antutu performs various tests for day to day usage of an Android gaming console, from browsing to gaming. The portal does very well, just behind the original Odin2, and a fair gap in front of the AYN Odin 2 Mini Pro.

3DMARK

And last but not least is 3DMARK. As expected the scores are maxed out for the Slingshot benchmark. In the Wildlife Extreme benchmark we have near identical scores between the three Odin2 models. The Pocket S shows its GPU power here with a noticeably higher score.

Benchmark Summary

A brief summary of the AYN Odin2 Portal review benchmarks. Overall the Portal had great scores when compared with the other Odin2 models. We have higher CPU performance than with the Pocket S Snapdragon G3x Gen2. But when the GPU is in use, it blows the Odin2 GPU out of the water. But do keep in mind the price differences!

Android OS

Next in our AYN Odin 2 Portal review we will cover the Android OS and the software that comes with it. The AYN Odin2 Portal comes fairly bare bones with the usual Google Apps including Play Store. You can download any apps from there or install from other sources.

In the pull  down settings you can quickly adjust a number of settings including the performance, fan speed and switch between 60Hz and 120Hz refresh rate. You can also change the LED light settings and controller styles.

The AYN overlay gives you a bunch of easy to access options such as screen mapping which we will show in a moment. You can set the frames per second, temperature, CPU & GPU usage and there’s a few options for screenshots, live stream etc.

Android Gaming

As well as our go to Android games we thought to try out a few others as part of this AYN Odin 2 Portal review. With this CPU and GPU you can easily enjoy a large number of games from low demanding puzzle games up to more action packed first person shooters.

Many games do support controllers now, and the ones that do all worked great for us. For games that do not have built in controls, you can easily set up the screen mapping and play them very well. 

Setting up screen mapping is very easy. While in a game, open the screen mapping function and simply drag and drop the respective icons over the on-screen controls and buttons. Your Android gaming device controller input will now mimic pressing the screen. It works great and has no issues with compatibility. 

Emulation

As well as Android gaming you can rewind time and enjoy a massive selection of retro consoles, computers and handhelds. The Odin2 Portal can easily handle just about everything from Atari 2600 up to PlayStation 2 era with no issues at all.

Let’s take a brief look at some of the more demanding emulators in our AYN Odin 2 Portal review for both older and more recent systems.

PPSSPP

You can increase the rendering resolution to 1080P with all the graphics tweaks and the Portal will not break a sweat. The 3D based games will look great with the improved visuals.

Citra 

Citra for the most part runs very well. With the more demanding games you may experience a few shader lags here and there but overall no major issues. Medium and lower demanding games run great and you can even increase rendering resolutions.

AetherSX2

The PlayStation 2 emulator AetherSX2 runs great. With my go to game OutRun we get a smooth 60+ FPS at 1x resolution. We can go as high as 3x resolution and keep at 60 FPS which is great.

Vita3K  

With Vita3K you can run many compatible games just fine at full speed. Depending on how demanding the game is, you can increase the rendering resolution up to 1080P if you wanted to.

Yuzu

For the now discounted Yuzu emulator we see fairly good performance. Don’t expect to run first party titles at full speed, but for mid and lower demanding you will get some good results. We get a full speed on Cruisn’ Blast with some minor dips below 60 FPS now and again.

Final Thoughts

Time to sum up our thoughts in our AYN Odin 2 Portal review. The AYN Odin2 Portal represents a higher end Android gaming device when compared with say the AYN Odin 2 Pro & MAX and Odin2 Mini Pro models. We have the great looking 7” 1080P 120Hz OLED, compared with the LCD and IPS displays on the other models. We also have the more premium looking glass front which stands out amongst the other two models.

Compared with the AYANEO Pocket S we see a few differences. The Pocket S has a smaller 6” IPS display which admittedly does look very good. It also has a single glass sheet adding to the premium feel. The main difference here is the processor, the higher performing Snapdragon G3X Gen 2 gives you up to 15% extra speed with GPU intensive tasks.

But as we mentioned in our AYANEO Pocket S review. Do you actually need the extra performance? AetherSX2 and YuZu for example are discontinued and no longer in active development. There is nothing to really demand higher performance unless you want a few extra games to perform faster on the emulators.

The AYN Odin2 Portal is a fantastic Android handheld in its own right. It has a premium look and feel, as good as any performance, comfortable to play on, and OK software for controlling the handheld. If you are in the market for a more premium looking handheld then the Portal is an excellent choice.

That wraps up our AYAN Odin2 Portal review, we hope you have found it useful. If you have any questions about the Portal, please feel free to ask in the comments below.