Acer finally has a gaming handheld, the Nitro Blaze 7
It could challenge the Steam Deck and ROG Ally, if the price is right.
The handheld gaming PC race continues to heat up. Acer finally announced a portable console, the Nitro Blaze 7. The specs are pretty dang good here, so this could actually give the Steam Deck a run for its money.
Let’s talk about the display. This is, after all, a portable gaming console. As the name suggests, the Nitro Blaze 7 boasts a seven-inch FHD IPS screen with a 144Hz refresh rate. That refresh rate is better than the original Steam Deck and even the newer OLED model. However, Acer’s machine features an LCD touch panel and not an OLED screen. The size of the display is on par with both the Steam Deck and many of the other portable consoles that have entered the scene in recent years.
The actual specs are pretty impressive here. The Acer Nitro Blaze 7 includes an AMD Ryzen 8040 Series processor, with up to 39 AI TOPS (trillions of operations per second) and 16GB of RAM. It integrates with AMD FreeSync and ships with up to 2TB of storage. Hard drives fill up really fast with these machines, so that 2TB looks mighty nice. Just one AAA game can sap up 100GB or more.
It’s a Windows 11 machine, but runs something called Acer Game Space. This looks to be a skin of some kind for the UI that makes navigating the library more console-like. There’s also a hotkey that immediately brings up the library. Buyers get three free months of PC Game Pass, which is always nice.
It supports Wi-Fi 6E and USB-C. There’s even a microSD slot for additional storage. Otherwise, it has the same buttons and layout one would expect from a modern portable gaming console. Acer says the console will be released in the near future, but hasn’t announced an exact date. The company also hasn’t revealed pricing. Here’s hoping it’s competitive.
