- Acer has launched the Nitro Blaze 8 and Blaze 11 handhelds.
- The new Blazes come with an improved display, and the 11-inch comes with detachable joysticks.
- The devices will be available in Q2 2025 and cost $899 and $1099.
The Steam Deck brought back gaming handhelds from the dead, and we’ve seen many manufacturers jump into the handheld train, including popular brands like ASUS and Lenovo. Acer, too, has a handheld and the firm has announced two new sizes of its existing Nitro Blaze. The bigger one is really peculiar.
The Nitro Blaze 8 and 11, as the names suggest, are 8.8-inch and 11-inch handhelds with the latter being the largest screens on handhelds yet. It has a whopping 10.95-inch display and looks almost comical in hands, almost as if you’re holding a pen tablet as a civil engineer on a construction site.
Weirdly, Acer mentions the Nitro Blaze 8 has a 144 Hz WQXGA display, whereas the one on the 11-inch is a 120 Hz display. that can reach 500 nits of brightness. Underneath is an AMD Ryzen 8840HS and Radeon 780M GPU, 16 GB LPDDR5X RAM, and is configurable up to 2 TB. One of the major upgrades on the 11-inch from the previous year’s Nitro Blaze 7 is the detachable joysticks. These are hall effect sticks and there’s also a front camera for video calling.
Software-wise, it runs Windows 11 but we wouldn’t be surprised if Acer releases a SteamOS version of the handheld in the upcoming months. Acer is also betting on Ryzen AI with the Nitro Blaze and claims should help enhance the overall gaming experience.
As for connectivity, both sizes feature 1 x USB4 Type-C. 1 x USB 3.2 Type-C, 1 x USB 3.2 Type-A, 1 x 3.5mm headphone jack, and a micro SD card slot. There’s also a fingerprint sensor integrated into the power button.
However, it’s disappointing to see that the bigger 11-inch variant features the same battery size as the 8-inch variant. Although, it does come with faster 100W (vs 65W on the 8-inch) charging speeds that’s not an excuse to not include a bigger cell.
Acer says the consoles will be available in Q2 2025 with the Blaze 11 starting at $1,099 and the Blaze 8 starting at $899.
What are your thoughts on the new Acer Nitro Blaze? Do you think it’s a very minor refresh from the Blaze 7 or would you be willing to upgrade to one of the new Blazes? Let us know in the comments.
