In another surprise announcement, AYN confirmed that the next round, Batch 6 of Thor and Batch 7 of Odin 3 pre-orders, “will soon be opening.” The company also announced major changes to both devices, as they will “transition to UFS 3.1 moving forward,” a downgrade from the UFS 4.0 storage on existing models.
Additionally, the AYN Thor Max with 16GB of RAM and 1TB of storage will be increased to $549, in an effort to “maintain the existing pricing for Thor Base and Pro models.” Lastly, AYN is introducing a new SKU to the Thor lineup, as a 16GB/512GB model will be added, and is priced at $469.
Moving forward, here’s how the Thor’s pricing lineup now looks:
- Thor
- Lite (SD865/8GB/128GB) – $249
- Base (8GB/128GB) – $319
- Pro (12GB/256GB) – $399
- Max (16GB/512GB) – $469
- Max (16GB/1TB) – $549
So not only are prices increasing for the higher-spec models, but storage modules are also being downgraded across the board. This is obviously pretty disappointing; however, it really becomes apparent when you compare the speeds and efficiency between UFS 3.1 and UFS 4.0. According to a breakdown from Blackview, here’s what you can expect:
- UFS 3.1
- Sequential Read Speeds: Up to 2100 MB/s
- Sequential Write Speeds: Up to 1200 MB/s
- Power Efficiency: Improved over UFS 3.0, but still more power-hungry compared to UFS 4.0.
- UFS 4.0
- Sequential Read Speeds: Up to 4200 MB/s
- Sequential Write Speeds: Up to 2800 MB/s
- Power Efficiency: Up to 46% more efficient than UFS 3.1, leading to longer battery life.
That’s a 50% decrease in Read Speeds, and over 50% decrease in Write Speeds. For the majority of retro game emulation, you likely won’t notice much of a difference or an issue. However, when you start getting into Switch, Xbox, PS3, and PC gaming, you’ll likely start seeing performance issues that can’t be remedied by switching to a different Turnip driver.
For the sake of comparison, the AYANEO Pocket DS with 8GB of RAM and 128GB of storage currently starts at $519, with the 16GB/1TB model priced at $719. By that logic, the AYN Thor still offers a better value over the Pocket DS, but you’ll have to weigh the pros and cons with the slower storage and smaller displays.
