AYANEO gives us a first official look at its Game Boy-like Pocket BLOCK

AYANEO’s Pocket BLOCK leaked earlier this week, showing a Game Boy-like device that could be cheaper than the firm’s current vertical handhelds. Now, the company has given us an official look at this upcoming device.

AYANEO has confirmed the existence of the KONKR Pocket BLOCK and posted images of the device online. The company also showed the device during a streamed event yesterday. The pictures and live-stream reveal a Game Boy-style vertical handheld.

Bizarrely, AYANEO is claiming that this is the first AI handheld. I’m really not sure what this means, as we’ve seen loads of Android handhelds with AI features before. These devices offer AI-based tools like language translation and image generation (why? I have no idea).

Otherwise, the device is in line with previously leaked pictures. That means a plastic design, no analog sticks, a microSD card slot on the left, and a 3.5mm port at the bottom. We also get a look at grey and purple color options. Furthermore, the streamed event shows that the handheld is quite small. So this could be great if you want a pocket-friendly Android handheld.

There’s no official word on core specs just yet, but we previously found that the handheld could have a 3,500mAh battery with 10W wired charging. This wouldn’t be bad for such a compact device. Taken together with the plastic build, I’m guessing that this could have a relatively affordable price tag.

This wasn’t the only notable AYANEO announcement, either. The company also revealed a special edition Pocket AIR Mini handheld preloaded with licensed IGS arcade titles. These IGS games aren’t quite on par with classic Konami, Capcom, and SNK titles in terms of global recognizability, but we’re still glad to see officially licensed titles on these handhelds. Expect to pay a starting price of $129.99 for the 2GB/32GB Pocket AIR Mini arcade edition, while the 3GB/64GB model costs $139.99.