Can We Not Normalize $5,300 Handheld Gaming PCs?

The Price of Mobile Gaming Has Become Irrational

You can buy a gaming laptop with a top-end GPU for less.

The price of mobile gaming has become so irrational that Ayaneo, the maker of boutique gaming devices, imagines it can sell you a handheld that costs more than most ultra-high-end desktops and laptops. The peak spec for the long-awaited Ayaneo Next 2 gaming handheld costs a whopping $5,300. It comes with 128GB of RAM and 2TB of storage and packs in a two-year-old, 16-core AMD Ryzen AI Max+ 395 CPU and GPU combo chip.

Sure, Ayaneo claims its 9-inch OLED with a peak 2,400 x 1,504 resolution, plus the addition of drift-resistant TMR joysticks and premium controls, puts it above the competition. I can already tell it’s not worth the cost.

Pricing Breakdown

A version with the same chipset, plus 64GB of RAM and 1TB of storage, comes out to $3,600. The minimum spec you can possibly buy comes with the 8-core, 16-thread Ryzen AI Max 385 with 32GB of RAM and 1TB of storage.

To put that price into perspective, it costs $2,000 more than an Asus ROG Xbox Ally X at $1,000 (at least, it does at the time of writing). MSI’s latest Claw 8 EX AI+ handheld with the more-performant ARC G3 Extreme chip comes out to $1,800.

It’s clear nobody is happy about this handheld’s final price point, not even Ayaneo. The China-based company previously suspended sales of its handheld, saying it couldn’t hit the original targeted launch price. In Ayaneo’s latest product powwow on YouTube, company CEO Arthur Zhang said that the first units of the Next 2 have already shipped, but added that the memory crisis has caused issues with future units. The only available Next 2 available on Ayaneo’s webstore is the $3,600 model.

Comparing to the Competition

However, the Next 2 is simply ridiculous for its price. Last year’s GPD Win 5 handheld with the top-end Ryzen AI Max+ 395, AMD’s top-end Strix Halo APU, cost $1,600 when it first hit the scene. Of course, due to the ever-inflating cost of memory, that handheld now costs more than $2,400.

Ayaneo is also missing any of the recent additions to the Strix Halo lineup, like the Ryzen AI Max+ 388 first introduced at CES 2026. AMD’s Strix Halo chip makes for the most powerful gaming handhelds you can buy, but at what cost?

The Reality of Mobile Gaming

The Next 2 packs in a massive 116Wh battery that can push TDP, or thermal design power, past 55W. No matter what, there is a ceiling to how much gaming goodness you can get on any mobile platform. I’ve seen this play out on other Strix Halo devices like the $3,000 Asus ProArt PZ13 GoPro edition with the Ryzen AI Max+ 395 and 128GB of RAM.

Eventually, you realize you can’t push a game’s performance without either losing one or two parts of the portable gaming trifecta:

• Graphical fidelity
• Frame rate
• Battery life

You have to compromise on something for any gaming handheld. The Xbox Ally X is the new baseline, even at a ludicrous $1,000. A handheld that costs close to $2,000 is a pure luxury. Anything beyond that is simply not worth your time.