AYANEO's Game Boy-Shaped Pocket Block Opens Preorders at $79 and Finally Reveals What's Inside

AYANEO reveals full specs and opens $79 preorders for the KONKR Pocket Block, a portrait Android retro handheld featuring a 3.33-inch 4:3 display and Helio G85.

AYANEO has opened orders for the KONKR Pocket Block, its vertically oriented retro handheld, finally attaching specifications and actual prices to a device previously marketed rather enthusiastically as the world's first 'AI-powered handheld.'

The entry model costs $79 and combines a MediaTek Helio G85 processor with 2GB of RAM and 32GB of storage. A $99 configuration increases that to 3GB RAM and 64GB storage. Both use Android 12, a 3.33-inch 4:3 LCD with a 960-by-720 resolution and a 3500mAh battery. Standard finishes are Original Grey and Cube Purple, while a limited Atoms White version uses a transparent shell for people who believe electronic components deserve an audience. Shipping is expected to begin at the end of October.

The hardware sits in an increasingly crowded market of inexpensive vertical Android devices inspired, with varying degrees of subtlety, by Nintendo's original Game Boy. AYANEO's lingering 'AI-powered' label remains the more mysterious specification because the company still has not made the artificial-intelligence component nearly as concrete as the CPU, screen or memory figures. As a conventional retro-emulation handheld, however, the proposition is much easier to understand: compact 4:3 screen, inexpensive Android internals and styling aimed directly at anyone whose thumbs instinctively recognise a D-pad beneath a portrait display. In retro hardware, nostalgia remains a remarkably efficient industrial designer.