AYANEO Air Plus to feature AMD Mendocino APU with RDNA2 graphics, price lower

AYANEO Air Plus with AMD RDNA2 graphics at 289 USD

AYANEO have really surprised their fans today by introducing not one but three different consoles.

Although AIR and AIR PRO are both interesting handheld gaming consoles, but the AIR PLUS might be the most interesting of them all, primarily due to the price and use of more advanced graphics.

AYANEO Air Plus, Source: AYANEO

As we have mentioned earlier, the AIR series are mainly based on Ryzen 5000U series with Zen3 core microarchitecture and Vega graphics. Those are now considered outdated and outperformed by superior Ryzen 6000U series with RDNA2 architecture.

A worthy competitor for AYANEO and other handheld gaming devices, Valve’s Steam Deck, features a custom SoC with Zen2 architecture and RDNA2 graphics, which is considered a big step forward over Vega.

At Computex earlier this week AMD announced a new silicon codenamed Mendocino. This processor for cheap lightweight mobile devices features identical architectures as Steam Deck’s Van Gogh APU. However, AMD confirmed those are not the same chips. AYANEO confirmed today that their new AIR PLUS console will be the among the first to receive Mendocino APU, which is expected to ship in the fourth quarter.

AYANEO Air Plus, Source: AYANEO

Other than confirming AIR PLUS is a 6-inch 1080p console with support for standard M.2 2280 SSD, AYANEO are yet to provide the full specs of their new budget RDNA2 console. It is for sure too early for a direct comparison with Steam Deck, after all we are still missing the memory and storage specs. However, one cannot ignore the fact, that both are based on Zen2/RDNA2 chip and yet Air Plus will cost 289 USD, so 60 dollars cheaper than Deck.

The release date for Air Plus is currently unknown. This console will be available at a special 199 USD price exclusively for their community members.

Source: AYANEO, Liliputing