Summary

  • Ayaneo has paused Next 2 pre-orders due to rising RAM and storage costs, which made sales unsustainable.
  • Flagship Next 2 price jumped from a $2,000 base to roughly $8,000 for the top configuration.
  • Existing pre-orders will be honored; sales will be paused temporarily until component prices ease.

Earlier this year, Ayaneo announced the Next 2, a high-end Windows 11-based PC gaming handheld featuring AMD's powerful Strix Halo chip. In the Windows-based handheld world, the Next 2 was set to be super niche, given its high-end specs and expensive price tag amid the ongoing memory shortage. However, I don't think anyone expected a potential cost of roughly $8,000 for the highest-end version of the portable, including Ayaneo.

As expected, this isn't a viable price, with Ayaneo stating that it's "no longer sustainable" to sell the Next 2. The company has temporarily suspended pre-orders for the high-end handheld. On its Indiegogo page, Ayaneo says it was prepared to take a slight loss on the Next 2 due to the ongoing RAMpocalypse, but that it didn't expect the situation to become this dire.

Below is an excerpt from the company's statement about the Next 2's future:

In fact, even before the launch of Next 2, storage prices had already been rising for several months. At that time, we believed the price might be approaching its peak. Even if it meant making little to no profit—or even a slight loss—we still decided to move forward with the launch. However, what we did not expect was that storage prices would not only continue to rise but would increase even more rapidly. At present, the total cost of the product has far exceeded our selling price, even approaching twice the price we originally set. Under such circumstances, continuing to sell this product is no longer sustainable.

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The Next 2 originally started at $1,800

The high-end handheld was already expensive to begin with

Credit: Ayaneo

The Next 2 initially started at $2,000, but early-bird pricing was available for a $1,800 version featuring AMD's lower-end Ryzen AI Max 385 chip, 32GB of LPDDR5X RAM, and 1TB of storage. On the other hand, the flagship Ryzen AI Max 395+-powered iteration with 128GB of RAM and a 2TB SSD was priced at $4,300 ($3,500 for early-bird pre-orders). Ayaneo says that the memory shortage pushed the cost to nearly "twice the price," eliminating any chance of profit for the small-scale handheld maker. This means that the highest-end Next 2 would have cost in the $8,000 range.

Ayaneo says it will continue to honor current pre-orders and that buyers will still receive the handheld. However, moving forward, all sales of the Next 2 have halted, and new pre-orders aren't being offered. Ayaneo says this is temporary and that if the component crisis eases up, the Next 2 will be available again — though it doesn't seem likely that's happening anytime soon.

The Next 2 is set to be one of the highest-end Windows handhelds. Other key specs include a 9.06-inch 2K 165Hz OLED screen, a 116Wh battery, and 1TB of SSD storage.