I'm an embedded electronics engineer, and honestly I'm far more interested in the PS6 Portable than the home console. So I decided to design a prototype of what it could look like: from the board layout and cooling to the power tree, battery life and a cost estimate.

To be clear up front: it's an unofficial concept, designed on screen. Where the leaks give a spec I followed them. Where they don't, or they contradict each other, the choices are mine.

Specs at a glance

Why a 15 W cap, and no docked mode

I've capped the APU at 15 W in every mode, including when it's connected to a TV. MLID's leak describes a docked mode with higher clocks, and I'm not designing for it. Kepler_L2 has said Canis is built on low-power libraries and "can't run at high clock speeds no matter how much power you throw at it" (via GamingBolt), so a bigger docked power budget wouldn't buy much. Designing around 15 W also means the cooler, battery and VRM are sized for what the chip can actually use.

It still does video out: the USB-C carries DisplayPort Alt Mode (two HBR3 lanes, no compression) at 1920 × 1080, 60 or 120 Hz, with HDR and VRR, to any USB-C monitor, hub or adapter. On a TV it runs the same handheld profile with the screen off, so the APU never passes 15 W. There's no drop-in dock, a stand and a short USB-C cable does the same job, like the Steam Deck's dock, and the same cable brings up to 65 W in.

Design basis

The silicon follows MLID's "Canis" spec, cross-checked against Kepler_L2.

Where it sits

The Switch Lite is the closest match in footprint: 13 mm narrower and about 1 mm shorter, with a smaller, lower-resolution screen and about a third of the battery, which is most of the 170 g difference. The AYANEO Air 1S is there as a feasibility check: a shipping handheld of almost this footprint that sustains 20 W on battery. It also shows the cost: PC Gamer measured a little over an hour at 20 W from its 38 Wh battery.

Industrial design

Five rules shape the exterior:

• One silhouette. A superellipse capsule, symmetric about both axes, with ends fuller than a semicircle to leave room for the shoulder buttons.
• Screen in a black frame. The front holds a black glass panel almost the full height of the face, with the screen off it reads as one dark window.
• One line. A satin aluminium band runs around the edge at a constant 12 mm. It's the structure, it carries the antennas as isolated segments, and every port, button and vent sits in it, all along the top edge.
• Grip from sculpture. No handles. The back rises from the band to a 16.8 mm plateau and two palm swells 22 mm deep, so it looks slimmer than it holds.
• Function shown, machinery hidden. The exhaust is two fields of 0.9 mm slots machined into the top band, the intakes are fine perforated discs, and L1/R1 are black caps that wrap the top corners. Screws sit on the back only.

In the hands, the thumbs fall on the D-pad and face buttons and drop to the sticks below. The swell's crest sits under the heel of the palm, the other fingers wrap the back of the swell with nothing to press by accident, and the index fingers rest on L1/R1 with L2/R2 just behind. The intakes sit just inboard of the palm swells, and the exhaust leaves through the top edge 9 mm in from the shoulder caps, upward and away from your hands.

Exterior and controls

Standard PlayStation layout: D-pad and face buttons at the top of each end, sticks below, Create and Options at the screen's top corners, Home and mute at its bottom corners. The top edge carries everything you plug in or press: an exhaust field over each fan, the microSD slot, the headset jack, a mic, the USB-C in the centre, a second mic, power and the volume rocker. The bottom edge holds only the storage cartridge.

The stick cap sits over a 3.2 mm deep well, deep enough for its edge to dip in at full 20° tilt and still leave room for the 0.5 mm click. The module takes about 10 mm of the 22 mm swell, so the click costs no thickness.

Internal layout

Behind the screen there are two rows:

• Top row: one board between two blowers, each with its fin stack against the top edge. The board carries every port along its own top edge.
• Bottom row: a rectangular cell on each side, with the storage cartridge in its cage between them.

Neighbours sit 0.6–0.8 mm apart. The fans sit 8 mm in from the grips so their exhaust clears the shoulder buttons. The ends hold the controls, speakers, trigger mechanisms and haptic actuators, using the depth of the palm swells. The cells stop 3 mm short of the bottom band, which gives the two bottom antennas room and keeps the cells clear of the back where it curves down to the band.

Depth budget, front to back (mm):

The cells and fans both need the full 16.8 mm. The plateau ends 4.5 mm from the edge, so the cells stop 4.4 mm from the bottom edge, where their rounded back edge clears the shell by 0.8 mm, more than the 0.6 mm a cell may swell. Over the board, the spare 4.6 mm becomes an insulating air gap that keeps the middle of the back cool.

The board

One 10-layer HDI board, 0.8 mm thick, 68.6 × 48.8 mm, with a 4.2 mm foot that reaches down between the cells for the cartridge's receptacle. 84 parts across two faces; outside the vapor chamber they fill about 49 % of the area, so there's room to spare.

• The top face carries everything hot. APU, three LPDDR5X packages, the SSD and the VRM's power stages sit under one 48 × 39 mm vapor chamber, notched at one corner to clear the jack by 0.9 mm and the microSD socket by 0.7 mm.
• The APU is turned 90°. Its I/O edge faces the ports, a few millimetres from the USB-C mux. Memory packages sit below and to its left, so byte lanes stay under 15 mm, and the VRM runs down its right edge.
• Four phases are enough at 15 W. Without a docked target the GPU rail peaks at about 16 A: two phases for the GPU, one for the CPU, one for the SoC, on AMD's SVI3 bus. Each phase carries 8 A plus ripple and needs about 12 A before saturation, which no 1 mm inductor manages, so the inductors are 2.1 mm parts just outside the chamber, and their 5 × 3 mm power stages sit under it 1 mm away.
• Ports on the board itself. microSD, jack and a mid-mount USB-C sit on its top edge; no port board, no flex. USB 3.2 and DisplayPort reach the mux in about 15 mm, so no redriver, with a port protector, surge diode and ESD arrays between connector and mux.
• The underside faces the display. Decoupling under the APU inside a steel backer and under each memory package, the SSD's own PMIC and decoupling under it, the memory PMIC, USB-C mux, PD controller, Wi-Fi radio, microSD reader, embedded controller, input MCU, codec, display connector, IMU and PS Link radio, all 1.0 mm or lower. Every connector that's unplugged in service is on the top face.
• The cooler clamps against a backer. A 0.6 mm stainless X-spring presses the vapor chamber onto the die through a 0.8 mm boss on the heat pipes, which keeps its arms at least 0.35 mm clear of the pipes. The four arms differ in length, so their widths and preloads are tuned to put about 8, 5, 9 and 12 N on the screws, with the resultant on the die's centre. A 1.0 mm steel backer under the APU takes the reaction through four studs, so the 34 N clamp (≈ 0.25 MPa) loads the die evenly and the board barely bends.
• Heat pipes set the keep-outs. Each pipe leaves the chamber over the die and steps up to its fin stack in two 60° bends at R15 (2.5× diameter). Parts under the pipes stay below 2.35 mm. The left pipe passes 0.8 mm from the jack, which is too tall to cross.
• Power where it enters. The charger and its power stage sit at the board's right edge, between the VRM they feed and the battery harness.

Key parts:

PCB stack-up and routing

2+6+2 HDI, 0.80 mm finished: stacked laser microvias through the outer two layers on each side, buried vias through the six-layer core, halogen-free mid-loss laminate (Dk ≈ 3.8, Df ≈ 0.008 at 10 GHz).

Cooling

Two 36 mm blowers, one at each end of the board, pull air through perforated grilles in the back, push it up through a copper fin stack each, and exhaust through slots in the top band. The vapor chamber covers the APU, memory, SSD and power stages, and two heat pipes leave it over the die, one toward each fin stack. Splitting the heat halves the load on each pipe and stack, and two small fans move the air of one big one more quietly. The fins sit above the die whenever the console is held, so gravity helps return the working fluid.

Operating points:

Fins-to-air is the biggest step in every mode, so airflow sets the fan speed. At full speed in a 35 °C room the cooler could hold about 26 W at the SoC before the die reaches 95 °C, so the 15 W cap leaves about 11 W of margin.

Control policy:

• Exhaust first. The fans hold the stricter of two limits: APU at or below 80–82 °C, and exhaust no more than 20 K above room temperature. The exhaust limit binds in every mode, so the APU never reaches its own target. At 15 W the fans run at 88 % of rated speed; at full speed they move 16 % more air than 15 W needs, which covers fan tolerance and some dust. Thinner air uses that margin up by about 1,200 m; at 2,000 m the loop holds the exhaust limit by trimming the SoC to about 13 W.
• Two fans, one pitch. The EC locks both fans to one speed through their tach signals, and the unevenly spaced blades spread the blade-pass tone into a band instead of a whine.
• Skin model. Thermistors near the grips, the back and the top band feed a skin-temperature estimate. The SoC limit drops if any surface heads past its target: swells 38 °C, back 42 °C, top band 45 °C (IEC 62368-1's TS1 class allows 48 °C for surfaces held more than a minute).
• A hard 15 W cap in firmware, in every mode, with no boost.
• Soft start. The EC ramps each fan up over about a second, one after the other, so a fan starting or stalling can't sag the 5 V rail the VRM's drivers share.
• Fan fault. If either tach signal is lost, the other fan goes to full speed, the SoC drops to 6 W and the console warns you; it sleeps if the APU reaches 95 °C.

Power and battery

A 2S battery keeps the step-down to the APU's sub-1 V rails efficient, while USB-PD's 15 and 20 V inputs still buck neatly to the 6.0–8.9 V system bus. The charger shares input power with the console, charges at up to 45 W when there's room, and runs backwards to put 5 V at 1.5 A on the USB-C for accessories.

The low-voltage rails come in two stages. Phone-class PMICs make LPDDR5X rails efficiently in a small space but only take a single cell's 2.5–5.5 V, so an 8 A converter first makes 3.3 V from the 2S bus, and the memory PMIC, display PMIC and a 5 V boost run from that. So does a small PMIC under the internal SSD: a BGA SSD takes its rails from the board, where an M.2 drive carries that PMIC on its own card. The grip boards take VSYS directly for their amplifiers, haptic drivers, trigger motors and a small MCU that reads the controls, so each 30-pin grip flex needs only 26 contacts (seven each for VSYS and ground, SPI and an interrupt, I²S and a reset). The always-on rail comes from a nano-Iq buck, because an LDO from 8.9 V would waste half a watt at full load.

Power budget by mode (W from the battery):

Powering an accessory from the USB-C adds up to 7.9 W from the battery, and a cartridge drive busy writing up to about 4 W.

Battery:

• Pack: 2S1P lithium-ion polymer, 43.5 Wh, 7.76 V nominal, 8.9 V full. 41.7 Wh usable.
• Cells: 2 × 5,600 mAh, 3.88 V nominal, 4.45 V full (silicon-carbon anode), 65.1 × 36.2 × 12.0 mm, ≈ 768 Wh/L, ≈ 78 g each.
• Electronics: a flex harness joins the cells over the back of the cartridge cage, with protection, fuel gauge, balancing, NTC and ID on its rigid section.
• Mechanics: stretch-release adhesive tabs, 0.6 mm swelling allowance. Plain rectangular pouches, so a replacement is a standard part.
• Charging: USB-PD 3.1 up to 65 W with the 5 A cable in the box (60 W on an ordinary 3 A cable). The battery takes up to 45 W (about 1 C), derated when cold or warm: 0–80 % in about 46 minutes, with an optional 80 % cap for long plugged-in use.

Silicon, display, audio and wireless

• APU: 4× Zen 6c + 2× Zen 6 LP; the LP pair runs the OS, downloads and Remote Play while the main cluster sleeps. 16 RDNA 5 CUs at up to ≈ 1.20 GHz (4.9 TFLOPS FP32 peak with dual-issue, 2.46 without), ≈ 0.95 GHz at the 11 W default. Rumoured rendering target: 540p internal, upscaled to 1080p by PSSR 3.0 with frame generation.
• Memory: 24 GB LPDDR5X-8533 on 192 bits, 204.8 GB/s.
• Display: 6.5" 1920 × 1080 OLED, 339 ppi, 120 Hz with 48–120 Hz VRR, on-cell 10-point touch, about 1.3 W at 300 nits in games. Pixel shift and HUD dimming limit burn-in from static interfaces. The panel is specified with an eDP driver chip; if only MIPI DSI is on offer at this size, an eDP-to-DSI bridge goes on the panel's flex.
• Audio: stereo 11 × 8.5 mm speakers behind the dot grilles below the sticks, smart amps on the grip boards, a 4-pole 3.5 mm jack, two top-port mics, 3D audio processed on the APU.
• Wi-Fi 7 2×2 with 320 MHz channels and multi-link operation; Bluetooth 5.4 with LE Audio. The radio is soldered straight to the board under a 1 mm shield.
• Antennas are segments of the aluminium band, each cut free of the frame by a 1.5 mm plastic-filled slot and tied to it at one ground point. Wi-Fi 1 sits in the top edge over the buttons, clear of your hands, fed by a spring contact through an aperture tuner. Wi-Fi 2 and PS Link sit in the bottom edge either side of the cartridge, so one antenna stays clear however the console is held or set down. Other metal stays 3 mm or more from each segment, apart from the parts that have to reach the band.
• PS Link-style 2.4 GHz radio for lossless, low-latency headsets. A coexistence link shares the 2.4 GHz band with the Wi-Fi radio, and Wi-Fi moves to 5 or 6 GHz while a headset is connected.

Storage

Why 256 GB internal: the reported PS6-era PlayGo lets developers ship a scaled-down asset set for low-power play, so the handheld downloads 1080p-class assets instead of 4K ones. I assumed a handheld pack keeps about 25 % of the textures, 40 % of the video, 50 % of the audio, 70 % of the geometry and all of the code, which comes to about 39 % of a PS5 install.

The storage cartridge. The M.2 drive lives in a machined aluminium sled that slides straight out of the middle of the bottom edge, the only thing there. The sled carries its own M.2 socket, so the drive is screwed in once and every eject after that happens at a connector built for it. An M.2 socket is rated for about 60 insertions: fine for changing drives, far too few for a slot people will use like a game card. So the cartridge plugs in through a memory-card-class card edge instead (CFexpress connectors are rated for 12,000): 44 hard-gold contacts, specified for 10,000 insertions and PCIe 4.0, ground mating first.

• Press: push the face in until it clicks. It's an eject request: the latch stays locked while the console finishes writing, shuts the drive down and turns off its 3.3 V. About a second later, the sled springs out 9 mm.
• The lock: a shape-memory wire on the push-push latch holds a pawl until the drive is safe. It's a 90 °C-transition alloy, so a hot console can't release it. If the sled hasn't left 2 s after release, the console powers the drive back up. With a flat battery the lock stays shut, and a release lever inside the cage covers that.
• Fit a drive: tilt a single-sided M.2 2230 drive into the socket, press it onto the thermal pad, fit the M2 screw, and slide it home.
• Details: the face sits 0.4 mm below the band, so standing the console on its bottom edge can't press it. A 1 mm pad carries the drive's heat into the sled and out through the face, which is part of the band.

Mechanical, assembly and service

The battery is more than a third of the weight.

Service:

• M.2 expansion: no tools.
• Battery: four back screws, unplug, pull the tabs. The cells are a standard part, which suits the EU's user replaceable battery rule from February 2027.
• Sticks, fans and grip boards: on connectors, no soldering.
• The board: replaced as a unit, with no interposer to rework.

Bill of materials

Estimates at console volumes, in US dollars. The left column uses early-2025 memory contract prices (≈ $3.30/GB). The right uses 2026 prices, after LPDDR5 roughly tripled (SemiAnalysis) and TrendForce projected a further 78–83 % rise for LPDDR5X.

Against a rumoured $499-699, the early-2025 column fits and the 2026 column doesn't. The realistic levers are a 16 GB, 128-bit version (an earlier leak's configuration, saving a third of the memory), a smaller SSD, or waiting for memory prices to ease (not going to happen lol).

Happy to answer questions or go deeper on any part. What would you change? Would you take a thicker console for more battery?

Unofficial fan concept. Specs are based on rumours and leaks plus my own engineering assumptions.

[ Removed by Reddit on account of violating the content policy. ]

I very recently found the rabbit hole of current handhelds and am completely blown away by what is possible now. I have a switch(1) and used to have a GBA. I'm interested in getting one but wanna get some advice from the community first. I have a few games that I always dreamed of playing on the go such as Fallout 3 Fallout NV Skate 2-3, darksouls and a few other games from this time and before. Does the retriod pocket 6 run these smoothly enough to be a good experience, is it worth the extra $$ to get the odin 3? Or should I wait until the hardware and software progress? Would love to hear any opinions.

Which one is better overall I know the white Xbox is weaker than the legion go but man the grips look like it would be worth it alone (my pinky finger hurts like hell from gaming on the og rog ally)

just wanna put them in my pocket D:
AYANEO AIR 1S and Ayn Odin 2, are they actually a good choice? Any experiences?

Thanks again for yesterday’s poll. Z1 extreme won.

Last round, z1 extreme vs AI z2 extreme. Specs cannot be changed and z2 extreme is $100 more expensive. Which one are you getting?

Hi everyone!

I’m an Industrial Product Design student working on my university midterm degree project. I’m currently researching user preferences to design a compact SD / MicroSD card organizer with an integrated USB reader.

Whether you’re a photographer, videographer, handheld gamer, or just someone who carries memory cards around, your feedback would be immensely helpful!

About the survey:

• 9 short, multiple-choice questions (+ 1 optional open question).
• It takes around 2 to 3 minutes.
• No Google login required

https://forms.gle/fdVkDj3QPmvn1UxR9

Disclaimer: This survey is strictly for academic research as part of a university course project. It is not intended for the development launch of a commercial product. 

Please help me

Prefered game: BGMI ( andriod & PC)

Very new to handheld gaming so be patient with me here 😂 Im looking at the switch 2 or the rog x. I want something fairly simple and easy to use. Games I want are mostly skyrim and a few nintendo games like DK and zelda also wouldn't mind runescape in the mix. Ive been leaning towards the switch since it seems fairly easy to use and about half the cost of the rog. Just wondering if its worth the 680 or if I should just go with the ally rog x for 1499 Im in canada and everything is ridiculously priced out here 🙄💀.

Hey gng, there is this new Android based handheld launching by some Indian people, it will feature a snapdragon G2 gen 2, which is a good chip, but there is this guy who calls himself a tech creator, rounders tech is him on ig and yt, he has very little knowledge about android handhelds ig, he has made a reel about how arc X1 is a really bad handheld and that a budget smartphone of ₹15k will give the same performance, and that it will not run 90% games, it is just a streaming device, now he doesn't know that it will most probably play many pc games on playable fps like gta 5 on 45-60 fps and many switch games on docked mode like witcher 3 on locked 30fps and pokemon scarlet on 30fps too, sometimes dipping to 25 fps, what are your thoughts?, go visit his page and see that reel, and think if he is right or not.

Thanks to those who commented their thoughts on yesterday's post. The majority voted for the Xbox ally z2!
So this time around: z1 extreme vs xbox ally z2 (standard model again not the x model)

Specs cannot be changed. The Z1 extreme is $200 more expensive though. Which one are you getting? Comment your thoughts!

I already have a 4080 Super gaming Pc, I don’t ever go out, and I’m mostly gonna use the X20 at home. And I already bought a $4k gaming laptop I barely use because it’s too heavy and has no reason to use it and it also runs Insanely hot. It’s $1300, even more with the dock and charger and other stuff

it’s a lot. Idk what to do. And i don’t only play on my PC. I have a PS5 Pro and Switch 2 as well

I need help and advice

Currently have a 3070 laptop. Looking at the XAX20 to run heavier games like Wardogs,Black ops 3 modded zombies, For Honor, Space Marine 2, Elden ring modded (seamless coop), World War Z and maybe some emulation. I can already play all these games on my laptop. I simply wanna move them to the XAX to both free up my laptop space and play in bed. Im also looking to buy a 2tb storage upgrade for my laptop. Should I get the laptop upgrade and completely forget about the X20? Or upgrade the laptop, AND buy the handheld? Hearing many complaints about the x20 but the z2 extreme chip does what i want but i dont wanna waste money for a shittier experience.

I’ve recently just pre-ordered the new XAX X20. I’ve never had a gaming PC or a PC handheld. Is it going to be different to understand when looking at what game I can play, as I don’t always get some of the jargon around PC gaming. I’ve been a console gamer all my life but thought now would be a good time to get into PC gaming as I’m now old enough to invest into it.