07:43 whoa, Bob just casually drops my name like we're buddies. That settles it, we're now buddies.

You nailed it at the end there. The whole "there's a new device every few months" thing is what keeps me skiddish on taking the plunge. That and how borked their OSes seem to be.

I like how this guy is not really loyal to anything but a good experience. He respects the Steam Decks position, but also able to call out its flaws and willing to try out other devices that might not have those flaws. Great video sir. I have a Steam Deck and dual booted Windows on it so I can play everything EXCEPT brand new Nintendo games. So, good enough.

SteamOS can be loaded on some of these new devices and that is intriguing to me. The convenience of SteamOS MOSTLY outweighs its shortcomings in game compatibility. Most modern triple "A" games that don't run on deck can mostly be streamed to the Deck over network from a proper gaming PC. Playing Indy games and emulation on the go CAN be good for battery life if you are playing simple Indies or Older consoles. If you MUST be in the windows ecosystem definitely invest time and/or money in a front end like Launchbox/BigBox. You can set up BigBox to autolaunch with windows and put all your games in a fancy interface with information/ pictures/ maybe even gameplay videos and with different themes to make it look how you want.

This has always been my experience with Windows in general. Its exclusively designed for use on keyboard and mouse PCs and is a total nightmare when using it for any other purpose. This is precisely why the Steam Deck is such an amazing accomplishment. It manages to legitimately abstract the PC part of the device and create a legitimate console experience.

This is good to know, ngl. I contacted Steam to get one for my dad and they gave me the ol’ “sorry, you live in unknown coconut land and we’re not going to ship anything there.”

I can’t say enough of how much I like how well Wulff Den explains everything. Very top notch KZfaqr. Let’s not forget how funny he is!

Its that repairability and partnership with iFixit to make parts and guides available that makes SteamDeck stand out for me. I don't know how long or how long these other things will be supported, plus Windows on such a small device is... hmm.

The whole reason you would use a windows handheld for portable gaming is anticheat compatibility, so the fact that they couldn't get that working reliably is kinda annoying.

God I love the meta of these ads

I got my steam deck a couple weeks ago and immediately installed Windows 11, only to realize that the minor increase in game compatibility was not worth the additional hurdles needed to get there. e.g. having to use the on screen keyboard so often, needing to use inconsistent 3rd party software to bind the Steam Deck's buttons, worse battery life. SteamOS works incredibly well for the games I use my Deck for

I really like the warm summer vibe color grading of your video. Your videos always give off a cold vibe so this was nice!

Just got my Aya Neo Air Sakura Pink a couple of weeks ago. I've read about the headaches setting this up and the somewhat borked pre-installed Windows 11 setup. So I did a factory reset using the 3-button combo key on bootup (rightvol, right special key, power) and reset it that way. I even did a slow format (weee). After booting up and going thru the Win11 OOBE initial setup, I immediately put in my flashdrive and booted up the standard Win11 22H2 ISO. I performed an in-place upgrade and everything went well. I then proceeded to update AyaNeo Space to 1.1 to the LEDs are working again. I've also set the DPI scaling to 125% instead of the default 150% custom one. No DLL errors, everything working well. Battery life indeed is my only complaint. Around 1-2hrs depending on game and power profile. I bought a Bavin PC063 65w PD 20000mah power bank to augment that.

Seeing the struggles with windows on this- lowkey makes me glad the steam deck hasn’t rushed to windows and is the way it is! Still waiting for my steamdeck but admiring from afar! Hopefully everything including the dock situation is solved by the time I get my preordered steamdeck!

Yay!! I was looking forward to your take on this!!

I'd probably prefer a Steam Deck with Hall effect sticks and an OLED screen. You can actually do a stick swap for $30 so that's already out there, now to get a pretty screen on a Steam Deck.

I exclusively use windows with my steam deck and the fact that more windows handhelds don’t have touch pads is probably why it’s not perceived as a good idea for windows with these things because it’s a great experience over here

Aside from the other issues mentioned, no back buttons, no sale. The steam deck nailed it with the recognition of the massive difference back buttons make to gameplay (even if their buttons are a bit stiff). It's hard enough to deal with not having good paddles on a switch (even the joycon replacements that have them can't map across sides, making the left side worthless), I'm not going to be able to live without them on a $600+ PC gaming device.

I'm interested and excited to see what the future holds for windows handhelds as technology gets better. I'm especially excited to see what the cheaper Air Plus is like, and the Ayn Loki models. Another great video Bob! Thanks for all the content you make!

WULFF DEN Before the Steam Deck: Guys the steam deck isn't going to be good because it uses a compatability layer. It's not native windows. WULFF DEN after Steam Deck: Windows on a gaming device sucks. Too many issues and you need a keyboard and mouse to navigate.

Just finished this weeks nontendo podcast, great timing!

didn't mention battery life bro, which is like number one problem with this specific version of the air

This is why I went for Ayntec's Odin Pro. It's cheaper than the Steam Deck, but can almost function like one. You can also do a whole lot of customization. Not the best device but it's affordable and won't be too harsh on you pockets.

The competition in the handheld PC is real

It is not fair that your advertisings are so good

2:46 Okay, there legit has to be a second Bob. Too real xD

Love the PVM in the back. Hope you make a video on it

The one reason I want one of these is to pair it up with my Galaxy Tab S7 Plus's beautiful 12 inch OLED display and keyboard cover as a full laptop / desktop replacement on the go. Just for the (work) software I can't get done on Android, like making particle effects. The Tab S7 and S8 have a feature that enables seamless mirror and input to a Windows machine iirc. and if that fails, there's also SuperDisplay. It's a good solution, in theory, for someone that doesn't want to waste money on a laptop form factor 'cause they already got an "android laptop".

I just want a Steam Deck with an OLED

I hope an OLED upgrade one day becomes available for the steam deck. I recently pulled out my PSVita and retro games look absolutely beautiful on an OLED screen.

I have had a Aya neo air since Christmas, I absolutely love it still to this day. My pc game library is primarily indie/retro styled games. It’s so perfect for me, I love it, I pick it up so often when I’m home from work. I do not use it for emulation, I have an rp3 + for that that I love, I also use it for streaming. I have a miyoo mini plus for my 8 and 16 bit gaming. This puts my steam library in my hands, beautifully too me. It also means I don’t have the same issues of battery loss and heat, but I do also sometimes use it for big AAA games, I just plug it in and I got a decent red dead redemption 2 experience right in my hands while I got my favorite show on the tv. The price is whacky, but my wife got it for me before I could buy it, so I took the money and gifted the retro inspired one to my favorite small youTuber for review.

You can run windows on steamdeck aswell and get access to all those games, also you can do some interesting work arounds

Literally the best surfshark commercial ive ever seen

Looks neat! Great Stuff! As always!

The reason i prefer the steam deck is the size, the track pads, the 4 back buttons and how valve constantly improving it.

Man, this thing just does not seem ideal. I am looking forward to all of the steam deck and switch competitors that will try to do what they do though. I love watching this brand new type of handheld market open up.

Hi, thanks for continuing to review all the different devices out there in the wild. By chance since it runs on Windows, does it offer support for game trainers like pc games?

Seeing all of this while I sit and wait for my Odin Pro... Flavor of the month ^_^

SURFSHARK DOG??? Well now I’m interested

I think the biggest draw to this is the Steamdeck isn't available in all regions/counties, and this would be.

So basically, this is a more expinsive and slightly harder to customize/fine-tune Steam Deck Lite?🤔

Im liking some these handhelds im seeing but for now i will stick with the switch till something catches my eye and a bit more affordable and user friendly.

whoever was in charge of putting the fin on that surfshark dog had to get DANGEROUSLY close to WeenusTown

I just looked at the indiegogo and hardware wise this looks like the perfect device! I just wish there was like a windows os or skin of some sort for products like this!

Fun fact about those anti drift gulikit thumbsticks, I got that controller after your review, and after about a month (and a few car trips in a backpack without its case, which is my bad, of course) the left thumbstick is stuck drifting horrendously far up and to the left Edit: I've taken it apart and can't find a reason why it would be drifting

That ad was just amazing

I’d highly suggest trying out Controller Companion software on this thing. I haven’t used it on a handheld but it works great for using my controller as a mouse for my TV.

Every video Bob's SNES pops up in in the background I get totally distracted trying to figure out what is in the SNES that the Japanese version of Mario All-Stars is connected to.

I am liking where the hardware is heading in this space

Honestly this looks like daylight bribery, to me. Aya sent you their new console ($650), a case (~20), a charger (~$50), a new gulikit controller (~$50), a new keyboard ($100)... I'm glad that you were still fairly critical of it, but I think you'd be a lot more peeved about some of these problems if you had to drop ~$900 of your own money on all this.

I ussually skip the ads for stuff like surfshark that I have seen a million times but I stayed this time for the cute dog lol

That's the gen2 of these. I think next year it'll hit the spot and we'll have a good portable gaming pc

🤣 Love that Zim is in the ad

omg sooooo cute love the little one glad you didnt let him jump bless him gorgeus

The Wulffden Ad Read Extended Universe gets more and more interesting every week.

You actually can play epic games' games on the deck! Look it up, theres a good flatpack called "Heroic Games Launcher" I believe, and it will add epic games to your library completely on its own

Surf dog should be used as a template for future commercials 😂

This Design is perfect

I paid 700.00 all in for the steam deck Tuesday. Its on par with current Best of the best of the best pricing.

"they expect you to be playing on a big screen. Like in your living room, on a computer monitor." Haha that caught me off guard a little bit, I was definitely expecting him to say a big TV when talking about a living room. But I get that playing on gaming monitors are getting more and more popular, haha just funny to me

Hey Wulff Den, have you seen the 8bitdo lite 2 controller? It looks like a solid upgrade from the first model

that keyboard seems very intresting. its not like these huge mecanical keyboards but more like the apple magic keyboard but just better. i would love a video about keyboards like this

Those tvs in the back look good! 👀

My biggest problem with this video is that bob has a snes that he didnt break the region tabs off to play famicom games and uses a riser on it.

Aya did the design really well. Maybe if Windows 11 worked better we'd have a more attractive offer. Thus the benefit of the linux distro and custom OS from Steam Deck, it just works so well with little tinkering.

You’re a funny guy for that sponsored ad

I will bought this handheld.. this is very nice design

Both doggos in one video?! What did we do to deserve this? :) such good boys!

I'd love to see what you think about the Miyoo Mini, if you can get your hands on one

It's tough for these competitors. Valve can sell the Steam Deck at a loss since it directs people towards Steam and away from its competitors like Game Pass. The obvious choice for OS Windows isn't really designed for screens smaller than 10 inches or so. Hard to make a device that's competitively priced and non-finicky to use. Hopefully they find enough buyers to keep going.

I'm still tempted with the $500 8GB RAM model, even at a low TDP the performance is similar to my old laptop so it might be a worthy replacement.

All in all, this looks pretty niche and I can't really see why one would go for it over the Steam deck other than for it's smaller size, but in that case, I think there are more appealing options likely available for cheaper. I've had my steam deck for about a month and am loving it. Being able to play pretty much most of the games I play on it (I haven't tested everything) is great. I know that there are games that won't work either yet due to proton not working for it yet or due to developers outright blocking proton, but I don't play those games. I could install windows for those sorts of games, but from what I've read, performance takes a hit due to overhead and windows isn't really made for this kind of device, which leads to a worse experience overall. SteamOS is not perfect, but I haven't had any big issues with it. In comparison, while this device has a few things that make it seem a more premium like a lot of AYA's other handhelds, the experience itself looks to be lower. It really comes down largely to it using Windows, which on the surface should mean everything works, but in practice it doesn't seem to be the case, and as I mentioned above, Windows isn't really made for these sorts of use cases and comes with significantly more overhead. A lot of the more expensive handhelds tend to have better specs on paper, but perform worse at the same TDP, and may have slightly better performance at twice the TDP. This device in comparison, seems worse all around. Even if you did pump up the tdp, it would destroy battery performance. Furthermore, one of the features that seems more premium, one of the smartest things the Steam Deck did was choosing a 1280 by 800p screen. For a device like that, you really shouldn't be trying to push games past that unless it is a much less demanding game, but even then the screen size lets that 1280x800p resolution look great. I know the steam deck doesn't have an OLED screen while the AYA does, but imo the 1080p screen of the AYA would likely hurt more than help since it can't really drive most games at that resolution. You will then have to play at a lower resolution, which in my experience tends to look worse than playing that game at a lower native resolution. What I am getting at is that 720p looks better on a 1280 by 720p screen (or in the deck's case, a 1280 by 800p screen) than it does on a 1920 by 1080 screen. The deck also has touchpads which I've found to be quite useful, be it another way to aim, or for extra commands, or whatever. And the back buttons are also really useful as I like to map some of the more used actions to it (like mapping the L3 or R3 buttons to it. Steam's controller configuration is quite powerful. The issue with the AYA Neo Air is more of an issue with the industry in general. These companies announce their product, people preoder them. And while it is taking so long for people to get what they paid full price for, the company announces the next product. By the time anybody gets what they bought, it's largely already outdated. Or at least they are lead to believe. The reality is that a lot of the time, the new product really isn't that much more powerful than the older one. It only feels like it is because these handhelds are just starting to get where they can play modern AAA games at a playable framerate. It's unethical though because these companies haven't fulfilled the previous orders and are already asking for more money. It implies mismanagement or that they just do not care. Furthermore, support is typically lacking because they know they can just rely on the community to provide it for them. Another problem is that they rely so heavily on FOMO to get people to buy,. Valve really put things into perspective. The Steam Deck is a fairly cheap handheld PC that seems to punch above it's weight due to lacking the overhead of Windows. But despite how much of a community has been built around it, Valve has been doing great with providing support. Meanwhile the alternatives may look like premium devices on the surface, and they definitely tend to cost a premium, but the experience has been anything but. The Steam Deck won't be king forever in this space, there will be other devices that will beat it, but I like how Valve hasn't come out and announced the Steam Deck 2 so quickly, and even though it has taken them a while to fulfill all of their orders, they are focusing on that over pushing another product. I would expect or at least hope that if they did announce a successor that it was truly worth upgrading to and that it gave enough time for the Steam deck itself to shine. In comparison, I've seen people admit to ordering devices like the Ayn Odin and AYA Neo and admit that when they get it, they will be ordering the successor. Not even giving themselves time to properly enjoy what they just spent several hundred dollars on.

not only can you install windows on the steam deck, if you want you could also install Steam OS on the Aya Neo

I just bought an AyaNeo Air Pro and it sucks that it comes with a broken Windows. You need to reinstall Win 11 to get to work properly. That aside, right now I'm pretty happy with it and Playnite launcher executing on fullscreen mode on Windows boot. I wanted the most portable gaming device for traveling and this is it for me.

you can change the size of the windows 11 touch keyboard..

Contributed to the 16gb,512gb air pro version earlier yesterday and this will be the longest 2 months before it ships lol

The only games I really want that PC has and consoles don't are stalker and tarkov. Neither have controller support. I would basically need to be playing it like a desktop in order to actually play them. But there's something about having a handheld Windows device that's really just sort of cozy and comfy. Like imagine having a little folder for cartoons and anime on the desktop, using the browser, then playing some doom wads or super mario world rom hacks. Even working on rom hacks or doom wads. Seems like if you put effort, it could be a very very cozy device, but yeah I don't really have enough money for it.

Hey Bob, what are those little tvs you have connected to the SNES in the background, I want them

Instead having finger print reader. It would've been better to have a keyboard and game controller like on win600. That's a huge plus for win600.

The other option is puting HoloISO on that device and enjoy the way Linux update your drivers.

This thing with SteamOS would be the perfect handheld for some people. We're not quite there yet but I can easily see a future where PC-based handhelds are a dominant section of the gaming market.

Hello! Since as you said, the company releases the new thing every few months. It means that they probably not going to support the specific device, isn't it? idk. With something like steamdeck you can be sure that you will get the support for a long long time.

Oh thank god you’re back

When u we're first setting it all up, you should have plugged in a USBC to HDMI to a monitor like the Steam Deck has, would of been easier for ya

The steam deck would be amazing for me, cause i love titanfall, multiversus, hollow knifht, apex, etc

I think it's a pretty neat device which has some advantages over the steam deck. The regular 512gb model is 600$ which is cheaper than the steamdeck by 50$ (I don't know why wulff den is saying it's more expensive???) it comes with an oled screen, much lighter and smaller [398g] (for reference steam deck is 669g so 68% heavier, and switch is 420g). Performance wise it's about 67% the strength of the steam deck, so price/performance is worse but I do think this is a very promising handheld just because it's an indication of the future of the market. If Aya refreshes this device with a 6600U and slots it in the same price point you would have something as strong as the steam deck and with an oled screen 512gb for 600$. P.S Personally I'd recommend the Pro version with the 5560U for 650$ (same price as steamdeck) because it has a bigger battery than the non-pro model. The early bird pricing was 600$ but that ran out

wait its so bright and not lit blue in the background, how do i know its still a wulffden video???

I mean a big selling point of this is that buying it isn't region locked, if you're in a region where the steam deck isn't sold yet you can get this

Bob should do a review on the powkiddy x18s

This is the device I’m getting. I just want something to use on the couch and the Steam Deck likely won’t be coming to New Zealand for years.

They have exsternal mini ssd now you can Velcro on to the side thats what I would do

Can you cover first impressions of 'Cursed to Golf' when it comes out in a couple days? Think you met the dev or creator at PAX one year?

Fall guys works fine on steam deck now. Crashes sometimes, but I've been playing it on deck for a few weeks now and it's been good. 4ish hours of battery life.

I loved the SurfShark dog!!!! Hahaha I laughed hard

i like the design and white but why the easter pastel accents? The black ver. is a little better with the purple/blue gradient but still

DLL issues etc.....the reason my patience for PC gaming has gone down a lot. My PC is currently having issues with C++ 2015-2019, even when I uninstall and fresh install that pack. I just want to play Stray 😅

Seems cool. I kinda don't have use for this. I am looking for something that does this kind of stuff that fits more in the pocket. This could fit in a backpack or fanny pack. Kinda fear fan noise. Should be ok. I guess. When the time comes, traveling ill grab whatever is available. Probably be something awesome. If i gotta put it in a backpack may as well get a laptop. Bigger and better with a controller like the Xbox controller. This is better if you don't have somewhere to put the thing or standing up. More flavor's i guess. More options. Whatever you want. Wow hard to use. You would think they would put a better touch screen on there. The on screen keyboard, probably has another one somewhere on the net.

The problem with all device with same concept of Ayaneo Air is Microsoft is not officially support it. It is the sole advantage of Steam Deck, Steam itself is actively supporting the device which means you have potentially the whole Steam game. It is just Steam Deck has better overall hardware: LPDDR5 and RDNA2 GPU. Especially RDNA2 which is being used by Consoles such as PS5 and Xbox Series X/S. It means the developer should have easier time to optimize the Stram Deck so it will run at better than it should be in Windows.

I'm looking 6800u minimum for my first handheld PC, AOKZoe, ayn Loki max, aya neo 2, OXP2, all options I'm looking at.

KZfaq Recommended I’m thinking about getting one myself