The Steam Deck\u2019s biggest weakness is battery life<\/a> \u2014 and yet somehow, every challenger has failed to raise that bar. The Ayaneo 2 showed us<\/a> that AMD\u2019s Ryzen 6800U wasn\u2019t ready to compete; the Asus ROG Ally revealed<\/a> that AMD\u2019s Z1 Extreme couldn\u2019t pull ahead if Asus insisted on matching the Steam Deck\u2019s 40 watt-hour battery pack. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n But Ayaneo may has an answer: it\u2019s stuffing a 75 watt-hour pack into a larger, heavier handheld called the Ayaneo Kun that \u2014 it now claims \u2014 can last nearly three and a quarter hours at 15W TDP. That\u2019s nearly double the battery and runtime you\u2019d expect from a Steam Deck at that wattage, though it appears it wasn\u2019t captured while playing a game, exactly<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n We\u2019ve mentioned the Ayaneo Kun on The Verge<\/em> a couple<\/a> of times<\/a> before, but today the company revealed its full array of features, price, expected ship window, and that you\u2019ll be able to crowdfund it on September 5th if you\u2019re willing to pay with no guarantees.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Personally, I\u2019d wait. But there\u2019s no question that this handheld has the strongest spec sheet yet \u2014 starting with a comparatively large 8.4-inch, 2560 x 1600, 500-nit, 90 percent DCI-P3 color IPS screen. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n Ayaneo seems to have heard how some people prefer the Steam Deck\u2019s ergonomics and loads of buttons to its own previous handhelds, too \u2014 so the Kun adds bigger grips, dual touchpads (each with four distinct buttons underneath), quad back buttons, beefier triggers, and even a little kickstand reminiscent of the original Nintendo Switch. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n There\u2019s also a little Windows Hello front-facing camera underneath the back\/select button for face login and streaming, something most handhelds have entirely omitted \u2014 as well as Hall Effect joysticks and triggers<\/a> to avoid drift, HD linear motors for rumble (like the Switch and DualSense<\/a>), and an optional 4G module for cellular connectivity. There\u2019s a nano-SIM slot hidden underneath the kickstand. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n And while houses the same AMD Ryzen 7840U chip you\u2019ll find in many boutique PC gaming handhelds this year (the ROG Ally\u2019s Z1 Extreme is a close cousin<\/a>, too), the company claims its massive cooling system can crank that APU all the way up to 54 watts in its turbo mode \u2014 far higher than the 30-watt turbo on the Asus ROG Ally. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n Is that practical? Perhaps not, as it looks like largely a 7 percent to 10 percent boost in framerates over the 30-watt mode in the company\u2019s own tests. (Do, however, check the jump from 34fps to 43fps in The Witcher 3<\/em>.) Ayaneo straight up says \u201c54W is not recommended for daily use as the main TDP.\u201d <\/p>\n<\/div>\n But the Kun also houses a full-length M.2 2280 SSD slot for up to 8TB of internal storage, whereas the Deck and many competitors top out at 2TB because you can only fit one chip on their single-sided M.2 2230 SSDs.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Ayaneo is pricing the Kun starting at $1,209 retail for 16GB of RAM and 512GB of storage, stretching all the way to $1,949 for 64GB of RAM and a 4TB SSD. Early bird prices start around $200 less.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n If you\u2019re interested in the Ayaneo Kun, I would suggest three things:<\/p>\n<\/div>\n First, understand that aside from battery, the biggest issue with Steam Deck competitors is that they run Windows<\/a>. It\u2019s a little counterintuitive (isn\u2019t Windows where the games are?) but Windows is seriously unoptimized for a handheld gaming PC, trackpads or no, and I run into all sorts of annoyances that the Steam Deck has already solved. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n