Embiggened.
While others at PC Gamer have been extolling the virtues of their Steam Decks, I’ve held off on shelling out for a PC gaming handheld for one main reason: None of the gaming handhelds on the market are big enough to double as an impromptu charcuterie board. Luckily, at CES 2025, Acer just unveiled the Nitro Blaze 11—an upcoming gaming handheld hellbent on stretching the boundaries of the word “portability.”
The Nitro Blaze 11 features a 10.95-inch, 144 Hz WQXGA screen, which conveniently gives the device the necessary proportions for acting as a serviceable eye shield if you find your gaming session interrupted by an unexpected flashbang grenade. According to the press release, the veritable slab of allegedly-portable computing is powered by a Ryzen 8040 processor, a Radeon 780M GPU, and 16 GB of LPDDR5x RAM. And with up to 2 TB of storage, it can be big on the inside, too.
While it’s comforting to know that the Nitro Blaze 11 will have a passing chance at returning a tennis serve should the need arise, I am concerned about how my wrists will feel after an hour of supporting its 1050g weight. That’s roughly 2.3 pounds—more than one and a half times the weight of a Steam Deck OLED, and more than three times the weight of a Nintendo Switch. Thankfully, it’s got detachable controllers and a Switch-style kickstand, sparing my wrists the pain of my advancing carpal tunnel and my loved ones the pain of having to wonder, “Why on Earth is he holding that?”
The Nitro Blaze 11 will cost $1100 when it releases some time in Q2 2025. If you’re interested in the same internal specs in a form factor less capable of bludgeoning a low-flying bird, it’ll release alongside the Nitro Blaze 8: a smaller sibling handheld with an 8.8-inch screen and a $900 price tag.
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