- Ayaneo announced the specifications and price of the Next 2 handheld
- The new gaming handheld will cost up to $4,299 and its early bird price is $3,499
- The Next 2 will be available through Ayaneo’s Indiegogo campaign this February
Gaming PC hardware is taking a big hit thanks to the current RAM crisis, with prices rising and even the highly anticipated Steam Machine being delayed. Unfortunately, it looks like things are just getting started.
Wearable brand Ayaneo has revealed a lot of new information about its upcoming Next 2 portable gaming PC, including the fact that it will cost $4,299 / around £3,160 / AU$6,130 for a 128GB RAM and 2TB storage model. That’s more than an RTX 5090!
Its early bird price is set at $3,499 / around £2,570 / AU$4,990, for consumers who want to save a little by backing the Indiegogo campaign.
The Ayaneo Next 2 is a robust portable gaming PC, equipped with AMD’s Ryzen AI Max+ 395 processor, a 116WH battery, and a 9-inch OLED display. Those specs are almost equivalent to a budget gaming laptop, as the Max+ 395’s performance is similar to that of an RTX 4060.
While the Ayaneo Next 2 was always expected to be an expensive handheld, as all Ryzen AI Max+ 395 powered handhelds are, the $4,299 retail price might be a step too far, even for consumers willing to pay high prices for portable devices, and is largely due to the RAM crisis.
It’s not just the 128GB model, either, as the base model matches the $1,999 MSRP of the RTX 5090, equipped with the less powerful Ryzen AI Max 385 processor and 32GB of RAM.
A model with AI Max+ 395 has 64GB of RAM, which isn’t necessary for portable gaming (and certainly not 128GB), but consumers will have to pay $2,699 to get their hands on it.
If RAM prices continue to skyrocket, there is a high probability that the retail prices indicated by Ayaneo will not hold once it is officially launched as well.
Analysis: 128 GB of RAM is not necessary for portable devices
The RAM crisis isn’t going away anytime soon and Ayaneo hasn’t made it any easier by using high RAM settings. Most mainstream handhelds run perfectly fine with 32GB of RAM (some even 16GB), which is why the push for 64GB and 128GB seems like a complete overkill.
The AI Max+ 395 APU, 9-inch OLED display, and 116WH battery are already enough to make the Next 2 a niche device, with a high price tag, but the addition of 128GB of RAM makes it unattainable, even for consumers willing to spend a lot of money on portable gaming.
Nvidia’s RTX 5090 is barely available at any retail store, and third-party options are well above the MSRP of $1,999 / £1,799 / AU$4,039, with some almost costing $5,000 at Best Buy. That same amount can get the consumer a new gaming desktop PC, which is a better option than the Next 2 handheld and the RTX 5090 GPU.
I wouldn’t be surprised if new handhelds in 2026 end up creating 8GB RAM configurations, because it looks like the PC hardware market is only going to get worse at this rate.
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