KONKR Pocket FIT Rather than a new, innovative approach, the Pocket FIT takes what AYANEO has perfected in previous flagship handhelds and reduces it to an irresistible price.
AYANEO has been the king of ultra-premium Android gaming handhelds for years, but the unfortunate truth is that most people are priced out of ever buying one of its devices. The last release was the Pocket S2, featuring the fancy new Snapdragon G3 Gen 3. However, starting at $439 with early bird deals ($499 retail), it’s a difficult device to recommend.
The KONKR Pocket FIT flips that script on its head. The first device from AYANEO’s value-oriented sub-brand, KONKR, features the same G3 Gen 3 processor but comes in at roughly half the price, starting at $239.
So what compromises does the Pocket FIT make to hit this price point, and is it the affordable AYANEO flagship fans have been demanding for years? Let’s dive in.
Premium design, minus the OLED On the surface, the KONKR Pocket FIT looks every bit as premium as every other AYANEO handheld I’ve tested in the past. The plastic feels great, and the all-glass front gives it a premium look. Aside from the price and the K on the menu button, there isn’t much to indicate that this isn’t just another AYANEO handheld.
The face buttons and D-pad feel just as great as they have on every other device the company has released this year. The buttons are mostly quiet, but have a slightly hollow feel to them. There are also start and select buttons at the bottom left, plus two more hotkeys on the bottom right, one of which opens the AYASpace quick menu.
Unlike any other AYANEO device to date, this one features a neat ability to swap triggers between analog and digital inputs. There’s a small toggle next to each trigger to swap between the two modes. Personally, I’m not a fan of the microswitch-style inputs found on the Nintendo Switch, so the linear inputs felt better to me. The triggers themselves have a nice flare to them, and the stacked shoulder buttons are very quiet.
Two more hotkeys flank each of the shoulder buttons, and they’re configurable in the settings for both short and long presses.
The KONKR Pocket FIT looks every bit as premium as every other AYANEO handheld I've tested in the past.
An interesting addition here is the back buttons, next to the grips on the back of the device. This is the first time I’ve seen these on an Android-based handheld from AYANEO (its Windows releases have had them), but they don’t seem to be fully fleshed out. I was really looking forward to setting them as hotkeys in emulators, but they aren’t mappable. They can only be mapped to existing inputs (A, B, X, Y, etc.), which makes them pretty useless.
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