AYANEO reschedules the introduction of its new gaming console to January 4th, seemingly confirming AMD Rembrandt APU

Just a few days ago AyaNeo confirmed it will be showcasing its new console on December 28th. However, this date is no longer on the table, as the company had to reschedule its plans to align with the AMD product announcement.

AyaNeo 2021 features AMD Ryzen 4000 series “Renoir” APUs based on Zen2 and Vega microarchitectures. The company announced it will release a new version of its console next year, with a showcase coming in just 4 days. The company has now announced it will reveal the Next console at January 4th press event instead.

We speculated that the December 28th reveal could suggest that AyaNeo Next is not based on Rembrandt, simply because it has not yet been announced by AMD. The formal introduction of Rembrandt is now set for January 4th, which is the time when AMD holds its press conference hosted by Dr. Lisa Su. It is unclear why has AyaNeo rescheduled its announcement, but it definitely does not seem that the change happened at the very last minute, as Rembrandt requires a new socket and supports new memory technology. It might have been a miscommunication between both companies, or more likely, a decision to reveal the full specs rather than just a teaser.

By offering Ryzen 6000 series APU, AyaNeo Next will be very competitive against its main competitor, which is Steam Deck. The gaming console from Valve is based on a 4-core Van Gogh/Aerith APU with Zen3 and RDNA2 architectures. While it is unclear how many CPU cores or Compute Units would the AyaNeo SoC have, there is a good chance it will be more powerful, as Rembrandt U-Series is 15W TDP by default, whereas Van Gogh is 4-15W.

AMD Rembrandt is also to offer up to 12 Compute Units, whereas Aerith is limited to 8. Not only that, the GPU performance is likely to be much higher due to increased clock speed, typically 2GHz for this APU segment (RDNA2 might go higher).

AMD Rembrandt vs Steam Aerith SoC, Source: VideoCardz

The key to success will be through pricing and software stack. Valve is tirelessly working to integrate Steam Deck into its ecosystem, whereas AyaNeo relies on the existing platforms. Aya consoles are also far from being affordable with pricing going up to 1300 USD, so twice as expensive as Steam Deck.

Handheld Gaming Consoles
VideoCardz	Aya Neo 2021	Aya Neo 2021 Pro	Aya Neo NEXT	Steam Deck	One XPlayer	Nintendo Switch OLED
Picture
Architecture	AMD Zen2 (Renoir)	AMD Zen2 (Renoir)	AMD Zen3+ (Rembrandt)	AMD Zen2 & RDNA2	Intel Tiger Lake	ARM Cortex
SoC	Ryzen 5 4500U	Ryzen 7 4800U	Ryzen ? 6???U	AMD Van Gogh	Core i7-1185G7*** Core i7-1165G7** Core i7-1135G7*	NVIDIA Tegra X1
SoC CPU	6C/6T @ 4.0 GHz	8C/16T @ 4.2 GHz	?C/?T @ ? GHz	4C/8T @ 3.5 GHz	4C/8T * 4.2*, 4.7**, 4.8*** GHz	4x A57 + 4x A53
SoC GPU	AMD Radeon Vega 6 @ 1.5 GHz	AMD Radeon Vega 8 @ 1.750 GHz	AMD RDNA2 up to 12CUs	AMD RDNA2 8 CUs @ 1.6 GHz	Xe-LP (Iris) 96 EUs @ 1.35 GHz	NVIDIA Maxwell 256 CUDA
Memory	16GB LPDDR4X-4266	16GB LPDDR4X-4266	LPDDR5?	16GB LPDDR5-5500	16GB LPDDR4X-4266	4GB LPDDR4-3200
Storage	512 GB / 1TB  NVMe	512 GB / 1TB  NVMe	TBC	64GB eMMC (PCIe Gen2x1) 256GB/512GB NVMe (PCIe Gen3x4)	512GB*, 1TB **, 2TB *** NVMe	64GB
Display	7″ 1280×800 IPS	7″ 1280×800 IPS	TBC	7″ 1280×800 IPS	8.4″ 2560×1600 IPS	7″ 1280×720 OLED
Connectivity	WiFi 6, Bluetooth 5.0	WiFi 6, Bluetooth 5.0	TBC	Wi-Fi 5, Bluetooth 5	Wi-Fi 6, Bluetooth 5, USB 4.0 x2	WiFi 5,
Battery	12,300 mAh	12,300 mAh	TBC	40 Whr	15,300 mAh
Weight	650 g	650 g	TBC	669 g	820 g	420g
Dimensions	25.5 x 10.6 x 2.0 cm	25.5 x 10.6 x 2.0 cm	TBC	29.8 x 11.7 x 4.9 cm	28.8 x 13.0 x 2.1 mm	24.2 x 10.2 x 1.39 cm
OS	Windows  10	Windows  10	Windows 11	Steam OS 3.0 (Arch)	Windows  10	Custom
Release Price	$925 (16G/512GB) $1,015 (16G/1TB)	$1,215 (16G/1TB)	TBC	$399 (64GB) $529 (256GB) $649 (512GB)	$1,059 * $1,158 ** $1,599 ***	$349
Release Date	March 2021	September 2021	2022	February 2022	December 2021	October 2021
					* Standard Edition ** Pro Edition *** Ultimate Edition