- Ayaneo announced the specifications and price of the Next 2 handheld
- The new gaming handheld will cost up to $4,299 and has an early bird price of $3,499.
- The Next 2 will be available via Ayaneo’s Indiegogo campaign in February
Gaming PC hardware is taking a huge hit due to the ongoing RAM crisis, with prices rising and even the delay of the highly anticipated Steam Machine. Unfortunately, it seems like things are just getting started.
Handheld brand Ayaneo has revealed a host of new information about its upcoming Next 2 portable gaming PC, including the fact that it will cost $4,299 / around £3,160 / AU$6,130 for a 128GB RAM and 2TB storage model. It’s more than an RTX 5090!
Its early bird price is set at $3,499 / around £2,570 / AU$4,990, for consumers who want to save a little by supporting the Indiegogo campaign.
The Ayaneo Next 2 is a rugged portable gaming PC, equipped with AMD’s Ryzen AI Max+ 395 processor, a 116 WH battery and a 9-inch OLED display. These specs are almost on par with a budget gaming laptop, as the Max+ 395’s performance is similar to an RTX 4060.
While the Ayaneo Next 2 was always meant to be an expensive handheld — as all Ryzen AI Max+ 395-powered handhelds are — the $4,299 retail price might be a step too far, even for consumers willing to pay premium prices for portable devices, and that’s largely due to the RAM crunch.
It’s not just the 128GB model, as the base model matches the RTX 5090’s $1,999 MSRP, equipped with the less powerful Ryzen AI Max 385 processor and 32GB of RAM.
A model with the AI Max+ 395 has 64GB of RAM, which isn’t necessary for portable gaming (and certainly not 128GB), but consumers will have to pay $2,699 to get their hands on it.
If RAM prices continue to skyrocket, there is a good chance that Ayaneo’s listed retail prices will not remain unchanged once the official launch occurs.
Analysis: 128 GB of RAM is not necessary for handhelds
The RAM crisis is not going away any time soon and Ayaneo has not made it any easier by using high RAM configurations. Most consumer handhelds work just fine with 32GB of RAM (some even with 16GB), which is why the push to 64GB and 128GB seems completely overkill.
The AI Max+ 395 APU, 9-inch OLED display, and 116 WH battery are already enough to make the Next 2 a niche device, with a hefty price tag, but the addition of 128 GB of RAM makes it inaccessible even for consumers willing to spend big money on portable gaming.
Nvidia’s RTX 5090 is barely available at any retail store, and the third-party options are all well above the $1,999 / £1,799 / AU$4,039 MSRP, with some going for almost $5,000 on Best Buy. That same amount can net the consumer a brand new desktop gaming PC, which is a better option compared to the Next 2 handheld and RTX 5090 GPU.
It wouldn’t surprise me if new handhelds in 2026 end up doing 8GB RAM configurations, as the hardware market seems to only get worse at this rate.
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