You know that handheld gaming PCs have made it big when major PC manufacturers join the fray. At this point, almost every major brand has put out its own take on mobile gaming, not to mention the smaller names that really pushed this niche market long before it became mainstream. Acer was noticeably the only one that was falling behind, but that all changes today at IFA 2024. With the Nitro Blaze 7, not only is it coming out with its first-ever handheld gaming PC, it’s arriving guns blazing (pun intended) with the latest AMD Ryzen chip boasting powerful AI capabilities to take your experience beyond just gaming.

Designer: Acer

If there’s one area that Intel has pretty much been left behind, it would be the nascent handheld gaming PC race where AMD’s Ryzen has become the chip of choice since the Valve Steam Deck. Conversely, Intel has been ramping up its new AI-powered processors, and AMD is now pushing its Ryzen AI generation to new PCs in every form. Being a bit late does have its share of benefits, and Acer’s first stab at a handheld gaming PC is able to immediately gain the lead in this area, with the new AMD Ryzen 8040 series and Ryzen AI giving the portable computer a needed boost.

The AMD Ryzen 7 8840HS inside the Acer Nitro Blaze 7 boasts 39 AI TOPS (tera or trillion operations per second), putting it in the same league as many AI-powered laptops. Teamed up with the AMD Radeon 780M and 16GB of RAM, you’ve got the makings of a powerful gaming beast that can fit into a small bag. Then there’s the 7-inch 1920×1080 144Hz IPS touch display with 100% sRGB color gamut support, delivering vibrant and bright visuals, even for the darkest of horror games.

What really sets a gaming handheld apart, however, are its controls, which often translate to joysticks and buttons that you’d also see on gamepads. The Acer Nitro Blaze 7 also features touchscreen support for more direct interaction with UI elements on the screen, while the traditional joysticks and d-pad offer more precise control. There’s also a dedicated hotkey that brings players to their game libraries without having to fumble with half a dozen menus and screens. This customized Acer Game Space feature fixes one of the biggest pain points of Windows gaming: managing titles from different platforms and sources.

The Acer Nitro Blaze 7’s straightforward and simple design eschews complicated and extraneous details that only get in the way of you and your favorite games. With its arrival, the roster of major handheld gaming PC brands is more or less now complete, heating up the competition for the market’s most powerful gaming machine in the smallest form factor. Availability details for the Acer Nitro Blaze 7 handheld gaming PC will vary by market and have yet to be confirmed.

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Gaming handhelds are making quite the trend in the video game industry these days, from small DIY gadgets the size of key fobs to hulking computers crammed in a questionably portable form factor. But with the exception of the more expensive handheld PCs, the vast majority of these handheld consoles are made of plastic, at least for their bodies. Plastic, after all, is durable, lightweight, resilient, and, more importantly, cheap, and the products made with it sometimes come out feeling that way too. Once in a while, however, someone gets the idea to turn a geeky device into a glamorous product, like this aluminum-clad version of the Pocket Analogue that makes it one of the most stylish, let alone distinctive, gaming handhelds to grace the market today.

Designer: Analogue

It has been years since Analogue pulled off what can probably be considered a miracle in this industry. It launched what looks like a homage to the Game Boy, one that can actually play original Game Boy cartridges, that hasn’t hit any legal roadblocks considering how popular it is. Over the years, it has launched various limited editions of the Analogue Pocket, but this Aluminum Edition is its most ambitious one yet.

Precision CNC’d from solid billet 6061 aluminum, the limited edition Analogue Pocket Aluminum looks and feels more like a designer product than a functional gaming device, one that’s just meant to honor the original and be put on display but not used. That wouldn’t be much fun, of course, and thankfully this is not the kind of product that Analogue is putting out. It’s the same gaming experience offered by any Analogue Pocket, except now in a chassis that’s designed to really outlast those games.

If Analogue had left the Aluminum edition unfinished, it would have resulted in a striking and unique industrial aesthetic. But for those who still prefer a pinch of style and class, the limited-run gaming handheld is being offered in four anodized colors. Natural is as closest as you’ll get to that raw aluminum look, while Noir (Dark Gray) and Black both offer subdued hues. Bluish Indigo, on the other hand, stands out the most and is probably reminiscent of the transparent Atomic Purple case of the Game Boy Color.

Given its name, it probably shouldn’t come as a surprise that the Analogue Pocket Aluminum Limited Edition will be, well, limited. There’s no word on how many units will be made, but the $499.99 price tag and difficulty of machining a block of aluminum suggest there won’t be much. Judging by how fast previous limited editions disappeared, this will probably be gone before you know it.

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Gameboy was a cultural icon in the 1990s when I was growing up. Almost every video game enthusiast in my close circle had his handheld from Nintendo, which meant that before being discontinued from production in 2003, it was arguably the best-selling console ever made. Since, then there have been many iterations of the popular handheld console trying to revive the lost era of portable gaming, but none has been as identical as what Palmer Luckey’s ModRetro may have achieved with the Chromatic.

Combining nostalgic charm with modern tech, the ModRetro Chromatic inherits the Gameboy DNA to give enthusiasts the most realistic experience of the classic handheld console in the blood and body of the new-age device. It’s a result of seventeen years of endeavor to make the ultimate device to play Gameboy games as they were played on the original console.

Designer: ModRetro

According to Luckey, the Chromatic is his best tribute to the Gameboy. Designed and constructed to be the most “authentic, highest quality” device to mimic Gameboy, Chromatic is an heirloom quality piece of retro-futuristic art “that would last for generations.” To that accord, this cartridge-playing Nintendo Gameboy will retail for $199 and can be pre-ordered now at ModRetro.

Compatible with Gameboy and Gameboy library, the Chromatic is 100 percent custom-made. It has a one-to-one LCD with an identical pixel structure to the original Gameboy. To maintain authenticity and closeness to the real, the device alongside its Gameboy-like 160×144 pixel backlit display features a similar layout, resolution, and size. Its sapphire screen is scratch-resistant and it is housed within a magnesium-aluminum alloy molded shell topped with durable PBT buttons and D-pad.

ModRetro Chromatic measures 5.2x3x1.2 inches, and weighs feather light at 6.2 oz. For connectivity, the device has been provided with a USB port and 3.5mm headphone output, and to celebrate its launch, it will come preinstalled with good old Tetris, free of charge. The custom-designed lithium-ion battery, rechargeable through console, provides the Chromatic 24-hour battery life, which can be enhanced on the move with 3x AA batteries.

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After numerous leaks and rumors, the cat is finally out of the bag. The next ASUS Republic of Gamers handheld PC isn’t the Ally 2 but the ROG Ally X as expected. While some might see it as simply splitting hairs, the naming does make a difference. It still has the beating heart of the first ROG Ally, but with a few extras that respond to the criticisms and requests of the gaming community who embraced this more portable form factor right off the bat. From some perspectives, those extras are really small and subtle, especially if looking at it from the outside. But with enough of those changes working together, the ROG Ally X is positioning itself to be a more powerful companion that will let you play more games longer.

Designer: ASUS ROG

Just from a glance, you might not be able to tell that this is in any way different from the OG ROG Ally, at least except for its new all-black motif. It still boggles the mind why ASUS chose white for its first iteration, a color that’s almost alien to gamers’ palettes, though it did help the ROG Ally stand out from its rivals. If you look more closely, however, and hold the device in your hands, you might notice how things are somewhat different, hopefully for the better.

The handles, for example, are rounder now, which helps improve the grip that’s critical to a handheld device. The back triggers now come at an angle for better ergonomics, while the joystick and D-pad have been improved to be more durable and more precise. The biggest changes, however, are on the inside, where every little thing counts if it’s meant to improve the gaming experience.

It’s still the same AMD Ryzen Z1 Extreme as the original ROG Ally, but that mobile gaming processor is now paired with 24GB of DDR-7500 RAM, up from 16GB in the first iteration. The storage capacity has been doubled to up to 1TB, but the bigger surprise is that ASUS is making it easier to upgrade it. The battery has also been doubled to 80Wh, which means you’ll have more time playing before you need to plug the little monster in. To compensate for this newfound power, ASUS ROG promises an improved thermal cooling solution so you won’t burn your hand while you play.

There is at least one change that some might consider a downgrade, depending on how attached they’ve become to ASUS’ proprietary XG external graphics port. In its place, the ROG Ally X uses a more standard Thunderbolt-compatible USB-C port that could still work with external GPUs but also with a lot more devices as well. Given all these changes, it’s no surprise that the ASUS ROG Ally X will cost more than its predecessor at $799.99. Then again, this version is squarely aimed at power gamers, and those who can live with the bare minimum can still get the older model, at least for now.

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Liking for retro game-inspired handhelds has surged in the last few years, thus, prompting proactive manufacturers to catch up on the trend. Anbernic is not letting this opportunity go with a variety of gaming handhelds including the RG35XX H, RG353P, RG35XXSP, and the RG556 (very unconventional naming conventions has to be said) already released this year.

Add to that lineup the latest RG Cube which comes loaded with a Unisoc T820 processor, capable enough to play titles from the Nintendo 6 and Dreamcast. According to the company, it doesn’t stop there as the handheld should also play select titles from the PS 2, GameCube, Wii, and Nintendo 3DS in emulation mode.

Designer: Anbernic

The cute Android 13-powered gadget has a 3.95-inch IPS touchscreen (720×720) with a 1:1 display ratio which to be honest should affect the visuals in some of the newer titles. The octa-core processor (maxes at 2.7 GHz speed) mated to 8GB of LPDDR4X RAM is supported by an 850MHz GPU capable of producing 1080p resolution visuals at an impressive 120fps. The buck doesn’t stop there as RG Cube has 128GB of UFS 2.2 storage with expandable storage of up to 2TB via a MicroSD card.

For extended gaming hauls, the handheld boasts a battery life of 7 hours courtesy of the 5200mAh battery life. The in-built fan provides active cooling when things get too hot. Most gamers should love this compact gaming player since it has RGB lighting effects, a gyroscope sensor, a vibration motor, D-Pad input, action buttons, shoulder triggers, and Hall Effect joysticks that should last long without any malfunctions. Playing classic games on this one will be a treat with the stereo speakers in-built, USB-C port, and a 3.5mm headphone jack for purists.

Anbernic has not announced the pricing or release date of the gaming handled yet or the pricing. At launch, the RG Cube will come in three color options: Beige White, Radiant Purple, and Gray.

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Retro gaming consoles and computers are still going strong, with many designs still left to be revived, resized, and retrofitted for modern times. Most of these products try to recreate the experience of those original machines, at least with the games they used to run on very limited hardware. That said, you can only go so far trying to recreate the past. Sooner or later, you will hit a wall, as demonstrated by the limited number of titles supported by many of these retro consoles. This reinterpretation of a Game Boy classic design, however, isn’t exactly a simple copy of the clamshell handheld. Instead, it takes the same spirit of portable adventure that the Game Boy Advance SP embodied and wraps it in a body that’s well-suited for modern gaming styles.

Designer: Anbernic

It’s honestly a bit of a gray legal area whenever third-party brands try to embrace a design so close to something from the annals of video gaming history. That hasn’t stopped the likes of Anbernic from taking obvious inspiration from those bygone designs but with enough modifications to skirt infringement accusations. Of course, Anbernic has its own original designs, but the ones that really grab your attention are those that pay homage to icons like the Nintendo Game Boy.

With the uninspiring name of Anbernic RG35XXSP, the prolific gaming handheld manufacturer is bringing the Game Boy Advance SP back to life, or at least the pocket-sized clamshell design that made it quite a hit. It’s just as blocky and thick as the original, but that’s also part of the device’s charm. For better or worse, however, that’s where the similarities end to the point that you can even say that the RG35XXSP was simply “inspired” by Nintendo’s handheld.

Deep inside, it uses the same guts as all the other iterations of the RG35XX, which means that it’s practically a mini computer that runs the Linux operating system. Specifically, it uses an emulation platform that can support a whole plethora of games from the likes of the Nintendo 64, PlayStation 1, PlayStation Portable, or even MS-DOS. And, yes, it can probably run Game Boy games as well, though you’re left to your own devices on how to make all these work.

What’s more important, however, is that the RG35XXSP doesn’t use the limited controls of the Game Boy Advance SP. Instead, it has enough buttons to support all those gaming platforms, though don’t expect any analog joystick here. The pocketable gaming handheld is also described to be equipped with modern technologies, like Wi-Fi and 5G for local multiplayer gaming, HDMI for TV output, and support for Bluetooth peripherals like controllers, keyboards, and mice. Shown off in four designs that give tribute to those consoles and handhelds of the past, launch details for the Anbernic RG35XXSP are unfortunately still unavailable at this moment.

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