GoKawiilAYANEO Pocket S Mini The AYANEO Pocket S Mini wants to be the last Android handheld you'll ever buy, and it gets close to achieving that aim. Disappointing endurance and a dim screen take the shine off, but this is still great device for retro gaming in a pocketable size.
When AYANEO dropped the Pocket S Mini earlier this year, it claimed that this was an “endgame handheld.” In other words, you wouldn’t have to buy another gaming handheld after this. That’s clearly a lofty claim, but the device seems to offer plenty of reasons to hop aboard at a glance.
There’s a 4.2-inch 4:3 LCD screen that’s a great size for retro emulation, a Snapdragon G3X Gen 2 processor that should handle most tasks with ease, and a compact design with premium materials. The device isn’t cheap, at $319 for early birds and $399 RRP. So does the device warrant the price? And does it remotely live up to these “endgame handheld” claims? I put it to the test to find out, and the results were… interesting.
Does the Pocket S Mini go the distance on performance?
Hadlee Simons / Android Authority
Horsepower is a major consideration if you want to keep a handheld for as long as possible. It’s one thing to emulate SNES and PS1 games, but it’s another challenge entirely to run bleeding-edge PC games and PS3 emulation. Thankfully, there’s mostly good news on this front.
The Pocket S Mini ships with an active-cooled Snapdragon G3X Gen 2 chipset, accompanied by 8GB to 16GB of RAM and 128GB to 512GB of storage. There’s also a microSD card slot if you need even more space for your game collection.
Unfortunately, a look at CPU-based benchmarks and one-off GPU tests reveals that the Pocket S Mini lags well behind the AYANEO Pocket Ace and the KONKR Pocket Fit (Snapdragon G3 Gen 3 version). The former is especially noteworthy because the Mini and Ace share the same chipset. The device’s single-core result is particularly poor compared to its stablemates, achieving half the Pocket Ace’s score.
Hadlee Simons / Android Authority
Hadlee Simons / Android Authority
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