Handheld gaming hardware head Ayaneo has just unveiled its first phone. The Ayaneo Pocket Play is a smartphone with a sliding display that can be pushed up to reveal a d-pad, AXBY face buttons, and two virtual joystick touchpads.

Ayaneo had previously teased this gaming-geared phone early last month. Now, there’s a fresh blog post in Ayaneo’s typically effusive style about the Pocket Play, plus a Kickstarter page. However, tech specs remain thin on the ground.

We don’t yet know what processor this bad boy will end up boasting, or even the device’s display dimensions. However, given that Ayaneo is known for Android-based gaming handhelds such as the Snapdragon-based Ayaneo Pocket S, perhaps I won’t need all three guesses to figure out this phone’s headlining hardware specs.

So, like most of its ilk, it will likely be an Android device. That means we won’t be able to play our precious PC games on it without an emulator, such as Winlator, which is a bit of a job to set up. At least other forms of Android emulation are generally excellent these days.

Though there’s no gesture at a release window beyond the words ‘coming soon,’ I’m already intrigued. For one thing, there’s something refreshingly retro about the Ayaneo Pocket Play’s sliding design; some folks have already made comparisons to ye olde Sony Ericsson Xperia X1 from 2008 with its sliding keyboard panel, and 2011’s more gaming-geared, PlayStation-themed Xperia Play.

Crossing paths with it again, perhaps it’s high time to dust off the arc-slider phone design and see whether we can, perhaps, make gaming handhelds actually pocket-sized once more. Besides that, otherwise foldable screen tech isn’t really an open-and-shut design decision.

Though foldable gaming handhelds aren’t yet mainstream, foldable phones sort of are for those with deep pockets—and you’ve got to treat those bits of kit like the little princes they are if you want that pliable screen to keep working. Mind you, one creator’s multi-day stream that tested the hinge of a Samsung Fold 200,000 times may suggest modern foldable phones are hardier than I’m giving them credit for.

At any rate, I’m cautiously optimistic about the Ayaneo Pocket Play. Granted, once the Kickstarter ends, experience tells me this gaming phone will cost a pretty penny indeed, and there’s no guarantee Ayaneo will even support the device long-term. Given the fact I’m currently rocking a five-year-old Samsung Galaxy A52s, I’m not really looking to commit to a new device that will slide out of my life at the first opportunity.

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