The Aya Neo and GPD Win 3 are nearly Nintendo Switch-sized gaming PCs - Circuit Breaker

One year ago at CES 2020 in Las Vegas, Alienware made waves with a modular gaming PC that worked like a Nintendo Switch, with a pair of gamepads flanking a powerful Windows 10 tablet. Sadly, Alienware’s UFO was just a concept, as was Lenovo’s take on the idea this year — but two companies are now taking up the torch with a pair of crowdfunded gadgets you might actually see in your lifetime. They look seriously legit.

The 5.5-inch GPD Win 3 and the 7-inch Aya Neo aren’t going about it in quite the same way; while the Ava tries to closely match Nintendo’s console in shape, size, and with strictly gaming controls on board, the GPD sticks to its palmtop computer roots with a slide-up screen that reveals a tiny backlit keyboard. There’s also a fingerprint sensor, a microSD slot and an optional Thunderbolt 4 dock if you want to use the GPD like a full Windows 10 computer.

What’s the same: both are genuinely trying to deliver a powerful tablet surrounded by joysticks and buttons for under $1,000 each. With Intel’s latest Tiger Lake chips and AMD’s Ryzen 4500U respectively, each has some of the latest and greatest integrated graphics you can buy, and they claim pretty decent performance as a result — Cyberpunk 2077 can reportedly hit 30fps at the Aya Neo’s 1280x800 resolution at low settings, and GPD offers a long list of examples of recent, demanding games that you can coax well over the 50fps mark with its Intel Xe graphics.

As you can see in the spec comparo sheet I whipped up below, each features 16GB of DDR4 memory, a speedy NVMe solid state drive, Wi-Fi 6 and Bluetooth 5.0, a pair of stereo speakers, a genuine headphone jack, and multiple USB ports. Not bad!

GPD Win 3 vs. Aya Neo specs

Spec	GPD Win 3	Aya Neo
Spec	GPD Win 3	Aya Neo
Screen	5.5-inch 1280x720p IPS	7-inch 1280x800p IPS
PPI	268ppi	215ppi
Brightness	400 nits	500 nits
CPU	15-28W Intel i7-1165G7 or i5-1135G7 (4C8T)	10-25W AMD Ryzen 4500U (6C6T)
GPU	Intel Iris Xe (96EU or 80EU)	AMD Vega 6
RAM	16GB LPDDR4x 4266	16GB LPDDR4x 4266
Storage	1TB NVMe SSD	512GB NVMe SSD
Battery	44Wh	47Wh
Battery quote	2-3 hours heavy, up 11 hours light	up to 6 hours
Cooling	Two heat pipes, PWM fan	Two heat pipes, fan
Ports	1x Thunderbolt 4 (USB-C), USB-A, 3.5mm	3x USB-C, 3.5mm
Wireless	Wi-Fi 6, Bluetooth 5.0	Wi-Fi 6, Bluetooth 5.0
Dimensions	7.6 x 3.6 inches (192 x 92mm)	10 x 4.1 inches (255 x 106mm)
Thickness	1.06 inches (27mm)	0.79 inches (20mm)
Weight	1.2 lbs (.56kg)	1.4 lbs (.65kg)
Speakers	Stereo	Stereo
Keyboard	Y	N
Touchscreen	Y	Y
Gyro control	N	Y
Rumble	Y	Y
microSD	Y	N
Fingerprint sensor	Y	N
Docking station	Optional, 3x USB 3.2, 1x USB-C, 1x HDMI 2.0b, 1x GbE	N
OS	Windows 10 Home	Windows 10
Early price	$799	$699
Final starting price	$999	TBD

Just know that these systems are going to be chonky compared to an actual Nintendo Switch’s 0.55-inch thick frame and 0.88-pound weight, and battery life will be a big question, with both the Aya Neo and GPD Win 3 allowing you to fine-tune the chip’s TDP wattage to get the most out of their tablet-sized cells. NotebookCheck says you shouldn’t expect to get more than 1.5 hours out of the GPD Win 3 while playing a demanding game, though Taki Udon on YouTube claims you can get 2-3 hours out of an early Aya Neo.

A note on crowdfunding:

Crowdfunding is a chaotic field by nature: companies looking for funding tend to make big promises. According to a study run by Kickstarter in 2015, roughly 1 in 10 “successful” products that reach their funding goals fail to actually deliver rewards. Of the ones that do deliver, delays, missed deadlines, or overpromised ideas mean that there’s often disappointment in store for those products that do get done.

The best defense is to use your best judgment. Ask yourself: does the product look legitimate? Is the company making outlandish claims? Is there a working prototype? Does the company mention existing plans to manufacture and ship finished products? Has it completed a Kickstarter before?

And remember: you’re not necessarily buying a product when you back it on a crowdfunding site.

Speaking of Taki Udon’s video, it looks like a fantastic overview of the handheld, so I recommend checking it out, and this second vid that shows off how well games like Cyberpunk 2077 and Sekiro play on his Founder’s model. It’s not enough to convince me to crowdfund a company I’ve never heard of, but it’s a good start.

You should also know that not all of these handhelds are going to look and play the same: the transparent Aya you’re seeing in the videos was a limited edition of 15,000 for early pre-orders in China, with final models launching in black and white instead when they ship in April. Aya will be launching its Indiegogo campaign in February with a “super early bird limited price” of $699, with no word on how much the rest of us might pay.

The GPD Win 3 is already on Indiegogo, where you’ll pay $799 for the Core i5-1135G7 version, with the more powerful i7 chip starting at $899, or $949 for a package with the optional USB, HDMI and Gigabit Ethernet docking station.

Between these handheld gaming PCs, the cute upcoming Playdate and the gorgeous Analogue Pocket, some of the squeaky clean mods we’ve seen of late, not to mention the popularity of the Switch itself and the march of ever smaller and more powerful chips, it feels like we might be entering a gaming handheld renaissance. Here’s hoping.

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