The Aya Neo – a Nintendo Switch-style handheld computer that promises to offer a full-fledged computing experience in the palm of your hands – is now available on Indiegogo, starting at $ 6,120 HKD (~ $ 789 USD) for the 500 GB model.
This version of the Neo is technically the second, after the limited, sold-out series of the “Founder’s Edition” that Aya presented in January. The new, wider version promises several improvements over the initial version, including:
- An improved operating system
- Weight loss
- The option to turn off junk
- Better buttons
- Better power supplies and performance preferences
- Improvements to issues that have caused problems with the resolution of scale or blurry screens
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The company also introduced a new $ 47 dock that adds two USB 3.2 Gen 1 Type A ports, one HDMI port, one SD card slot, one MicroSD card slot and an Ethernet connection – another similar concept as the Switch.
The rest of the specifications for the Aya Neo are still the same: a 780-inch 1280×800 IPS display, a 10-25W AMD Ryzen 4500U CPU, 16GB LPDDR4x RAM, three USB-C ports and up to 6 hours estimated battery life. Do not expect to play triple-A games at high settings, but we could run Star Wars: Squadrons at 60fps with the Founder’s Edition, and it had almost enough power to play the unfinished Valheim on the way.
That being said, the Aya Neo is still a crowd-funded product of a first-time company. And while it’s certainly encouraging that Aya has managed to ship its initial Neos from Founder’s Edition, there are still the usual risk elements when it comes to crowdfunded products – even those that are technically second-generation models.
But if you’re willing to roll the dice, you can refund the Aya Neo on Indiegogo for $ 6,120 HKD (about $ 789 USD) for the 500GB model or $ 6,750 HKD (about $ 869 USD) for the 1TB model, which about 10 percent less than what the products are planned to sell for after the crowdfunding campaign. Shipping is scheduled for May.