Review Of The Acer Nitro Blaze 7

Tom's Guide

Acer Nitro Blaze is the new gaming handheld on the block - doing things a little differently by packing a full blown laptop CPU inside. What does this do to performance? Find out in our hands-on impressions!

Transcript

00:00So back in January, I told you that Acer could be working on a gaming handheld.

00:05Well, I'm at IFA 2024 and this is the Acer Nitro Blaze 7.

00:10Where's my medal?

00:14So as you can see, it's all very much your standard gaming handheld sort of thing that you're expecting.

00:19Bunch of fans, you don't want to get stuff in there.

00:21But the main differences that we're noticing here, there are three of them.

00:25Number one is the choice of CPU.

00:27Now, you see most companies like Asus go for the AMD Ryzen Z1 Extreme.

00:32Whereas here, turns out that that's just not extreme enough for Acer.

00:37And they've gone for the Ryzen 7 8840HS.

00:41Now, why have they gone for this rocket ship?

00:43Personally, I don't know.

00:45But at the end of the day, with the 28 watt TDP, you can see frame rates of around about 70 frames a second in Shadow of the Tomb Raider.

00:54Which, to be fair, is pretty bonkers on a gaming handheld.

00:57Number two, while the 1080p IPS display sounds a bit standard on paper,

01:03what you're actually getting instead is a 144 hertz refresh rate,

01:08which is 20 more than you're seeing on a lot of the competition.

01:12Now, if you're there saying I'm the kind of person that can notice the difference between 120 and 144,

01:18I've got a bridge to sell you.

01:20But the faster the frame rates, the smoother the gameplay is, regardless.

01:26And number three is the way that Acer is trying to work around Windows 11 on these things.

01:31As my man Tony said in his Asus RG LIX review,

01:34Windows 11 absolutely sucks on a gaming handheld.

01:38And I'm trying to say that quietly because I am actually at E3.

01:43So when it comes to working your way around Windows 11 and the trackpad and everything,

01:47you realize that to do something as simple as open the keyboard,

01:51you're doing a multiple button shortcut to get there.

01:53Whereas here, you actually have a button in the bottom corner just to pop open the keyboard.

01:58Makes it a lot easier to get around Windows.

02:02Pricing is a big question mark at the moment.

02:04Acer hasn't said anything about that.

02:06Personally hoping for around about the $600 range, like every other gaming handheld,

02:12if they went into the LIX price, given the smaller battery on this thing,

02:17it makes me a little bit nervous, but we'll find out.

02:20So what are your thoughts?

02:21Head on down in the comments and let me know.

02:23If you want to see more of E3 2024, you can check us out on tomsguide.com.

02:27Don't forget to subscribe.

02:28I've been Jason England, and I'll speak to you in the next one.

02:42Transcribed by https://otter.ai

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