https://forum.manjaro.org/t/development-q-a-orangepi-neo-01/156450/108
Gardiner Bryant had conversation with Manjaros lead, Phillip Muller and was told that Valve has the Orange Pi Neo in-hand and they’re testing it, probably to bring SteamOS support for the handheld
https://gardinerbryant.com/manjaro-announces-orange-pi-neo-pricing-its-shockingly-affordable/---
Anyone want to take a guess at the weight?
Finally somebody else decided to put trackpads on! My Deck is still more than capable at this point though, otherwise I might be tempted.
These prices are absolutely insane when compared to a Deck. WTF.
This has:
- hall effect joysticks and triggers
- a slightly smaller screen, but the equivalent of 1080p instead of the Deck’s 720p(technically it’s 1200 vs 800 since they are both 16:10) -the screen is 120hz, compared to 60hz for the base Deck or 90hz for the OLED -Options for 16 or 32GB of RAM, while the Deck only has 16 -storage options range from 512GB-2TB, while the Deck goes 64GB-1TB
- this has an extra USB-C port, which is nice
And that’s before we get to the APU side of things, where other commenters here are expecting the Neo to outperform the Deck. Hard to say for sure until we have benchmarks, but it seems reasonable that this will be more powerful in general.
And what is the Neo missing compared to be Deck? The back buttons, which are nice on the Deck but I would not say are deal breakers. The ambient light sensor, which I didn’t even remember my Deck had until I looked at the specs just now. And apparently the Deck has 2 microphones while the Neo just has 1… Honestly I have had mine for 2 years and I wasn’t even sure it has a microphone at all. I don’t see that the Neo has capacitive sensors on the sticks, but I never find a good use for those on my Deck anyways.
Now, this thing is not close to making me want to upgrade from my Deck. Just looking at it- the control layout is wrong. The track pads look like you will have to awkwardly stretch your thumb to reach them- similar to where the Deck has the Steam and Quick Access buttons. While I can play a ton of mouse-based games on the Deck for hours with no problem, the Neo looks like it will only be good for games where you use the mouse occasionally. Should be fine for navigating menus, launch screens, and setting up emulators, but not for playing games.
The other question is build quality. This looks like cheaper plastic. The buttons look cheap. The grips look top shallow. I don’t know how easy this will be to upgrade or repair.
Imo this is a reasonable product at a reasonable price. Not perfect. But it has reasonable trade-offs compared to the Deck. If it can manage to be significantly more powerful than the Deck with similar battery life, I think we have a real competition.
All in all with you, just scrolled though the Manjaro page and saw that the Neo is advertised as having 2 mics
Equipped with built-in pickup and noise cancellation dual microphones, this device ensures clear and uninterrupted voice communication with teammates even in noisy environments. https://neo.manjaro.org/
Why? They are pretty similar in price. Also Valve can afford to sell the SteamDeck at a massive loss, because they get lots of money from the games people buy to play on it. The orange pi neo is also significantly higher performance with twice as many cpu cores and a way stronger gpu.
Yeah idk what the author of that article was smoking when he wrote that headline: “…Orange pi neo pricing, it’s shockingly affordable”
Will those be available in the EU?
If anyone wants to actually look at the device: https://neo.manjaro.org/
