Ayaneo Teases Retro Mini PC AM02 With A 4-Inch Touch Display, Ryzen 7 7840HS CPU
We've just posted up a review of the Ayaneo Retro Mini PC AM01. The vendor's first mini-PC is a cute little machine that's part of Ayaneo's Remake collection, and sports an aesthetic inspired by the original Macintosh. It's focused on affordability, and offers a slightly older SoC in a compact and nostalgic package at a bargain basement price. That does mean that the external features are pretty limited, though. For example, the faux Mac's screen is just a flat piece of plastic that you can slap a sticker on.
That's not the case with the Retro Mini PC AM02, Ayaneo's second desktop system. The AM02 is styled after the flip-top Nintendo NES released in every region outside of Japan, and underneath its plastic cover, it offers a pair of USB 3 ports, a USB Type-C connector, and a 3.5mm headphone jack. It also has a 4" touchscreen on the outside that can be configured to display the time, or whatever image you want.
As you'd expect from a higher-end machine, it also sports considerably-upgraded hardware inside compared to the AM01. Instead of the Lucienne-based Ryzen 7 5700U, the AM02 instead has a current-generation Ryzen 7 7840HS CPU inside. That chip has eight Zen 4 CPU cores and a six-WGP RDNA 3 GPU. Paired with fast DDR5 memory, it can definitely offer a discrete-class gaming experience, making the AM02 much more credible as a gaming system. There's also an XDNA-based Ryzen AI NPU inside, too.
Note that this was from early pre-release content and may not indicate the final product.
Ayaneo hasn't actually revealed many other details about the AM02, but in the original Ayaneo REMAKE trailer, we saw a fairly-clear rear view of the system that seems to indicate it could ship with a pair of RJ-45 Ethernet connections. If it does, that might make it a killer home gateway or server system. It also appears to be significantly shorter in height compared to the AM01, and might use a USB-C connector for power instead of the barrel plug of the original system.
On the AM01, Ayaneo tells us that the nominally-15W APU can be unlocked all the way up to 54W if you supply your own 100-watt power supply for the system. We weren't able to test that functionality, but we were able to crank it up to 35W, radically improving gaming performance. If the AM02 can unlock a Ryzen 7 7840HS to 54W or even higher, it might offer similar speed to one of the upcoming Ryzen 8000G Hawk Point APUs. If you're after a stylish mini-PC based on AMD's Phoenix APU, head over to Ayaneo's AM02 Indiegogo campaign and sign up for updates.
