If you’re in the market for a handheld gaming PC and nothing about the Steam Deck, ROG Ally X, Lenovo Legion GO, or bevy of options from OneXPlayer and Ayaneo gets you excited, then the newly revealed Acer Nitro Blaze 7 isn’t going to move the needle for you.
I say “move the needle” because Acer has adorned the shell of the Nitro Blaze 7 with what appears to be a fuel gauge, which instantly reminded me of the Hot Wheels tricycle I rode when I was 5 years old. (The other side of the device has an identical graphic, but with the letters “F” and “E.”)
We’ll move on to the speeds and feeds, but visually this just screams “I’m a toy; don’t take me seriously.” I hope Acer removes this before the device’s unspecified launch date.
To be fair, Acer nailed some of the specs for its upcoming handheld. Its standard 7-inch touch display has a 144Hz refresh rate and brings VRR (variable refresh rate) to the party via AMD FreeSync Premium, which is awesome. It has two USB4 ports, which should be the bare minimum for this form factor going forward. And it incorporates Hall Effect joysticks, a microSD card slot, and up to 2TB NVMe storage capacity.
Notably, the Nitro Blaze 7 has something no other handheld has: a dedicated button for bringing up an on-screen keyboard. That’s a nice touch.
Unfortunately, things devolve from here. There are no back buttons whatsoever, which means considerably less control flexibility and customization. There aren’t any touchpads, either. Speaking of the back of the device, the misguided vehicle aesthetic continues with a graphic resembling speed and RPM gauges spanning the entire backside of the chassis. Albeit somewhat cleverly positioned around the intake fans.
The CPU choice is an odd one, which may prove detrimental to the Nitro Blaze 7’s battery life. It’s rocking a Ryzen 7 8804HS, one of AMD’s newer AI chips. I have seen literally no one asking for any dedicated AI processing in their gaming handhelds. It’s also a less power efficient processor than the Z1 Extreme found in both the ROG Ally and Legion GO.
On the bright side, the Ryzen 7 8804HS utilizes Radeon 780M for its graphics capabilities. It’s still a competent integrated GPU which should deliver 60+ FPS in games like Forza Horizon 5 (1080p Medium) and give you roughly 40 FPS in more demanding games like Black Myth: Wukong (1o80p Medium) and Cyberpunk 2077 (1080p Medium with FSR).
And like every other handheld gaming PC running Windows — an OS not remotely designed to be elegant or intuitive on a small screen — the Nitro Blaze 7 will run Acer Game Space software as the overlay that tries to bridge a desktop operating to a gaming-focused handheld.
The bottom line is this: when a device’s key feature distinguishing it from the competition is a dedicated on-screen keyboard button, it doesn’t trigger much interest, or much confidence sales potential. It certainly doesn’t set my hardware desires on fire. I wish Acer would have waited and explored a design with Intel’s new Lunar Lake processors, because the integrated graphics performance looks extraordinary, and seems to outperform even AMD’s best.
Acer hasn’t announced pricing or release timing yet.
