In January last year, Ayaneo began crowdfunding its two clamshell designs, the AMD Ryzen-powered Ayaneo Flip handhelds— Flip DS and Flip KB. Within a month, we covered early impressions of the Flip DS, but the device's full production has been abruptly canceled.
While early impressions of the device and ongoing updates since then have seemed quite promising, including the internals eventually getting souped up from the ROG Ally Z1 Extreme-equivalent AMD Ryzen 7 7840U to the Ryzen 7 8840U, Ayaneo suddenly announced on February 25 of this year that not only were no more Ayaneo Flip handhelds being produced, but that current backers only have until March 27 to request a full refund or do a product trade up or down for another Ayaneo handheld, with the latter option still requiring users to shell out for any price discrepancies.
This is quite disappointing for backers and enthusiasts who hoped to get their hands on this device once crowdfunding ended. Considering how many outlets have already received Ayaneo Flip units for review and published those reviews and that some backers seemingly still got their handhelds, it's unfortunate that Ayaneo doesn't seem capable of satisfying the full demands of its crowdfunding backers. Ayaneo usually has a great record with crowdfunding ventures, but this shows that our usual disclaimer about crowdfunding— that you are ultimately making an investment, not necessarily purchasing a product guaranteed to come to your doorstep— remains true.
Even so, I can't help but mourn this turn of events. As I noted in our prior coverage, the Flip DS, in particular, seemed like a perfect contender for users who hoped to find a truly modern successor to the Nintendo DS and Nintendo 3DS.
With a dual-screen form factor and internals powerful enough to emulate the Nintendo Switch and play proper AAA PC games with second-screen support for multi-tasking or real-time system tweaking, the Ayaneo Flip DS seemed like a truly distinct contender in the handheld gaming market, which at the time mostly just seemed to be full of machines that summed up to "Steam Deck or ROG Ally but more expensive and/or worse", minus a few exceptions with truly exceptional controller or display hardware.
Unfortunately, not all great things are meant to be. As a silver lining, this now makes the existing Ayaneo Flip DS and Flip KB models out in the hands of YouTubers and early backers particularly appealing as rare collector's items...but getting your hands on one of them will likely cost a small fortune since no more will be made.
