A few days ago, there were reports that the AYANEO Next Lite will be a really cheap new portable console based on SteamOS, the well-known Valve operating system that has been doing so well on the Steam Deck. The fact is, eventually this information did not come trueand this operating system is open source and does not require a license.

We don’t know exactly what happened, but it seems like it could all be due to a support and optimization issue, let me explain. The APU used by Steam Deck is a custom solution that has a Zen 2 CPU with 4 cores and 8 threads and an RDNA 2 GPU with 512 shaders. Steam OS is optimized to work with this configurationand AYANEO Next Lite comes with configuration different.

This new console can be purchased in two different configurations, one of which is equipped with Ryzen 5 4500U APU and another with Ryzen 7 4800U. The first has 6 cores and 6 threads, 8 MB L3 cache and Radeon RX Vega 6 with 384 shaders and the second has Ryzen 7 4800U APUwhich has a Zen 2 CPU with 8 cores and 16 threads, 8 MB of L3 cache and a Radeon RX Vega 8 GPU with 512 shaders.

As we can see, there is a very important difference between the two, which is that the GPU that mounts the Steam Deck APU is based on the RDNA 2 architecture, which It is much more advanced than the veteran Vega and its GPU is more powerful. The selling price is undoubtedly one of the big attractions of AYANEO Next Lite, but in terms of performance and graphics options, it is more limited than Steam Deck.

For the rest, the AYANEO Next Lite comes with a screen 7 inch IPS class with 800p resolutionhas 16 GB of RAM and has a 47 Wh battery. The HoloISO operating system has a similar approach to SteamOS and is optimized to work with this console’s APU.

AYANEO Next Lite price and models

• The version with Ryzen 5 4500U, 16 GB RAM and 128 GB SSD can be purchased for 299 dollars. A 512GB model will also be available 349 dollars.
• The model with Ryzen 7 4800U and 16 GB RAM will only be available in a version with 512 GB SSD for 399 dollars.

If the price in Spain is not inflated, this console could be an interesting alternative to the Steam Deck, which has a price 419 euros in its LCD version with 256 GB storage capacity.