Orange Pi Neo pricing will start at 499 dollarsas announced by the Chinese single-board computer group, which is now embarking on a new adventure with this handheld gaming machine.

The current market offers a large number of portable consoles and we will see more very soon. And one of the attractive ones for its balance between features and price. It may arrive a little later than expected, but its reasonable price should encourage a purchase.

The features of this machine are the ones we told you about. It has 7 inch screenFHD resolution (1920 x 1200 pixels) in 16:10 aspect ratio, 500 nits brightness and 120 Hz refresh rate. Clearly inspired by the Steam Deck, it is quite compact with dimensions of 260 x 107 x 19mm, making it easy to use and transport.

Its hardware engine is supported by AMD and is successful in this product line. Part a AMD Ryzen 7 7840 with 8 Zen4 cores and 12 RDNA3 graphics units and those who want more can opt for a Ryzen 7 8840U. The Chinese group will offer the installation of 16 or 32 Gbytes of LPDDR5 memory and M.2 PCIe Gen4 SSD for storage with capacities from 512 Gbytes to 2 Tbytes. It has a special cooling system with a fan, double copper pipes and aluminum fins for cooling.

Very complete in connectivity with Wi-Fi 6E and Bluetooth 5.3, a new USB4 type C interface, a slot for an external memory card, stereo speakers and a 50 Wh lithium-polymer battery. It has dual 6-axis gyroscopes and RGB lighting. In terms of controls, it has Steam Deck-style touchpads, dual analog sticks, D-Pad, linear Hall triggers, action buttons and more for Home, Select, menus and other interactions.

The price of the Orange Pi Neo is attractive

The console will also excel in the software section, as it will be launched with a variant of Manjaro OS, one of the most interesting Linux distributions. There will be versions with a white or black finish and two versions depending on the processor:

• AMD Ryzen 7 7840U: $499
• AMD Ryzen 7 8840U: $599