Two new Acer Handhelds to Debut at CES, Featuring AMD Strix Point APUs and Different Screen Sizes
Acer is reportedly releasing two successors to the Nitro Blaze 7 gaming handheld, featuring better hardware, controls, and functionality. As reported by Videocardz, the company has developed Nitro Blaze 11 and Nitro Blaze 8, both featuring 11 and 8-inch displays. The Acer Nitro Blaze 7 came with a 7-inch display and the new handhelds will be offering a more immersive experience, particularly the 11-inch one.
Currently, most high-end gaming handhelds such as OneXFly F1 Pro, MSI Claw 8 AI+, Lenovo Legion Go, etc. mostly stay under a 9-inch screen size and the Nitro Blaze 11 will be the biggest one among them. However, it’s likely that both Nitro Blaze 11 and Blaze 8 will get the same hardware. Reports suggest that they will be adopting the Ryzen AI 300 APUs, i.e., the Zen 5-based Ryzen AI 9 365 or Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 APUs.
These chips were adopted quite late by handheld owners and the OneXFly F1 Pro was the first handheld that featured both these chips. Other reports suggest that ZOTAC is also preparing its new gaming handheld “ZONE 2”, featuring one of these processors. This is because these chips deliver significant performance uplifts over the Ryzen Z1 and Z1 Extreme. Nitro Blaze 11 and Blaze 8 will be upgrading from the Ryzen 7 8840U processor based on the Zen 4 architecture and it’s quite similar to what ZOTAC is doing.
Not much has been revealed regarding the specifications and features of these two handhelds but it’s safe to assume that these will bring quite a good amount of RAM and storage capacity. Currently, high-end handhelds bring up to 32 GB of LPDDR5X RAM and at least 1 TB of PCI-E SSD. Some also bring OLED displays. Therefore, the cost of these handhelds has gone quite high compared to their predecessors.
CES will see a lot of hardware launches, particularly in the handheld category, where Lenovo, ZOTAC, MSI, Acer, and some other players are going to unveil their flagship handhelds.
