Review of the abxylute, a portable gaming device available at a low price!　A device dedicated to cloud gaming & remote play!

At first, it was only available on Kickstarter, but during July, it began to be sold to the general public and is now readily available for purchase. The main specifications listed on the official website are as follows.

abxylute: specs list

OS: Android 12

CPU: MT8364

RAM: 4GB (LPDDR4)

Storage: 32GB or 64GB

Display: 7-inch (1920 x 1080)/60Hz/touch function

Interface: USBB Type-C/audio jack/microSD card reader

Battery uptime: 8 hours

Size: Approx. 250 mm (W)/115 mm (H)/30 mm (D)

Weight: Approx. 410g

The main unit is quite thin and lightweight, and reasonably priced.

The first thing that struck me when I picked up Abxylute was its weight. Officially, it weighs approximately 410g, which is about the same as the Nintendo Switch, which weighs approximately 398g. The Switch is about 13.9mm thick, while the abxylute is about 30mm thick, which means that it is more than twice as thick as the Switch, but weighs almost the same.

From the official YouTube channel

The display is about 15mm thick, but the 30mm catalog specs are for the left and right sides, where the sticks and grip are located. The display is 7 inches in diameter.

The size of the display is 7 inches. It is slightly larger than the conventional Switch model, but the same size as the OLED model. However, the abxylute has a resolution of 1980 x 1080, so the picture quality is excellent. The refresh rate, which indicates how often the screen updates information, is 60 Hz, so it works well with games that can output frame rates up to 60.

Similar to the Switch and Steam Deck, the abxylute also has a trigger button for each in addition to the L and R buttons. There is no need to replace some of the operations that were possible with controllers, such as tapping, and it is easy to apply the same sensations as when playing a home console game.

The home screen clearly displays installed applications.

In the following sections, we will show the results of our tests of remote play, which is one of the strengths of this console, cloud gaming and remote play. This time, we used Steam Link and PS5 Remote to play several titles on each.

Remote Play with Steam Link and PS5 Remote Play

Steam Link is an application that allows users to play Steam games on non-PC devices such as smartphones and tablets.

The first game we tried was "Vampire Survivors," which has been attracting a lot of attention since its Switch version was released on August 17. The objective of the game is to survive for 30 minutes by continuously defeating a large number of monsters that attack from all directions.

Depending on the equipment and item configuration, there are more than 10,000 enemies in a single playthrough. I played for 30 minutes and found that the picture quality on the abxylute side remained almost the same from start to finish. 28 minutes in, the screen was a bit choppy due to the swarms that nearly filled the screen, but that was about the only thing that bothered me. The results did not change when we tried other stages, and the operation was stable.

Next, we tried "Apex Legends. Apex Legends is a battle royale game in which players control legends with unique abilities and fight for the last survivor, and is also a first-person shooter.

The overall sense of speed in this title is fast, from predicting the position of the enemy, to maneuvering to take advantage of favorable terrain, to controlling the opponent while fighting them; in an FPS where a difference of 0.1 second can make the difference between victory and defeat, it is tough to have a delay in the first place.

However, the second match proceeded smoothly. abxylute is based on a wireless connection, so the slight delay observed in the first match may have been caused by the instability inherent in wireless. When playing intense action games, it may be a good idea to take countermeasures against delays, such as playing near a PC or router.

The next game we tried was "Rocket League. The game features a style that is a fusion of a driving game and soccer, in which you kick a ball into a goal while riding in a car. Starting with the tutorial, I played a few dozen minutes of practice matches with the AI and casual games, and saw no frame rate drops or communication delays at all. I boosted around the court and jumped and drifted for no reason, but play was comfortable throughout.

There were a few instances of slight delays during scenes where multiple players were competing, but these were rare. However, the performance of remote play is dependent on communication conditions, so this type of delay can be prevented by getting as close to the PS5 as possible when using abxylute.

We tried playing titles of different styles and genres with remote play, such as the dot-picture "Vampire Survivors" and the FPS "Apex Legends," and both were played comfortably with almost no delay. Although we were not able to check the numbers, the frame rate was maintained at 60, and the heat generated by the device was not noticeable, probably because the home console and PC had already taken care of the processing. It seems that the image quality during remote play is better when the PS5 or PC is connected to the Internet via a wired connection.

Although it is necessary to use some other device, such as a game console or PC, the abxylute can play even heavy games with relative comfort. It is especially recommended for those who want to play games while lying down, and for those who want to use cloud and remote services.

• Product Information
• abxylute
• 32GB model: See official website for price#.
• 64GB model: See official website for price#.

• Main specifications
• OS：Android12
• CPU: MT8364
• RAM: 4GB (LPDDR4)
• Storage: 32GB/64GB
• Display: 7-inch (1920 x 1080)/60Hz/touch function
• Interface: USBB Type-C/audio jack/microSD card reader
• Battery uptime: 8 hours
• Size: Approx. 250 mm (width) x 115 mm (height) x 30 mm (thickness)
• Weight: Approx. 410g