Once upon a time, it was cool seeing a company release a teaser of a new device, following it up with subsequent teaser images ahead of the “big reveal.” That’s the new pattern for practically every new release, including the KONKR Pocket Advance, which officially debuted this morning.
The company began teasing a new device during one of its previous livestreams, leaving little breadcrumbs leading to today’s announcement. From the single render provided, it looks to be practically a 1:1 clone of the Game Boy Advance, which Anbernic already did with the Allwinner H700-powered RG34XX. Given AYANEO’s track record, I find it difficult to justify paying over $100 for something like this, when you can get the RG34XX for less than $60 on AliExpress.
We have the same gamut of buttons on the front, along with the L1/R1 buttons on the top. However, that’s literally all we know for the time being. AYANEO didn’t bother to even hint at what processor might be powering the Pocket Advance, nor do we know what other colors it might be available in.
This isn’t solely on AYANEO, as this is a practice followed by pretty much every OEM that releases a new handheld. However, the practice is definitely starting to get a bit long in the tooth. Now that the Pocket Advance is announced, it’ll be another week or two before another teaser image is shared, likely just showing off some of the other colors. Then, another week or two will pass before more specific details are shared, ahead of the final price reveal.
Best case scenario, we’ll learn about everything that the Pocket Advance has to offer by the middle of August. Although, I suspect that we won’t actually be able to order one until September at the earliest. (inb4 AYANEO throws a curveball and drops all of the details within a week or two).
Announcing devices is fine, but part of this game is actually releasing devices. Remember the Pocket Block? We still have yet to receive any meaningful update as to when that handheld will be released, let alone what the specs and price are. To me, it sure seems like AYANEO is just back to its old ways of announcing way too many devices without actually being able to follow through and release them in a timely manner.
