The Acer Nitro Blaze 11 is an iPad-sized gaming handheld
Acer announces a bigger pair of gaming handhelds at CES 2025
🎮 Acer introduces a new pair of gaming handhelds, the Nitro Blaze 8 and Nitro Blaze 11
🖼️ Both feature 2,560 x 1,600 screens in 8- and 11-inch sizes
⚙️ Powered by AMD Ryzen 7 8840HS with 16GB of RAM and up to 2TB of storage
📅 Available soon in Q2 2025 for $899 (Nitro Blaze 8) and $1,099 (Nitro Blaze 11)
I didn’t think there would be a gaming handheld bigger than the Lenovo Legion Go, but here I am with Acer’s new 11-inch Nitro Blaze 11.
It’s literally a tablet-sized gaming handheld screen with two controllers strapped to the side of it. It thankfully has a built-in kickstand so you can rest it on a tabletop, but this XL-sized gaming handheld feels surprisingly light.
All of the Acer Nitro Blaze 11’s controls also feel fine, and you can detach them from the system like a Nintendo Switch OLED. Acer also plans to introduce a controller grip that lets you join the two halves into a single controller, again like joy-cons.
As versatile as the detachable controllers make the Nitro Blaze 11, the actual control layout is identical to its smaller brother, the Acer Nitro Blaze 8. It seems like a missed opportunity to give the Nitro Blaze 11 even more controls or something like a trackpad to make it more comfortable to use as a large PC tablet.
The Acer Nitro Blaze 11’s technically 10.95-inch offers a lot of screen real-estate for anyone tired of squinting at their Asus ROG Ally X or Steam Deck screen. It looks nice and sharp with a 2,560 x 1,600 WQXGA resolution. The IPS display is also bright and colorful with up to 500 nits of brightness, and the frame rate caps out at 120fps.
It’s doubtful that it’ll ever hit that frame rate cap at its maximum 2K resolution, as the handheld is powered by an AMD Ryzen 7 8840HS laptop processor with AMD Radeon 780M. It’s curious Acer went with the Ryzen 7 laptop processor instead of the freshly announced AMD Z2 line. Acer declined it has any plans to utilize AMD’s new gaming handheld chip in the near future.
The Acer Nitro Blaze 11 will be available in the second quarter of 2025 – which should be between April and June. It’s set to start at $1,099, but maxed-out SKUs with up to 16GB of memory and 2TB of storage are likely to be more expensive.
Acer Nitro Blaze 8
Not to be confused with the Acer Nitro Blaze 7, the Nitro Blaze 8 offers a slightly larger screen and more ergonomic design than Acer’s first gaming handheld.
The Acer Nitro Blaze 8 features largely the same specs as the Nitro Blaze 11 including the AMD Ryzen 7 8840HS processor and 16GB of RAM. The system’s 8.8-inch display is also IPS, WQXGA (2560 x 1600), and 500 nits bright, while reaching an even higher 144Hz frame rate.
The Acer Nitro Blaze 8 will also be released in the second quarter of 2025 for a $899 starting price.
Kevin Lee is The Shortcut’s Creative Director. Follow him on Twitter @baggingspam.