At this level it’s uncommon for a significant tech trade occasion to go by with out a brand new handful of handhelds – and whereas the Nintendo Switch 2 would possibly nonetheless be only a twinkle in Nintendo’s eye, the PC gaming handheld market is booming.
The most recent firm to hop aboard this explicit gravy prepare is Acer, bringing its price range Nitro gaming model to the fore with the brand new Nitro Blaze 8 and Nitro Blaze 11, formally showcased at CES 2025 this week. Acer is considerably late to the hand held PC occasion, with Valve’s Steam Deck ostensibly kicking off proceedings again in 2022 and different producers already coming into their second era, similar to Lenovo with the Lenovo Legion Go S, which was additionally revealed at this 12 months’s CES.
I’ve been holding out hope for an Acer entry into the hand held PC corridor of fame for some time now, partly simply because I like Acer’s {hardware}; I’ve lengthy been a fan of the Swift laptop computer line, and the Predator and Nitro gaming manufacturers have a very good observe document on the subject of delivering robust efficiency at cheap costs. However after seeing what Acer had on present at CES, I’m not fully satisfied…
A monster handheld
Now, we already knew Acer had a handheld within the works, however that was the Nitro Blaze 8 – the Blaze 11 was a CES shock. The Blaze 8 (which, frankly, needs to be referred to as the Blaze 9 because it has an 8.8-inch show) appears to be like like Acer’s spin on the standard gaming handheld system, with specs which can be broadly much like opponents just like the Lenovo Legion Go and Asus ROG Ally X.
However the Blaze 11? That’s acquired a humungous 10.95-inch 1600p show and can price you $1,099 (round £1,000 / AU$1,740) – a steep worth of admission for a product in a market the place the $500 mark appears to be the best worth level.
An 11-inch show on a handheld is, fairly frankly, a bit nuts. Simply take a look at that press shot up high: does that actually look comfy to make use of? How heavy is it within the fingers? Going from one thing like a Steam Deck or the featherweight Switch Lite to this chunky boy is actually going to require some adjustment. And regardless of its huge display screen, the Nitro Blaze 11 solely packs a 55Whr battery (probably to maintain the general weight down a bit), in comparison with the 80Whr battery within the ROG Ally X.
How huge is just too huge?
11 inches is… fairly darn huge. (You within the again, cease guffawing.) That’s virtually the display screen dimension of the laptop computer I’m scripting this evaluation on (a 13-inch HP Spectre x360), and I don’t need to bodily grip that by either side to make use of it.
I’ll say this in Acer’s protection: just like the Nintendo Change or Lenovo Legion Go, the Blaze 11 has detachable controllers (which I’ll chorus from calling ‘joy-cons’) that slot into place on both facet of the principle unit, which itself has a kickstand to allow you to use it as a form of moveable gaming show. Whereas it is a characteristic I’ve largely snorted at previously – I’ve actually by no means used my very own first-gen Change on this configuration – I’ll admit that it makes extra sense with a much bigger display screen. As seen in Acer’s promo photographs, the Blaze 11 additionally comes with a separate connector that may rework these two not-joy-cons (sorry) right into a singular gamepad for a greater expertise.
Nonetheless, with so giant a display screen and so excessive a price ticket, I do have to noticeably query the practicality of the Blaze 11 in opposition to merely shopping for a conventional gaming laptop computer. I’ll reserve my full judgment till I’m capable of correctly evaluation this odd, beefy machine myself; however proper now I’ve to say that this may be the strangest design selection I’ve seen Acer make for a very long time.
You may also like…
Source link
