The launch of the Steam Deck (opens in new tab) seems to have tipped off a great many more handheld PC (opens in new tab) projects. The latest is the Loki from AYN (opens in new tab), a range of five handhelds that starts cheap and can be specced up quite nicely. Thanks to Techpowerup (opens in new tab) and Liliputing (opens in new tab) for the lead on this one.
AYN has already released the Android-powered Odin (opens in new tab), but Loki runs Windows. The machines come with a range of CPU options, most of them from AMD. The entry-level member of the pantheon, however, comes with an unnamed Intel Alder Lake U chip. The Loki Mini, with Iris Xe graphics and 64GB of storage (no information regarding RAM seems to be available for any of the Loki machines, though Odin came with a choice of 4GB or 8GB), will be sold for just $299. Storage appears to be replaceable across the range, so hopefully, new SSDs can be dropped in easily.
Step up the range a bit, and you get three Lokis with a Ryzen 5 6600U APU with six cores, 12 threads, a boost speed of up to 4.5GHz, and Radeon 660M graphics (six cores). These machines come with varying storage levels, from 64GB to 512GB, and prices range from $499 to $699.
The big boy at the top of the range is the Loki Max, which brings a Steam Deck-matching Ryzen 7 6800U APU (eight cores, 16 threads, 4.75GHz boost, Radeon 680M graphics with 16 cores) to the party. It’s only available with 512GB of storage, and the amount of RAM is still undetermined. At $799, it’s slightly more expensive than the equivalent Steam Deck, but comes with a copy of Windows instead of Linux, so that needs to be factored into the price.
The Loki range features two analog sticks, a D-pad, the usual four face buttons in an Xbox configuration, plus Select, Start and triggers. The screen looks similar to the Odin’s 5.98 inch, 1080p display. There’s a USB-C port around the back, plus a headphone jack, but that seems to be it. The Odin had a Switch-like dock (opens in new tab) that added USB Type-A and HDMI ports (plus, bizarrely, N64 and GameCube controller ports) ready to connect it to a big TV, so it’s entirely likely Loki will do the same.
The Loki has yet to appear on the AYN website at the time of writing, but there’s a product announcement on Facebook (opens in new tab).
| CPU | GPU | RAM | Storage | Screen | |
| Steam Deck | AMD 6800U | Radeon 660M | 16GB | 64GB to 512GB | 7in 1280×800 |
| Loki Mini | Undetermined Intel Alder Lake | Iris Xe | Unknown | 64GB | Unknown |
| Loki Max | AMD 6800U | Radeon 680M | Unknown | 512GB | Unknown |