Acer Nitro Blaze 11, Nitro Blaze 8 gaming handhelds announced

Acer has announced two new gaming handhelds ahead of CES 2025. The Acer Nitro Blaze 11 and the Nitro Blaze 8 come with an upgraded hardware and feature larger screens. The former has the largest screen in any gaming handheld device yet, making it one of its kind.

The new Nitro Blaze handhelds rival Asus’ ROG Ally X, among other gaming handhelds. Let’s see the specifications, features, and price of Acer’s newest lineup of handhelds.

What’s special about the new Acer Nitro Blaze handhelds?

This time around, Acer has gone up a notch and offered a massive handheld in the form of the Nitro Blaze 11. The device features a large 10.95-inch display, which is way bigger than the usual screen size of handheld consoles.

While it may not sound that big, its overall form factor is wider, like a large tablet. Having said that, you’ll have to carry it in a backpack, unlike some handhelds that can also fit in your pockets. But there’s also the Nitro Blaze 8, which is smaller at 8.8 inches, but still larger than last year’s Nitro Blaze 7.

The screens on both models top out at 500 nits, ensuring there’s proper visibility in bright environments. The display has a 2560 x 1600 pixels resolution and 144Hz refresh rate for gaming. It also has AMD’s FidelityFX Super Resolution support.

Powering the handheld device is an AMD Ryzen 7 8840HS processor paired with Radeon 780M GPU. The device has 16GB of LPDDR5x RAM and up to 2TB of M.2 NVMe Gen 4 SSD to store all your games.

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The larger Nitro Blaze 11 comes with detachable controls and a built-in kickstand. It also features the Hall Effect joysticks and two back buttons. As you’d guess, the controls of the Nitro Blaze 8 aren’t detachable since it has a smaller footprint.

The handheld device boots on Windows 11 Home operating system and comes with 3 months of free PC Game Pass subscription. As for connectivity, there’s 1x USB 4 Type-C port, 1x USB 3.2 Type-C port, and 1x USB 3.2 Type-A port. It also has an SD card slot for extra storage.

As for the battery, the handhelds pack a 55Wh battery with 100W fast charging support on the Nitro Blaze 11. The Nitro Blaze 8 gets 65W fast charging support.

Coming to the price and availability, the Nitro Blaze 11 is priced at $1,099 (about Rs 94,200), whereas, the Nitro Blaze 8 costs $899 (about Rs 77,000). Both gaming handhelds will be available for purchase in select markets, like North America, from Q2 of this year.