The AYA Neo Flip is an upcoming handheld gaming PC with a clamshell-style design with a screen that folds closed for safe keeping or flips upward for gaming.
On the bottom section, you’ll find gaming buttons. But depending on the model, you’ll also find either a keyboard… or a second screen. AYA has been showing off pictures of the keyboard model for a few months, but now the company has also revealed that it’s working on a model with a small display squeezed between the controllers. Both are expected to go up for pre-order soon in January through an Indiegogo crowdfunding campaign.
According to a “leak” the company just sent me, the version with a keyboard will be called the AYA Neo Flip KB, while the dual-screen model is the AYA Neo Flip DS.
Both feature a 7 inch, 1080p IPS LCD primary display with a 120 Hz screen refresh rate and Ryzen 7 8840U and Ryzen 7 7840U processor options (both have Radeon 780M integrated graphics). Other known features include a 46.2 Wh battery and replaceable grip panels.
The company hasn’t revealed many other specs yet, but pictures that have been released show dual analog sticks, a D-Pad, action buttons, and a number of additional buttons, as well as what looks like an optical touch sensor and/or fingerprint sensor.
The AYA Neo Flip KB has a keyboard designed for thumb typing rather than touch typing, as AYA is primarily focused on the gaming experience: the company’s computers can technically be used as general-purpose PCs, but that’s not their primary use case. And the dual screen model? It looks like you’ll be able to use that 3.5 inch secondary display as an app or game launcher, performance tuner, and status monitor, among other things.
I suppose it could also come in handy for playing Nintendo DS games in an emulator. Or maybe you could use it as a touchpad for games that work well with one.
And maybe you could use it to view a chat window or other content without taking up space on the main display, but I’m not sure how many PC games are really designed to take advantage of a second screen like this.
Update: AYA CEO Arthur Zhang posted about the AYA Neo FLIP DS and KB on Chinese social media site Weibo in October, and the company revealed a few more pictures of the upcoming handheld in a November 10 blog post and YouTube video.
This article was first published October 18, 2023 and most recently updated December 28, 2023.
A leak the conpany just sent you? At this point ‘leak’ hasn’t got any meaning left.
Ist’s an ad, that’s it.
Now that’s something interesting! Now sure if actually usefull, as meny commented here, but definitely interesting!
I think it can be much more versatile, if they’d make this thing modular. For exaple, if there was Framework-like module via Type-C port, which can be full keyboard, secondary display, something else… maybe another type of keyboard, with a dozen of large remappable keys for gaming, or, to say, pad for digital pen…
Overall this handheld seems to be rather bulky to be pocket-friendly, but if renders are true, it have a thinner screen bezels than Win Mini, so it can have even lesser width-length dimensions.
If the price and build quality wind up being reasonable, i’m interested. Been wanting a clamshell, gaming oriented handheld (with a PHYSICAL KEYBOARD) for over a decade.
You may want to take a look at the GPD Win series then as they have better keyboards than what this thing has. Mostly because they’ve been making the Win series devices for 7 years now, so they have more experience designing keyboards for small handhelds. The only real advantage the AYA Neo Flip will have over GPD’s products is that they’ll be sold through Microcenter so you might actually get decent customer service in case you get a bad unit or it develops a defect later on.
A chat window seems like a nice thought until you wonder how you’re going to type anything into it. I don’t think I have any reason to buy a handheld but if I did and needed to chat while using it I’d probably just use my phone.
A video call is kind of out of the question since it hasn’t got a webcam.
Maybe if you were a streamer you could monitor your stream from there but monitoring is about all you could do.
And for DS emulation, I’d prefer that the lower screen be a bit bigger, since, you know, the screens even on the last of the 3ds lines weren’t so different in size.
I guess I might just chuck some performance monitors down there and probably never use anything else.
Imagine: saying “GPD”
Hahahaha. I’m just laughing at Ayaneo at this point.
I question their ability to run a company. Hopefully they do more research instead of dumping a new device each month before they run out of money and out of business. Each of their IGG doesn’t sell many units so far.
Looks bulky and heavy
I want GPD WIN 2 refresh !
You’re in luck – there’s about a day left in the IGG campaign: https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/gpd-win-mini-7-inch-120hz-gaming-handheld-console/x/12932462#/
The DS flip is interesting, but it would have been nice if the screen were a bit bigger, so that it could also accommodate a good size screen keyboard, when a keyboard is needed…
🤣🤣🤣
In all seriousness, though, the keyboard model looks like a chunkier version of the Win Mini (and it sounds like it’s going to have similar specs). And the DS version just seems kind of dumb. As you said, it would be fantastic for DS/3DS emulation, but beyond that…?
Also, there is a lot of empty space around that lower screen. It makes the whole thing look like a kids toy.
Doh, it removed the angle bracket I put in at the start of the quote.
I would take the AYA Flip design over the GPD Win Mini. I don’t like how GPD wants to put the analog sticks next to the D-pad and ABXY buttons. That’s not a great gamepad layout.
GPD’s design is more keyboard-centric, and AYA’s design is more gamepad-centric.
The Neo Flip’s layout definitely is not gamepad centric, as an actually good gamepad layout would be staggered rather than a column. Side by side layouts like on the Win series have their issues (but is done quite well on the Steam Deck, probably because the sticks are raised and not inset), but straight vertical layouts like on here and the Switch Joycons can be just as bad.
This would actually be fantastic for playing point-and-click adventure games, as you could use the touchscreen of the lower screen as a trackpad.
Bad design, the GPD win mini is much better!