With the release of the Steam deck, a new competitor appears in the flaming gaming UMPC market.
AYN unveiled the basic specifications and price of the Windows-based gaming UMPC LOKI series, which was previously announced on the 28th. Both the price and specifications showed a decent appearance as far as the public specifications were comparable to that of the Steam deck.
Loki will be released in three models: LOKI Mini, which focuses on portable performance, Loki, which focuses on decent gaming performance, and LOKI Max, which has higher specifications and the largest storage size.
The Rocky Mini is priced at $299. The price is $100 cheaper than the $399 Steam deck, but the Intel Alter Lake U is equipped with Intel integrated graphics for the 12th generation processor, so gaming performance is expected to be lower than that of the Steam deck.
Pricing for three capacities of 64GB, 256GB, and 512GB, the Loki is practically comparable to the Steam deck. The devices will both house an AMD Ryzen 5 6600U and a Radeon 660M. Steam decks are equipped with custom chipsets for both the Zen2 CPU and GPU, so it is difficult to compare them directly with products on the market. However, the benchmark performance of the Steam deck is known to be between the APU Ryzen3 3200G and Ryzen5 3400G. The basic performance may be better on the Loki side, but they are priced at $499, 599, and 699 from the 64GB model, respectively. The Steam decks are priced at the same capacity as Loki, priced at $399, 529, and $649, respectively.
There is only one model with a 512GB capacity of Loki Max, and it is equipped with AMD Ryzen 7 6800U and Radeon 680M. The price is 799 dollars.
Although Loki is on the same level as the Steam deck with a similar price and performance, the difference in OS is the most noticeable. The Steam deck comes with SteamOS, Valve’s own operating system, by default, but Loki will include Windows on all models. However, other detailed specifications, sizes, functions, and detailed release date will be announced later.
Previously, Valve unveiled the Steam Deck, a portable gaming device, to expand the gaming experience of the gaming platform Steam. The Steam Deck was well-received for its relatively high performance and low price, as well as additional controls and excellent game execution ability that resembled the Steam controller. As a result, several UMPC companies have introduced models that have cut their prices by half and introduced devices to compete with the Steam deck.
Meanwhile, AYN, which unveiled Loki, has been introducing the Android-based game console Odin series. Therefore, it seems that the key to the success of AYN’s first Windows-based gaming UMPC will be how high the build quality can be. Also, as Valve directly improved game compatibility for the Steam deck and optimized it for the device-optimized chipset and low resolution of 1280×800, it is of interest whether AYN can erase these advantages.
In addition, as Steam decks cannot be purchased in Korea, attention is being paid to whether interest in gaming UMPCs with similar prices may be drawn to Loki. UMPC, as the name of ultra-mobile PC, usually refers to notebook computers and small-sized X86 and X64 architecture PCs. However, today, a number of game console-type products are being released that have given way to tablet computers such as smartphones and iPads, which have diversified functions, and focused on game play rather than office work.
