After being revealed early in February, the upcoming Orange Pi Neo that will come with Manjaro Linux now has a price, and there will be multiple versions of it although we still don't exactly have a clear release date.
The Manjaro Linux account on X posted that it was "launched" in Shenzhen, China. The device will be split across a Ryzen 7840U model at $499 USD and a Ryzen 8840U at $599 USD. It will join the Steam Deck in being powered by Linux, although not SteamOS, it will use a special immutable Manjaro Gaming Edition. Although if you don't get on with Manjaro, there's other options like ChimeraOS and Bazzite that will no doubt get drivers sorted for it.
A reminder on the specifications to expect from it:
| Screen | 7-inch FHD+ (1920 x 1200, WUXGA) 16:10, 500nits Brightness, 120Hz Refresh Rate |
| RAM | 16GB/32GB LPDDR5 (6400MHz dual channel) |
| Dimensions | 259mm*107mm*19.9mm |
| Triggers | Linear Hall Trigger |
| Ports | 2x USB 4.0 Type-C, 1x 3.5mm headphone jack, 1x TF card slot |
| BT / WiFI | BT5.3, Wifi 6E |
| Cooling | Turbo Large Fan, Dual Copper Pipes + Aluminium Alloy Cooling Fans, extra large air vents + customised cooling system and air ducts with a subtle design |
| Colour | White/Black |
| CPU | AMD Ryzen 7 7840U |
| Storage | 512GB-2TB PCIe 4.0 NVMe M.2 SSD (2280) |
| Battery | 50WHrs, 3S1P, 3-cell Li-polymer battery |
| Joysticks | Hall Sensing Joystick with RGB Lighting |
| Gyro | Dual 6-axis gyroscopes |
| Audio | 2x 1W dual panoramic speakers |
The starter $499 price actually seems quite reasonable don't you think?
I'm definitely excited to see more proper Linux handhelds coming to market, and unlike the recent Playtron announcement this is an actual product releasing soon.
More info on the Neo website.
Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
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Quoting: CatKillerTrue in a way, but it is just the standard Xbox styled layout, so not really an issue and may change before release.Quoting: Liam DaweThat's exactly it. It's Steam Big Picture mode, the glyphs are based on the controller or spoofed controller.They could have worked with upstream Valve/SDL, though, so that the controller was an actual Orange Pi Neo rather than a spoofed anything.
Of course they've got time to do that still; it's just a mock-up with no release date at the moment. But if they were going to do that, they'd probably have tidied up their mock-up.
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Quoting: Liam DaweTrue in a way, but it is just the standard Xbox styled layout, so not really an issue and may change before release.I hope it does. Their promo image is showing the user having to press a button that the machine doesn't actually have. It just seems sloppy.
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Quoting: CatKillerOH. I get what you mean now specifically the Xbox button itself. Yeah, needs to be a Home icon like on the actual unit.Quoting: Liam DaweTrue in a way, but it is just the standard Xbox styled layout, so not really an issue and may change before release.I hope it does. Their promo image is showing the user having to press a button that the machine doesn't actually have. It just seems sloppy.
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Quoting: JuliusI don't get what the point of the Ryzen 8840U version is. Seems to be the same specs as the 7840U just with a faster NPU, which is AFAIK completely useless in a handheld like this.
I agree that there's no point of having the 8840U and they should've of just used the 7840U but bumped the specs to be something like 32GB RAM/512GB SSD combo for $599 instead. Other than that, if I was in the market to buy one, I would opt for the version with 32GB RAM whenever it becomes available to preorder.
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Those touchpads seem to me ridiculously low for actual gaming.
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Quoting: dubigrasuThose touchpads seem to me ridiculously low for actual gaming.
ikr , there are several handhelds like this now and im thinking they only see the track pad as usage for controlling a mouse in desktop mode. When in reality if you want to do some serious desktop tinkering you just connect a bluetooth or usb mouse for a few minuets, either that or use the touch screen on these devices or even the analogue stick as a slower but functional mouse.
I imagine one of the reasons the steam deck is so wide because they had to find a way to make the track pads as usable as the analogue sticks. If i had the resources i think i could make my own handheld and solve some of these really glaring issues.
You should be able to play a mouse driven PC game on a handheld just the same as you can play any other game, its not a switch or some 16bit retro gaming handheld it's literally a full PC with RAM/CPU combo better than most desktops PC's of a few years ago.
Last edited by Lofty on 26 March 2024 at 5:58 pm UTC
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Quoting: LoftyI imagine one of the reasons the steam deck is so wide because they had to find a way to make the track pads as usable as the analogue sticks.
Not exactly. It's wide to make it comfortable to hold. The modified handles to make the Switch (which has no trackpads) not awful to hold give that pretty much the same width as the Deck.
What having the trackpads means - and it's something that the other handhelds have failed to consider - is that the stick & buttons on the right, and stick & dpad on the left, are next to each other. You've got about 90° of thumb movement without moving your hand; the Deck puts all of the thumb controls within that arc. Which is why playing games with the trackpad on the Deck (many hours of point & clicks and RPGs here) is great, and would suck on the devices that lack them (most of them) or put them in the wrong place (this one, and was it the Kun?).
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Quoting: Loftyits not a switch or some 16bit retro gaming handheld it's literally a full PC with RAM/CPU combo better than most desktops PC's of a few years ago.And most laptops in these price-brackets, in my experience.
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CyborgZeta Mar 26
I don't like the asymmetrical analog stick layout, but I'd be open to acquiring one of these and trying it out. I do appreciate that it has TRACKPADS, unlike so many other Deck competitors out there.
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can any of the xbox players around here exolain the appeal of the left analogue being so far up, arguably less comfortable to use than the d-pad?
as a playstation player i always use the left analogue stick to move the player character around and i don't really see how the xbox layout can be better for anyone
as a playstation player i always use the left analogue stick to move the player character around and i don't really see how the xbox layout can be better for anyone
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