Few companies put so much effort into gaming laptop market like Ayaneo who has now revealed his seventh Laptop of the Year The Ayaneo Next 2 claims to be the first of its kind to use a discrete graphics card under the hood instead of an integrated GPU inside an APU. You may also notice a familiar set of Steam Deck-inspired trackpads.
Under the hood, we can expect to see some combinations such as an Intel Alder Lake processor paired with an Arc GPU or an AMD Ryzen gaming processor paired with a Radeon 6000 graphics card. We don’t know which ones yet, though. Models will be presented. All we know is that the graphics card will be removable in some way, which is great for repairs and can be upgraded if you find a suitable one.
There are some design changes that we can see throughout the opening. The analog sticks are now backlit, which can be useful if you’re playing in the dark. You can see an RGB stripe on the back, but that will surely affect battery life. There’s also a dial attached to the bottom right handgrip that probably adjusts the Windows volume by default, but can hopefully be reassigned.
Since it is marketed as a Windows laptop, it will most likely be running the latest version from Microsoft. That said, the inclusion of trackpads sounds like Ayaneo is prepping a handheld for Valve’s SteamOS and its Steam Deck list of trusted games, so you may have the option to disable Windows 11 once it launches.
Ayaneo Problems Next 2
It’s hard to tell from the 2D image, but the device looks much bigger than its predecessors. The touchpads are a welcome addition after being well-received in our Steam Deck review, but they sit quite low on the bottom of the device. We won’t know until we pick one up how comfortable it will be, but ergonomically, thumbs go up better than down.
A discrete GPU means that it no longer shares memory with the CPU and will therefore consume more power. Fingers crossed, the larger size lends itself to a larger battery or it might not be a fantastic travel companion.
Another issue is the cost. The original Ayaneo Next has twice the CPU cores of the Steam Deck, but you can only get it if you’re willing to pay three times as much. It should be noted that this is the best premium edition of its entire portfolio and a budget model will be available for less than $300. However, you’re looking at an enthusiastic MSRP that’s probably above the $1,000 mark.
And finally, we started to lose count of the number of products provided by Ayaneo. It has done a fantastic job of establishing itself as a leader as the market has emerged, but its need to be the first to do something (like Ayaneo Air being the first portable OLED display) makes one wonder if it will stumble. Do you have the bandwidth and infrastructure to support such rapid growth and support your customers? Time will tell.
As of now, the release date of Ayaneo Next 2 is planned for Q4 2022, and we should know more in advance.
Source : PC Gamesn
