Ayaneo stated it was suspending pre-orders for its Next 2 gaming handheld earlier this yr after rising storage prices and the continued reminiscence disaster made it “no longer sustainable.” Well, it is now listed on Ayaneo’s web site—with an asking price for the top model of $5,299.
I’ll wait so that you can decide up your jaw. Back with us? Good. The top-end Ayaneo Next 2 comes with an AMD Ryzen AI Max+ 395 APU, which is a Strix Halo beastie that is rattling costly irrespective of the gadget you discover it in.
Storage sensible, you get a 2 TB SSD. Sheesh, I do know NAND costs are foolish proper now, however absolutely a single NVMe drive cannot be solely accountable. As for the RAM? Well it is… oh. Oh I see. The high spec mannequin comes with, brace yourselves, 128 GB of LPDDR5x-8533.
Yep, that may account for the super-silly price ticket. I do know the the Next 2 is positioning itself to be the handheld to end all handhelds, but 128 GB of RAM? For what, exactly?
It’s a Windows-based machine, so I suppose you could get up to some AI-based tomfoolery with it. Other than that, though, I cannot see a world where a 128 GB gaming handheld makes any sense.
Of course, there are cheaper models available. The 64 GB version will run you *gulp* $3,699, whereas the entry level model (and I use the term very loosely) with 32 GB of RAM and 1 TB of storage is a mere $2,999, with shipping said to begin at the end of this month.
No matter which way you look at it, each of these prices is simply too much to pay for most mere mortals. And those with the cash to splash will still likely wince a little at this pricing.
Remember when I said the Asus ROG Xbox Ally X was kinda good value now at $1,000? Yep, that’s the world we’re living in in 2026, folks. And unfortunately, it’s probably only going to get worse from here.
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