Simply months after launching its first handheld gaming PC, Acer is again at CES launching the Nitro Blaze 8 and Blaze 11. Whereas the Blaze 8 seems to be a reasonably routine replace akin to the Steam Deck, the Blaze 11 is packing some way more fascinating {hardware} decisions.
Corporations are in a rat race to construct the following finest gaming handheld PC, as Valve nonetheless dominates with the Steam Deck. Acer’s newest try contains the Nitro 11 that comes with an unlimited 10.95-inch display screen and detachable, Change-like controllers.
Acer has taken a web page out of Lenovo and Nintendo’s e-book for the Nitro 11’s controllers. That’s as a result of they unclip from the edges of the huge pill with the intention to use them both individually or collectively for a extra snug gaming possibility.
We have been fairly impressed with the equal controllers on the Lenovo Legion Go, although it took a couple of updates earlier than Lenovo ironed out all of the kinks. In the meantime, Acer is upping the ante by equipping the Nitro 11’s controllers with Corridor Impact sticks and triggers to assist fight stick drift.
Nonetheless, Acer isn’t packing the most recent Ryzen Z2 Excessive silicon from AMD inside, however is choosing a Ryzen 8000 cell chipset as a substitute. Each Acer’s new handhelds will use the Ryzen 7 8840HS – additionally used within the Nitro 7 – which is a barely extra beefy chip than that used within the current Zotac Zone, as an example.
Not that it’ll deal with the Ryzen AI HX chips present in gadgets such because the OneXPlayer F1 Professional. The onboard built-in graphics on the Acers are nonetheless the Radeon 780M mannequin, whereas AMD has up to date the GPU in its AI HX fashions to 800M sequence graphics.
Just like the Lenovo Legion Go, Acer’s Nitro handhelds will each have 2,560×1,600 decision screens, up from the Blaze 7’s 1080p panel. Each will proceed to help 144Hz too, as did the unique.
The Acer Blaze 8 and 11 are set to launch within the second quarter of 2025, so anticipate them after March. You’ll discover the Blaze 8 priced at $899 and the 11 priced at $1,099.
Additionally introduced is Acer’s new Nitro Cell controller, which we don’t see hitting our greatest PC gaming controller listing any time quickly. Nonetheless, the versatile controller may very well be fairly nifty for these invested in cell gaming.
