While much of the community has been focused on the recent Retroid Pocket Duo series kerfuffle, AYANEO has been kind of flying under the radar. Unfortunately, the company has confirmed what many had feared, as it won’t be shipping all KONKR Pocket Advance pre-orders in the month of September.
In an email sent out this morning, AYANEO sent out an email providing an update on the current situation, as there are still many pre-orders that have yet to be fulfilled. Despite promising to ship all KONKR Pocket Advance pre-orders in the month of September, the company is now stating it is now expecting “to ship approximately 50-60% of the pre-orders during September.”
Curiously enough, there’s no mention as to what the reason for the delay actually is, outside of “upcoming holidays in China.” As for those holidays, the first is later this week, as September 25 is the “Mid-Autumn Festival holiday.” That’s only a one day affair, but the one that will really throw a wrinkle in production and shipping is the “National Day Holiday,” which runs from October 1 until October 7.
Some have already received confirmation that their pre-orders won’t be arriving until sometime after October 7. Perhaps unsurprisingly, AYANEO doesn’t make any mention of the Peach or Onyx Ice color options, which were to begin production after the initial pre-orders were fulfilled. It’s probably safe to assume that given how far behind AYANEO is with the Navy, Coral, and Grey units, you’ll be lucky to get the Peach and Onyx Ice in time for the 2026 holiday season.
The frustrating part about this is that AYANEO waited until now to share that there would be delays, just for pre-orders. According to the Announcements channel in the AYANEO Discord, the latest update regarding shipping was back on September 11, where it was stated that “we expect to ship the majority of our pre-orders throughout September.”
As a result of the lack of communication up to this point, there have been at least a few who have canceled their orders, and that’s just from a few folks in the RH Discord. Who knows how many others might have already canceled, or will be doing so following this latest update.
On the bright side, AYANEO did state that it’s “shipped 5-6 batches of Pocket Advance” and that “more Grey models are shipping soon.” Hopefully, if you’re sticking with your order even after this update, it will actually show up sooner rather than later.
2 Comments
To whom did they send this email? For that matter, how did they communicate the last delay-related update? They certainly didn’t send them out to the customers who pre-ordered the device, because I haven’t received a single word of communication from them that wasn’t a direct reply to an email of my own. I truly don’t understand why I have to learn of these delays and problems from articles on websites like this, simply because Ayaneo inexplicably refuses to just email their customers directly. It’s got me this close to canceling my order so I won’t have to deal with this company anymore, but I’m willing to give ’em until the end of September. After that, I’m done.
I made a commitment to myself a while back to not bother with Ayaneo anymore after the Konkr Pocket Fit debacle. Against my better judgment, I decided to give the Pocket Advance a chance, but like an ex who promises they’ll change, Ayaneo just keeps doing the same old stuff and we keep getting the the benefit of the doubt. My Pocket Advance pre-order has been canceled and I will wash my hands of Ayaneo.