AYANEO answers the biggest performance question about its first gaming phone

AYANEO’s first gaming phone has been a little quieter than expected lately, partly due to the company’s recent service improvement roadmap and the decision to pause its crowdfunding plans. But we have a concrete update on the Pocket PLAY that clears up one of the biggest open questions about performance.

In a new post on X, AYANEO confirmed that the Pocket PLAY will be powered by MediaTek’s Dimensity 9300 chipset. It’s a familiar flagship chip — albeit dating back to 2023 — and should be a solid pick, even if it’s not the latest silicon or the Snapdragon chip some fans may have been hoping for.

The Dimensity 9300 has previously traded blows with Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 in our comparison, particularly in CPU-heavy tasks. That should make it a decent fit for a gaming-focused device like the Pocket PLAY, especially since AYANEO has already confirmed the phone will include active cooling to help maintain performance over longer play sessions.

Beyond the chipset, nothing else about the device has changed since our last update. The Pocket PLAY still leans heavily into Xperia Play nostalgia with its sliding controls, dual touchpads, physical buttons, and shoulder triggers. AYANEO has also confirmed a 6.8-inch OLED display with a 165Hz refresh rate, a bezel-mounted selfie camera, and a deliberately modest rear camera setup.

The Pocket PLAY is still set to launch via Kickstarter, although the campaign has yet to go live following AYANEO’s recent pledge to improve customer service and shipping transparency. The pre-launch page is already up, and while this isn’t a bleeding-edge chip reveal, it’s a clear sign that the Pocket PLAY is shaping up to be a desirable gaming phone when it eventually arrives.