At CES 2025, Acer revealed not one, but two more variants to the Acer Nitro Blaze handheld gaming PCs.
Joining the Acer Nitro Blaze 7 is the Acer Nitro Blaze 8 and Nitro Blaze 11. As the name implies, the Nitro Blaze 8 has a 8.8-inch display, while the Nitro Blaze 11 has a 10.95-inch screen.
Specs-wise, it’s not an upgrade from the previously released Nitro Blaze, however. Similar to the Blaze 7, the new Nitro Blaze 8 and Nitro Blaze 11 rock an AMD Ryzen 7 8400HS CPU with Radeon 780M graphics, with access to AMD FSR for upscaling.
It comes in 16GB of LPDDR5X RAM and up to 2TB of PCIe Gen 4 NVMe storage.
The controller attached to the Nitro Blaze 8 and Blaze 11 use Hall effect sticks and triggers rather than potentiometers. So it’s unlikely these will wear out and face drifting issues.
And the larger screens still maintain 144Hz refresh rate. Though they are at a larger resolution and a different aspect ratio: 2560×1600, 16:10.
The Nitro Blaze handheld PCs runs Windows 11, and come with three months subscription to PC Game Pass.
Most of these handheld gaming PCs (or portable gaming PCs) have a screen size of around 7 inches. The Steam Deck is at 7.4 inches. The ROG Ally and MSI Claw are at 7 inches. So the Nitro Blaze 8 is closer to the chonkier portables like the Legion Go (8.8 inches).
Whereas the Nitro Blaze 11 is a whole other thing. It’s three inches short from the current small laptop form factor (14 inches). And it’s twice the screen size of a Nintendo Switch (6.2 inches). It weighs about a kilogram (1.05kg), it’s an absolute unit for what supposed to be a handheld gaming PC. And it has a few other features the rest of the Blazes lack, like a front camera, a built-in stand and detachable controllers.
The Acer Nitro Blaze 8 and Nitro Blaze 11 will be available in Q2 2025 for North America and EMEA regions. No word yet whether the devices will enter Malaysia, even the first Nitro Blaze 7 haven’t been released here yet.