Acer Nitro Blaze 7 hands-on: a small gaming handheld that's big on power
This latest gaming handheld is portable powerhouse
PC gaming handhelds have become well-established as a new product category and the latest to join in the ranks is Acer’s Nitro Blaze 7. This handheld comes in swinging differently like a left-handed batter with its laptop-grade AMD Ryzen 7 8840HS processor. It’s also a bit more compact despite using a 7-inch screen like other handhelds, so it feels more manageable as a portable system.
I’ve come away from early hands-on time impressed with its bright and vibrant IPS screen, plus some fantastic inputs, including tight thumbsticks and a decent D-Pad. The triggers leave a little more to be desired with their almost spring-less action. I’m also grateful the Blaze 7 is another handheld that will support variable refresh rates through FreeSync Premium to make handheld gaming frame rates smoother. We can’t wait to get the Acer Nitro Blaze 7 in for a full review.
Pros:
✅ 📺 Vibrant and bright 500-nit display looks almost like an OLED screen
✅ 🤏 Slightly smaller than other 7-inch handhelds
✅ 👍 Tight thumbsticks and responsive D-Pad feel great
✅ 🧈 FreeSync Premium helps smooth out variable refresh rates
Cons:
❌ 🔫 Almost-spring-less trigger action
❌ 🧠 512GB starting storage is low
❌ 🪫 51WHr battery could limit play time
👨🎤 Loud gamer aesthetic. Jet black paint with red and white highlights wrap up the Acer Nitro Blaze 7 in gaming laptop aesthetics I haven’t seen in over a decade and I love it. Gaming handhelds have almost been too clean and modern, so I love how this handheld’s louder design harkens back to the Game Gear to which it bears an unmistakable resemblance.
🤏 Delightfully compact. The Acer Nitro Blaze 7 is surprisingly compact and feels less like handling a small skate deck like the Asus ROG Ally X and Steam Deck OLED. While it features a 7-inch screen like those other handhelds, it feels noticeably narrower, largely thanks to its more petite grips. The controls almost barely fit onto either side of the console while there’s plenty of bare space around the controls on the Ally X. Now, I’m not saying the Blaze 7 feels cramped. Rather Acer has maximized its use of space on the handheld so it’s not any bigger than needed.
🕹️ Tight sticks, wimpy triggers. The controls on the Blaze 7 feel great for the most part too. You can feel plenty of resistance in the thumbsticks, which is a relief after struggling with Asus ROG Ally’s loose sticks for so long. The D-Pad is also large and seems to recognize diagonal inputs readily. Unfortunately, the triggers don’t feel like they have any spring behind them and it’s very disappointing as this is the only part of the controls that have hall-effect switches behind them.
⚙️ Laptop chip inside. Internally, the Blaze 7 is powered by an AMD Ryzen 7 8840HS chip meant for a traditional laptop. This chip’s underlying AMD Radeon 780M GPU is the same as those in the AMD Z1 Extreme, but it isn’t as narrowly focused on gaming. It’ll be interesting to see how well it performs for gaming, especially after GPD Win Mini utilized the same chip to deliver underwhelming performance for both gaming and regular laptop work.
📺 Gorgeous display. The Blaze 7’s display is colorful and bright, with a maximum brightness of 500-nits. Though it uses an IPS panel, its brightness and the glossy finish of the Full HD (1,920 x 1,080) screen reminded me of the vibrance I saw on the Zotac Zone and its AMOLED display. I’m hoping Acer will confirm its handheld can support HDR gaming soon, as it would give the Blaze 7 a definitive edge over many handhelds save for the Steam Deck OLED.
🔃 Free to Sync. The Blaze 7 supports a maximum refresh rate of 144Hz, but we saw nowhere near those numbers during our short hands-on time with the device at IFA. While playing Shadow of the Tomb Raider, the frame rate wildly fluctuates between 36 and 81 frames per second. Luckily, the Blaze 7 supports FreeSync Premium to smooth out any stuttering or other frame-rate hitches. I experienced a few dropped frames while Horizon Forbidden West hovered around ~40fps, but that’s something even FreeSync Premium can’t fix.
🐏 Fast memory. The Blaze 7 will come with fast LPDDR5x 7500 MT/s memory like the Asus ROG Ally X and MSI Claw 8 AI+. Unfortunately, it will only get 16GB of memory, while other systems are now shipping with 24GB.
🧠 Full storage (after upgrade). Acer also revealed that the Nitro 7’s base storage starts with a 512GB PCIe 4 module, but the system can support up to 2TB of PCIe 4.0 SSD storage. Luckily, Acer went with using 2280 M.2 SSDs for the Blaze 7, so it’s a tiny bit easier to upgrade its storage.
🔋 Mystery battery. The Blaze 7’s biggest mystery left unturned is battery life. While Acer hasn’t proposed any playtime estimates, we got the inside scoop it might use a 51WHr battery. On paper, that’s a little larger than the 40WHr battery of the original Asus ROG Ally and the 50WHr battery in the Steam Deck OLED. However, we still don’t know how efficient the system’s AMD Ryzen 7 8840HS chip will be with battery life.
📆 2024 release, price unknown? The Blaze 7 will be released by the end of this year but Acer didn’t confirm the exact timing for its handheld. Pricing is also a complete mystery but we’re hoping it will be competitively priced between $399-$799 as with other gaming handhelds from major manufacturers.
Kevin Lee is The Shortcut’s Creative Director and a gaming handheld aficionado. Follow him on Twitter @baggingspam.