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The OrangePi Neo is an upcoming gaming handheld powered by Manjaro Linux Gaming Edition, and now we have some rough demo footage of a prototype actually playing games.

The quality of the actual video is not exactly the best, the Manjaro team are not exactly YouTuber pros but it's still quite an interesting look at the early unfinished device for those interested in more Linux gaming handhelds. Have a look at the video below:

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It's somewhat amusing to see that on Windows handhelds, certain vendors have made their own UI to make Windows slightly better for a handheld and here we have the Manjaro team doing a UI pop-up on top of the Steam Big Picture mode for their settings. Hopefully the final release is a bit smoother than that, but as a reminder this is early stuff we're seeing.

A few weeks ago the Manjaro team also did a quick rough demo of the early Manjaro Gaming Edition installer on YouTube as well:

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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 device will be split across a Ryzen 7840U model at $499 USD and a Ryzen 8840U at $599 USD.

More info on the official website. A release date is not yet set.

Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
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17 comments
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tmtvl May 17
They probably should swap the right analogue stick and the face buttons, because it looks really awkward to use.
Quoting: DrakkerArgh... More of those ugly wasteful LEDs.
But how are you going to know it's a gaming device if it doesn't have the LEDs?
Drakker May 17
Quoting: Mountain Man
Quoting: DrakkerArgh... More of those ugly wasteful LEDs.
But how are you going to know it's a gaming device if it doesn't have the LEDs?

Uuuh... Let me see. OH! There's the letters "Steam Deck"!
Marlock May 18
given the amount of pain and suffering some users got from the original Steam Deck wifi, i'd hope the specs for other linux handhelds would be careful to show they use wifi models with known-good linux driver support

is this a known info already?
3zekiel May 19
Quoting: Purple Library Guy
Quoting: sarmadSo, compared to the Steam Deck this has higher specs (CPU/GPU, screen resolution screen refresh rate) and smaller form factor, but in return the Deck has better screen, likely better battery life, and I guess slightly lower cost.
I suspect the Deck has better ergonomics as well.

Just from the view here, analogue sticks on this one are asymmetric, which is already vastly inferior compared to the deck... Never understood this kind of controller design. I remember first Xbox had same kind of weird analogue stick placement, and see others with it from time to time.
ghiuma May 19
I love Manjaro, I have two SSDs with KDE and Gnome, but if the "Gaming" edition is like the official ones I don't think I can trust it, after the latest updates I have both KDE/Gnome systems unstable and almost broken. Steamvr (version 2.4) also no longer works after Manjaro updates (Maybe for Nvidia drivers?). I don't know how reliable they are...(I have been using Manjaro for 10 years)...


Last edited by ghiuma on 19 May 2024 at 9:05 am UTC
Quoting: Marlockgiven the amount of pain and suffering some users got from the original Steam Deck wifi, i'd hope the specs for other linux handhelds would be careful to show they use wifi models with known-good linux driver support

is this a known info already?
I have read some issues with the original Steam Deck wifi, but never experienced any issues myself. I wonder if it's less about driver support, and more about locations and router compatibility. Not that I'm saying Linux and Wifi hasn't been 'fun' for me in the past. I had a laptop at some point that would connect and work just fine in Linux... until I tried to stream anything (like YouTube). It'd just disconnect until I'd stop... That's when I found out that laptop manufacturers will sometimes whitelist Wifi cards in the bios... fortunately, someone had already hacked/patched a bios for my particular model that worked great with the Intel replacement :)
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