Upgraded Aya Neo Pro costs almost double the most expensive Steam Deck

Aya Neo updated its Indiegogo crowdfunding campaign with pricing and availability for its upgraded Aya Neo Pro handheld gaming PC, and it costs significantly more than the top Steam Deck model. More specifically, the asking price is set at $1,215, with shipments going out in mid-September.

For anyone who missed out on early Steam Deck reservations (or is otherwise uninterested in Valve's hardware for whatever reason), the Aya Neo remains one of the best handheld PC gaming alternatives. However, there is a sizable cost difference, especially for the Pro model.

What you get when splurging on the Aya Neo Pro is a Ryzen 7 4800U, an 8-core/16-thread APU with a 1.8GHz base clock, 4.2GHz max boost clock, and 8MB of L3 cache. Like the custom silicon inside the Steam Deck, it is based on AMD's Zen 2 architecture. The regular Aya Neo ships with a Ryzen 5 4500U APU (6C/6T, 2.3GHz to 4GHZ, 8MB L3 cache).

It also comes with 1TB of built-in storage, whereas the base model (read: non-Pro) can be purchased with 512GB of storage for $925 or 1TB for $1,015. Aya Neo plans to offer a 2TB variant of the Aya Neo Pro at some point, but details on pricing and availability have not yet been announced.

In comparing the Aya Neo Pro to the Steam Deck, the custom Zen 2 silicon inside Valve's handheld sports four cores and eight threads, so you get a meatier CPU with the Aya Neo Pro, and double (or more) the storage. On the graphics side, however, the Steam Deck's RDNA 2 GPU is newer and more muscular than the integrated Vega graphics in the Aya Neo Pro.

Once again, Aya Neo is offering two color choices: Dark Star (black) and Light Moon (white). In addition, there's also an Aya Neo Pro Retro Power with 1TB of storage for $1,315. The hardware is the same, but aims for a "classic handheld color scheme, with light gray body, dark gray D-pad, purple face buttons, and olive-green shoulder buttons," along with an included matching dock (the dock is sold separately for the non-Retro models).

If you're interested, you can preorder the Aya Neo Pro from the Aya Store.