The Acer Nitro Blaze 7 is the latest handheld PC looking to directly compete with the Steam Deck and the ASUS Rog Ally. This marks the brand’s first entry into the handheld gaming arena, and the Nitro Blaze 7 looks to offer some impressive specs and on-brand aesthetics. But does it shape up against the industry titans?
If we take a look at the guts of Acer’s first handheld PC, it’s clear that the Taiwanese computer brand is keen to impress. The Nitro Blaze 7 comes with an AMD Ryzen 7 processor and is equipped with Ryzen AI to help optimize both performance and responsiveness, whether you’re in the midst of an FPS gaming session or catching up on the latest television shows. The display is a generous seven inches and full HD, with an impressive 144Hz refresh rate and touchscreen interface. All of this serves to give it a potential spot on our list of best portable gaming consoles, but we’re intrigued to see how the Nitro Blaze 7 performs when we get our hands on one.
Acer’s initial offering in the handheld PC market also boasts an generous amount of storage, with up to 2TB on the SSD and 15GB of memory at 7500 MT/s for speedy data transfer rates and bandwidth. The whole thing runs on the latest Windows 11 system, and it also comes with Acer’s Game Space feature, which means you have access to a whole library of gaming titles that you can pick and choose from at will.
As it stands, we don’t currently know what price range the Nitro Blaze 7 sits in. Naturally, costs will vary across regions, but with the likes of the latest OLED Steam Deck, which only has 1TB of storage at most, setting you back around $600/£569 we’d expect Acer’s handheld to come in around the same bracket. If it does arrive at this price point, it might be one of the more attractive Steam Deck alternatives.
The device itself is reminiscent of Acer’s gaming laptops, utilizing the solid colorway of red and black to really hammer home the point that this is for gamers. So, with the aesthetics matching the admittedly impressive specs, we’re looking forward to seeing how the Nitro Blaze 7 compares to the market leaders.