- Ayaneo is making its first Android phone
- Dubbed the Pocket Play, this is a gaming phone with physical slide-out controls like the Xperia Play
- Details are light, but it's launching on Kickstarter soon
If you miss the days when you could buy a handheld console that also happened to be a phone, like with the Xperia Play and the N-Gage, then there’s a new handset you’ll probably be interested in.
Ayaneo – which is known for making retro handheld consoles – is set to make its first Android phone, dubbed the Pocket Play, and the company has now shown off the design of this device.
Much like with the Xperia Play, you can slide the screen up to reveal physical controls, including a D-pad, a pair of circular touch pads, ABXY buttons, and two shoulder buttons on each side, hidden around the back.
So unlike the current best gaming phones which are still primarily touchscreen, this has a full set of physical buttons as well as its touchscreen display.
This design likely means that the Ayaneo Pocket Play will be a bit chunky, but it’s sure to take up less space than carrying around both a smartphone and a handheld console, so if you’re the type to do that, this could be an appealing alternative.
No word on the specs
Unfortunately, we don’t yet know much else about it – there are no specs, no prices, and not even a release date, other than a claim that it’s “launching soon” on Kickstarter. But that’s presumably just when you’ll be able to back it, so it will probably be a while longer before it actually ships.
Still, at least that should mean we’ll learn a lot more about the Ayaneo Pocket Play soon, and in the meantime, there’s an option on the Kickstarter page to notify you when the project launches.
And while this is sure to be niche, it’s nice to see some variety among smartphones, rather than them all being near-identical slabs.
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