Think gaming handhelds are too expensive? Ayaneo says 'hold my beer,' lists $5,000+ monster

Ayaneo said it was suspending pre-orders for its Next 2 gaming handheld earlier this year, after rising storage costs and the ongoing memory crisis made it "no longer sustainable." Well, it's now listed on Ayaneo's website—with an asking price for the top model of $5,299.

I'll wait for you to pick up your jaw. Back with us? Good. The top-end Ayaneo Next 2 comes with an AMD Ryzen AI Max+ 395 APU, which is a Strix Halo beastie that's damn expensive no matter the device you find it in.

Storage wise, you get a 2 TB SSD. Sheesh, I know NAND prices are silly right now, but surely a single NVMe drive can't be entirely to blame. As for the RAM? Well it's... oh. Oh I see. The top spec model comes with, brace yourselves, 128 GB of LPDDR5x-8533.

Yep, that would account for the super-silly price tag. I know the the Next 2 is positioning itself to be the handheld to end all handhelds, but 128 GB of RAM? For what, exactly?

It's a Windows-based machine, so I suppose you could get up to some AI-based tomfoolery with it. Other than that, though, I cannot see a world where a 128 GB gaming handheld makes any sense.

Of course, there are cheaper models available. The 64 GB version will run you *gulp* $3,699, whereas the entry level model (and I use the term very loosely) with 32 GB of RAM and 1 TB of storage is a mere $2,999, with shipping said to begin at the end of this month.

No mattery which way you look at it, each of these prices is simply too much to pay for most mere mortals. And those with the cash to splash will still likely wince a little at this pricing.

Remember when I said the Asus ROG Xbox Ally X was kinda good value now at $1,000? Yep, that's the world we're living in in 2026, folks. And unfortunately, it's probably only going to get worse from here.