What just happened? Nvidia graphics partner Zotac has unveiled its first portable gaming PC – the Zotac Gaming Zone. First teased back in May, the Zone is now available for pre-order from select retailers with a $799 price tag, putting it in direct competition with the recently launched Asus ROG Ally X.
Separating Zotac's freshman effort from the crowded handheld gaming space is its 7-inch 1080p AMOLED display with a blazing 120Hz refresh rate and impressive 800 nit peak brightness. That should provide a far superior visual experience compared to Asus's rival device, which has an LCD that goes up to 500 nits.
The controls get an upgrade too with Zotac employing fancy Hall effect sensors for the triggers (with two-stage adjustment) and analog sticks. This tech is meant to prevent pesky controller drift over time. There are also radial dials on the sticks and two trackpads for mouse-style input. Zotac also claims the Zone's ergonomics and grip have been carefully shaped for comfortable extended play sessions.
Under the hood, the Zone packs AMD's Ryzen 7 8840U Hawk Point APU and the Radeon 780M based on Zen 4 and RDNA 3. That chip performs mostly similarly to the ROG Ally X's Ryzen Z1 Extreme, even though it's a few months older. The processing is supported with 16GB of DDR5 RAM and 512GB of NVMe storage.
The Zone's not quite as beefy as the 24GB/1TB config in Asus's model, but it should still be packing enough horsepower for decent AAA gaming. What does seem like a major step down is the 48Wh battery, which is almost half the size of the Ally X's massive 80Wh cell. The AMOLED panel, which generally is less power-hungry than LCDs, should help offset some of that reduced capacity.
The handheld also packs some nice extras like a built-in kickstand, macro switches, dual USB-C ports, a fingerprint reader in the power button, a 1MP 720p camera, and a 3.5mm headphone jack. Connectivity is handled by Wi-Fi 6E and Bluetooth 5.2 standards.
The pricing is a bit of a sticking point at $799, matching that of the Asus ROG Ally X. Whether Zotac can sway gamers with its AMOLED screen and controller tweaks remains to be seen.
The company will be showcasing the Gaming Zone handheld alongside its latest graphics cards and mini PCs at the upcoming Gamescom expo from August 21-25.