AYANEO has announced a new horizontal handheld — The AYANEO Pocket ACE.

The company claims it’s been on the hunt for a horizontal handheld that features top-tier performance, a “perfect size,” and stunning aesthetics. Furthermore, it claims that no device exists that fulfills all of these needs.

The AYANEO Pocket Ace Announcement

It’s an interesting proposition to make. The majority of handhelds on the market are horizontal. Furthermore, the majority of powerful consoles are horizontal as well — some even made by AYANEO themselves — but knowing those two things furthers the intrigue into what their cooks could be whipping up.

For years, we’ve dreamed of a retro horizontal handheld with powerful performance, perfect size, and stunning aesthetics.
It’s 2025, it still hasn’t appeared.
So, we decided to make it ourselves!
AYANEO Pocket ACE – the dream machine for retro gamers.
More excitement coming soon! pic.twitter.com/haSRVOcish

— AYANEO (@AYANEO__) March 13, 2025

There weren’t any immediate specs or bits of info shared in the original tweet, but AYANEO highlights that they’re making a “retro handheld.” Despite the company’s design choices for devices like the Pocket DMG and Pocket Micro Classic, AYANEO positions their devices as gaming handhelds with no overly specific retro focus beyond design.

Retro Handheld vs. Gaming Handheld

Focusing on the “retro” could suggest that the company is preparing to utilize some form of either a scaled-down Android or a custom Linux-based OS that prioritizes retro consoles.

We’ve seen handhelds use Android for their base operating system, but that could be the differentiation between a gaming handheld and a retro one; at least for AYANEO.

Devices made by AYANEO are often described as being overpowered for their main use case. For example, the Helio G99 found in the Pocket Micro Classic is overkill for a device that is specifically developed with GBA gameplay in mind. The same goes for the Pocket DMG and its Snapdragon G3X Gen2 and the very clear Game Boy and Game Boy Color inspirations.

Time will tell what AYANEO has up its sleeve. The modular AYANEO 3 is still accepting preorders and is expected to start shipping in April 2025, so we may not see the ACE revealed until the hype for the 3 begins to die down.

Until the handheld is revealed, we’ll keep our ears tuned to find out what AYANEO defines as a perfectly sized, top-tier performing device with a stunning design.

What do you think the new AYANEO handheld will be? Let us know in the comments below, and chat with us in our Discord!

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