Ayaneo's Flip 1S DS Handheld Is A PC Gaming Salute To Iconic Nintendo DS

Back in January of last year, Ayaneo formally unveiled its Flip series of gaming handhelds, composed of two models: the Flip DS and Flip KB. Both models had 7-inch flip-up screens, but the Flip KB had a full QWERTY keyboard underneath, while the Flip DS had a second screen, making it perfect for emulating classic Nintendo DS games. Of course, that was over a year ago, and tech has moved on a bit. To wit, meet the Flip 1S DS.

ayaneo flip 1s ds open screens

It's not clear what "1S" means specifically, but the new machine is a huge upgrade over the Flip DS in virtually every way. The original machine's 120Hz FHD LCD primary display has been replaced with a 144Hz OLED that Ayaneo says supports up to 800 nits of peak brightness. Meanwhile, the second screen has been radically upgraded too—from a 3.5-inch 960×540 mini-screen on the original to a 4.5-inch 1620×1080 LCD with a 3:2 aspect ratio.

ayaneo flip 1s ds handgrip
The grips on the back are rubberized, but the top clamshell is all aluminum.

Inside, the guts of the system are radically upgraded as well. The previous-generation machine used Phoenix and Hawk point processors based on Zen 4 and RDNA 3; the Flip 1S DS upgrades to a Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 SoC, offering four Zen 5 CPU cores, eight Zen 5C dense cores, and a full 16 compute units of efficient RDNA 3.5 graphics. Naturally, there's also a powerful 50 TOPS Ryzen AI NPU on this SoC, if anyone should actually release any apps for that.

ayaneo flip 1s ds back2back
The recessed sticks are easier to use than you think.

The upgrades on the Flip 1S DS don't stop there. The new machine uses a vapor chamber to keep that thirsty AMD SoC cool, and the moving parts of the machine, like the entire top clamshell, are all CNC'd to give smooth, reliable motion. The joysticks use "Tunneling Magnetoresistance" or "TMR" sensors, which are an even more advanced type of stick than the much-vaunted Hall-effect sensors. TMR sticks are contactless, like Hall-effect, but they offer higher precision and more rapid sampling (up to 1KHz)—and they do it while drawing a fraction of the power of thirsty Hall-effect sticks.

ayaneo flip 1s ds ports
Both Type-C ports on the Flip 1S DS are 40-Gbps USB4 ports.

Where the original Ayaneo Flip DS came with two USB Type-C ports, on the Flip 1S DS, both are fully-capable USB4 ports. That gives you the ability to hook up all kinds of docking stations and external equipment, letting you turn the Flip 1S DS into a mini-PC if you so desire. The only potential weak point on the entire machine is that its Wi-Fi adapter is "only" Wi-Fi 6E with Bluetooth 5.3, not the latest Wi-Fi 7. That's still plenty fast for anything short of massive file transfers over a LAN, though.

ayaneo flip 1s ds details

The big questions are "when can I buy this" and "for how much," and the answers we have for you are "not yet" and "don't ask." Ayaneo hasn't shared any pricing or availability information about the Flip 1S DS yet, only having just unveiled it. We'd expect to see it launched this summer or in the fall, and it's likely that the pricing is still up in the air due to tariff nonsense. With all these premium features, though, don't expect it to come in under $1500.  The company's previous-generation Flip DS still goes for over $1100, and this system is quite a lot fancier.