The portable console market remains in turmoil. Steam Deck, Asus ROG Ally, Lenovo Legion Go, MSI Claw, Ayaneo Next Lite… everyone has released the big game to seduce gamers. Last February during FOSDEM, another player started to get talked about: Manjaro Linux.
The developers of this open source Linux distribution have indeed unveiled a prototype of the Orange Pi Neo. The opportunity to discover a portable console featuring:
- A 7-inch screen with a definition of 1920 x 1080 pixels and a 120 Hz refresh rate;
- An AMD Ryzen 7 7840U or 8840U processor;
- 16 or 32 GB of LPDDR5 RAM;
- An M.2 2280 SSD from 512 GB to 2 TB.
In terms of buttons, this model is similar to the Steam Deck, notably with the two touchpads specific to Valve’s portable console. It is still intended to be more compact with dimensions of 259 mm long, 107 mm wide and 19.9 mm thick (compared to 298 x 117 x 49 mm).
The console has two USB 4 Type-C ports, a microSDXC card reader, a 3.5 mm jack and two 1 W stereo speakers. It offers wifi 6E and Bluetooth 5.3 connectivity. For the operating system, the Orange Pi Neo has opted for a Linux distribution based on Arch Linux: Manjaro OS.
On March 25, 2024, Manjaro Linux announced on Twitter/X the launch of its portable console in China at the following prices:
- 4,099 yen ($499) for the 16GB/512GB version with AMD Ryzen 7 7840U;
- 4499 yen ($599) with the same amount of RAM and storage, but with the Ryzen 7 8840U chip.
It remains to be seen whether this first test will be conclusive enough to consider exporting the console internationally.