Loki Zero vs Loki Max

The Loki Zero and the Loki Max are the same handheld with different silicon bolted into it. Our catalogue lists both at 248 by 98 by 20 to 23.7 millimetres, both with a 6.0 inch 1920 by 1080 IPS touchscreen at 60 Hz, both with the same d-pad placement, the same dual thumbsticks, the same analog triggers and the same two programmable rear buttons. What separates them is the chip, the memory, the storage and $526.

That makes this a cleaner question than most pairs on this site. There is no shell argument and no panel argument to have, so the only thing left to decide is what the extra money buys in emulation coverage. Our capability index answers that in exactly six columns.

Fifteen systems against eighteen

The index grades 442 handhelds across eighteen systems and carries a tracked price for 375 of them. A system counts as playable at grade B or better, the same threshold the console pages use when they call a library playable.

• Loki Zero, $249 tracked: 15 of 18 systems playable.
• Loki Max, $775 tracked: 18 of 18 systems playable.

Six columns move between the two, and they fall into two groups.

Three systems the Zero cannot play at all. The Wii U grades D on the Zero against B+ on the Max, the Switch grades C against A, and the PlayStation 3 carries no grade on the Zero at all against a B on the Max.

Three systems both can play, one letter band apart. The Wii, the Nintendo 3DS and the PlayStation 2 all grade B on the Zero and A on the Max.

Everything else is identical, and it is not a short list: both grade A on the Game Boy, the NES, the Genesis, the Game Boy Advance, the SNES, the PlayStation 1, the DS, the N64, the Dreamcast, the PSP, the Sega Saturn and the GameCube. Twelve systems at the top band this index has, on a $249 machine.

What the three missing systems cost elsewhere

The three systems the Zero lacks are not expensive to add, as long as you are willing to leave x86 behind.

• Wii U at B or better: 82 priced handhelds carry it, and the cheapest is the Retroid Pocket 6 at $209.
• Switch at B or better: 75 priced handhelds carry it, and the floor is $299, shared by the AYANEO Next Lite and the Odin 3.
• PlayStation 3 at B or better: 53 priced handhelds carry it, and the floor is $599, shared by the AOKZOE A2, the ROG Ally and the TJD T101.

That last row is the one worth reading twice. The gap between the two Lokis is $526, which is more than the $350 that separates a $249 Zero from a $599 device that plays all eighteen systems at once. The Max is not the entry ticket to that group.

The eighteen-system club starts at $599

Fifty-three priced handhelds grade playable on all eighteen. Fourteen of them cost less than the Loki Max, and the floor is $599.

The Max is not merely one of the fifty-three, though. Its exact eighteen-column row, every grade rather than just the playable count, is shared with seven other priced devices and the cheapest of those is the AYANEO 2 at $749. So the Max sits in the pricier half of its own grade class.

The Steam Deck is the sharpest comparison in the whole catalogue. At $399 it matches the Loki Max grade for grade on seventeen of the eighteen columns: A on everything through the GameCube, A on the Wii, the 3DS and the PlayStation 2, B+ on the Wii U, A on the Switch. The single column that differs is the PlayStation 3, where the Deck grades C- and the Max grades B. That is $376 for one letter band on one system, and the Deck brings a larger OLED option and a trackpad layout the Loki does not have.

The Zero does not have the same problem in reverse. Its exact eighteen-column row appears nowhere else among the 375 priced devices in the catalogue, so there is no cheaper machine with that specific profile. The nearest thing is a different question: 37 priced handhelds sit at exactly fifteen playable systems and 26 of them cost less than $249, starting with the Retroid Pocket Classic at $114. Every one of those 26 is an Android device. The Zero is the cheapest x86 Windows handheld in the whole catalogue that reaches fifteen playable systems, and the only other one on that row is the GPD Win Max at $779. Its $249 is buying the platform as much as the grade sheet.

Same body, same panel, 14 percent more battery

• Dimensions: identical on both sheets, 248 by 98 by 20 to 23.7 mm.
• Screen: 6.0 inch IPS touchscreen, 1920 by 1080, 16:9, 60 Hz, on both.
• Battery: 40.5 Wh in the Zero, 46.2 Wh in the Max, 14 percent more energy in a body of the same size.
• Weight: 568 g for the Max. The catalogue records no weight for the Zero, one of the three gaps in its 62-of-65 field count.
• Storage: 64 GB of eMMC with an empty M.2 2230 slot and a microSD reader on the Zero, against 512 GB of NVMe in the same slot size on the Max.
• Radios: WiFi 5 and Bluetooth 4.2 on the Zero, WiFi 6E and Bluetooth 5.2 on the Max, with USB-C 4 instead of USB-C video out.
• Controls: identical on both sheets, including hall sensor sticks and triggers, L3 and R3 on both thumbsticks, and two programmable rear buttons.

Both are listed with Windows 11, and both are listed as SteamOS and Linux capable. Neither sheet records rumble, so assume nothing there.

Silicon, and the one upgrade path

• Loki Zero: AMD Athlon Silver 3050e, two Zen cores and four threads at 1.4 to 2.8 GHz, Radeon Vega 3 at 1.0 GHz, 4 GB or 8 GB of DDR4-4800 with one user-replaceable SODIMM slot.
• Loki Max: AMD Ryzen 7 6800U, eight Zen 3+ cores and sixteen threads at 2.7 to 4.7 GHz, Radeon 680M at 2.2 GHz, 16 GB of LPDDR5-6400 soldered to the board.

The real-world gap is smaller than the price gap suggests, and it narrows exactly where a cheap handheld gets used. DROIX measured the other two devices in this family, the Loki and the Loki Max, at around 25 percent apart at 28 W and as little as 6 percent apart at 11 W. The Zero's 3050e sits below both of those chips, so read that as the shape of the curve rather than as the Zero's own number.

Memory is the part that decides whether the Zero is usable. The tracked $249 is the 4 GB configuration with no SSD; $284 doubles it to 8 GB and adds a 128 GB drive, and the SODIMM slot means a buyer can go further later. The Max sells with 16 GB and cannot be changed at all. Neither machine can take faster memory than it shipped with; only the Zero can take more.

The middle sibling makes the Max look worse

The family has a third device. The Loki carries a tracked $490 and grades playable on 17 of 18 systems. Against the Zero it adds two playable systems for $241: the Wii U goes from D to B+ and the Switch from C to B, while the Wii, 3DS and PlayStation 2 lift from B to A.

Against the Max it is the awkward one. The Loki and the Loki Max differ on exactly two columns, the Switch at B against A and the PlayStation 3 at C against B. That is $285 for one extra playable system and one extra letter band, in the same shell, with the same panel and the same battery.

Which should you buy

Neither, if you are shopping for something new. AYN's store catalogue on 26 October 2026 carries 32 products and not one of them is a Loki, and while the Loki landing page is still up the Loki collection URL returns a 404. Both of these are second-hand purchases now, which is exactly why the tracked street prices matter more than the launch prices did.

Between the two, the Zero. Fifteen playable systems for a third of the money, twelve of them at the top grade, and the only coverage you give up is the Wii U, the Switch and the PlayStation 3. If your library ends at the PlayStation 2 or the GameCube, the Max is charging $526 for systems you were never going to boot.

The Max is defensible in one case: that specific three-system list is your library, you want Windows rather than Android doing the work, and you have already decided against a Steam Deck. Go in knowing the numbers. A $399 Steam Deck matches it on seventeen of eighteen columns, a $599 AOKZOE A2 or ROG Ally plays all eighteen, and fourteen devices below $775 sit in the same eighteen-system group.

Two caveats, stated plainly. A letter grade is our read of the emulator stack on that hardware, not a frame-time measurement of every title in the library, and x86 Windows machines get their PlayStation 3 and Switch grades from desktop emulators whose legal position is unsettled in several markets. And this index does not grade PC games at all. The honest reason to buy a Loki over an Android handheld is a Steam library, and neither of these two is measured for that here.

Sources

• Lost In Consoles capability index, Loki Zero page, for the grade sheet, the 248 by 98 mm body, the 40.5 Wh battery, the Athlon Silver 3050e and the tracked $249: lostinconsoles.com/consoles/loki-zero-ayn-technologies
• Lost In Consoles capability index, Loki Max page, for the eighteen-system row, the 568 g weight, the 46.2 Wh battery, the Ryzen 7 6800U and the tracked $775: lostinconsoles.com/consoles/loki-max-ayn-technologies
• Lost In Consoles capability index, Loki page, for the 17-of-18 row and the tracked $490: lostinconsoles.com/consoles/loki-ayn-technologies
• AYN, full store catalogue as checked 26 October 2026, 32 products and no Loki among them: ayntec.com/collections/all
• DROIX, AYN Loki and AYN Loki Max review, for the shared 6 inch 1080p panel and the 25 percent gap at 28 W falling to 6 percent at 11 W: droix.net