Zotac Zone 2 packs AMD’s latest AI processor into the best Steam Deck OLED competitor
Massive frame rate boosts with an Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 CPU upgrade
🎮 Zotac demos its prototype ‘Zone 2’ handheld with the latest AMD Ryzen 300 HX processor
⚙️ Features a more powerful gaming GPU with 32GB of RAM and 1TB of storage
📺 Retains Zotac’s original Zone’s alluring AMOLED screen and unique controls
📅 Zotac is targeting a launch for later this year after it increase the size of the battery
Zotac wowed us with its first Zone gaming handheld, and now the company is back with a newer model sporting AMD’s latest Strix Point processor with greater gaming performance.
The unofficially titled Zotac Zone 2 tested at CES 2025 was powered by a Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 processor with a whopping 32GB of memory and a 1TB SSD. That’s a much more modern processor than the original Zotac Zone’s AMD Ryzen 7 8840U Hawk Point processor. The RAM upgrade is especially huge and given our experience with the Asus ROG Ally X, more memory just adds more performance.
The new Ryzen AI 300-series processor gives the Zotac Zone 2 eight Zen 4 CPU cores and 12 RDNA 3 GPU compute units to play games with. Compared to the Ryzen 7 8840U, this new chip has four more CPU and GPU cores.
This translates into a nice bump-up in gaming FPS on the Zotac Zone 2. We got to play Black Myth Wukong on Zotac’s two handhelds side-by-side. The Zotac Zone was doing well, chugging along at ~40 fps, but the Zotac Zone 2 was locked in at 60 fps. We also saw Horizon Zero Dawn (not remastered) run at 50 fps.
We also asked Zotac if it might plan to switch or also integrate AMD’s new Z2 processors into the Zone 2, but the company said it was confident in going with a Strix point processor.
Zotac said the Zone 2 is close to launching later this year, but the company is still working on adding a larger battery first. The Zotac Zone 2 still packs the Zone’s original 48.5WHr battery. Aside from its new white color, the Zone 2 retains the same design and controls as Zotac’s original handheld. Not that’s a complaint, we loved this device’s wide range of hall-effect thumbsticks, thumbstick dials, dual trackpads, and adjustable triggers.
Of course, our favorite thing about the Zotac Zone 2 is that it still has a luxuriously vibrant 7-inch AMOLED screen. Outside of the Ayaneo Air, a future AMD Z2 Extreme-powered Lenovo Legion Go S, OLED screens haven’t seen much adoption in Windows handhelds. The Zotac Zone 2 seems like the best – and most powerful – direct alternative to the Steam Deck OLED.
We just hope it won’t cost too much. The current Zotac Zone already costs $749, and we can imagine that these upgrades might easily raise the price to over $800 or even $1000.
Kevin Lee is The Shortcut’s Creative Director. Follow him on Twitter @baggingspam.