“You don’t understand! Everything was flipped! Our phones, our game systems, our calculators… And they were all different devices! We loved them so much, we kept bringing them back!” Me, 72, right before I’m put in a nursing home

Greetings, fellow dual-screen AMOLED, 3DS, multitasking, and…flipping(?) enjoyers, it’s Joe!  I have some unsolicited thoughts about the AYN Thor on why it excites me personally as my first AYN preorder since the Odin 1, and also addressing some concerns I have.

They have been drip-feeding information, footage, and photos leading up to its mid-October shipping schedule, and it’s shaping up to be a very curious release with its attractive price point, interesting features, premium and compact design, and those sweet, sweet AMOLED screens. Let’s get into it!

AYN Thor Specs

Referring to our pre-order page for the Thor, the specifications should be familiar since they follow the same hardware configurations as the Retroid Pocket 5 and Odin 2 (AYN and Retroid are both owned by Moorechip Technologies, so there’s cross-affiliation) with a familiar Snapdragon 865 and 8 Gen 2 processor setup. Full specs are below with notable items I’d like to talk about in this section bolded:

Performance TLDR: Get the AYN Thor Pro

The good news is we already know how these two chipsets perform, with the 865 sitting comfortably with 2-3x 3DS rendering and light Switch emulation, while the 8 Gen 2 can emulate Switch pretty comfortably while having good Wii U and PC emulation support. Even with the better-on-paper 8 Elite processor in the Odin 3, I’d still expect the 8 Gen 2 to perform better in real-world scenarios paired with Turnip drivers.

Connectivity: Underrated Benefits

Some of these specs might mean nothing to you, but I’d like to highlight a couple because a few of these have me a little geeked. Just a little bit. The 8 Gen 2 version, like the Odin 2, supports Bluetooth 5.3. In short, this is the most recent Bluetooth version and, with supported accessories, allows for nearly zero Bluetooth input lag and multiple device pairing at once (again, with compatible accessories).

If your controller or headphones don’t support v5.3, you won’t get the benefits. But it’s still nifty. Also notable is the use of USB-C 3.1, which, again, like the Odin 2, allows for significantly faster charging than most devices and cleaner data transfer.

On The Design

Highlighted above, we are looking at 150 x 94 x 25.6mm, which translates to a roughly height and width to the 3DS XL, and keeping an inch depth, similar to the Retroid Pocket Flip. This should be pretty comfortable for most people, but I would not call it pocketable unless you were some dude named Todd at a Limp Bizkit concert wearing cargo shorts, or just a person wearing cargo shorts. I think this is a surprisingly compact size for something that can handle high-end Android emulation.

I do have a little concern with the shape of the device. Given the flip form factor, there is an inherent issue with reaching all of the buttons with the screen in the center. One strength of the RP Flip 2 was that the buttons are spaced far enough for relative comfort while holding the device.

But similar to the Flip 2, we also have relatively square trigger buttons that I personally found hard to press when holding the device, and it literally made me sell the device on day two. Oops. I am more optimistic, though, because there is a TPU grip out of the gate this time, and you can bet your ass it will stay on that console until it hits the Discord marketplace.

My last real concern with the design is going to be the hinge. The science behind why hinges fail or succeed warrants an article of its own, but I find the hinge to be fairly bouncy and comfortable on the Retroid devices, and I believe it will come down to how high-quality the plastic is on the Thor to determine whether or not it will have longevity. That is assuming they use the same hinge as the Flip 2.

On The Screens

BIG 120Hz AMOLED + a small 60Hz AMOLED. This is a custom 1080p 6″ AMOLED screen from AYN and the 8:7ish screen from the RP Mini. This pairing is fine until you see what happens when you play DS at full screen. That’s right, in a self-report by AYN (video below), it’s very apparent that the height of DS games doesn’t scale at similar sizes like on a standard DS or 3DS, and the top screen makes it significantly bigger.

So games that use both screens to display stuff simultaneously, like cutscenes and Phantom Hourglass, will be, simply, super weird. The bottom screen for a Wii U is also 16:9, so any second-screen items will be very squished by default. Not ideal. Also, not a deal-breaker (Source: The sunk-cost fallacy). Comparing the top 6″ screen with the New 3DS XL’s 4.88″ one and the giant bezel… Yeah… We’ll be fine.

There’s also something that most people like that is actually one of the reasons I was put off from this thing to begin with: 150-152% sRGB. On the surface, this is good news and, long explanation aside, just means that the screens are going to be very saturated. 1.5x to be exact. Just about every single game you play on this is going to be tuned to 100% sRGB, so your greens, reds, and blues are only going to move closer to the brightest and most vibrant possible.

This sounds great until you look at Kirby, who looks like an overcooked cherry tomato on an untuned RP Mini. As it turns out, you can actually decrease the saturation with Odin Tools, so a 0.7 setting will yield something super close to 100% sRGB after…math.

Why I Pre-Ordered

Well, because I want to review it. But also learning about screen tuning with Odin Tools, updates to GameSir’s GameHub PC emulation to play Hollow Knight: Silksong, and the TPU grip were enough to set me over the edge. I also ended up selling my Steam Deck. As you can see, I completely have my priorities straight.

Because of the growing PC emulation in the Android space, I personally went for the Pro (8 Gen 2 + 12GB RAM) in black and ordered myself a TPU grip. And now the only thing I can do is write articles like these and wait until the mid-October release to find out if this is a keeper or if it’s going to go on the marketplace a day after.

Pre-order the AYN Thor

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