Enter the Ring: Acer Nitro Blaze 7 Hands-On Review – Can it Set Gaming Handhelds Ablaze?

The gaming handheld wars are heating up, and Acer’s just thrown its hat into the ring with the Nitro Blaze 7. This thing looks like it could give the Steam Deck a run for its money, and maybe even outdo the Asus ROG Ally X. Let’s dive in and see what makes it tick.

The Blaze 7’s specs are solid, to say the least. You’re looking at a 7-inch 1080p IPS touchscreen with a variable refresh rate up to 144Hz, 2TB of PCIe SSD storage, and 16GB of LPDDR5x memory running at 7500MT/s. That’s some serious power for a handheld. And then there’s the AMD Ryzen 7 8840HS SoC, which is a step up from the Ryzen Z1 Extreme found in some other handhelds. It’s got a dedicated NPU for AI tasks, which could be a game-changer.

Design-wise, the Blaze 7 is a bit bulkier than the ROG Ally X, but it’s still got a comfortable shape and those ridged hand grips on the sides feel nice in the hand. The chassis is black plastic with white and red accents, which is a bit of a departure from the usual sleek and sexy designs we see in gaming hardware. But hey, it’s distinctive, and you’ll definitely know you’re playing on a Blaze 7.

Ports-wise, you’re looking at two USB4 ports, one on the top and one on the bottom, which is great for docking. The bottom port is even Thunderbolt 4, so you can get video output and power delivery. The battery is a respectable 50WHr, so you should be able to get some solid gaming time in before you need to plug it in.

One thing that’s missing is the back macro buttons you get on the ROG Ally. I personally never use those, but hey, some people might miss them. The rest of the buttons are standard dual-stick, control pad, and ABXY buttons, plus two triggers and two bumpers along the top of the device. You also get a power button with a built-in fingerprint reader, volume buttons, a view button, a menu button, a dedicated Acer Game Space button, a mode switch button, an Acer quick menu button, and – my personal favorite – a pop-up keyboard button.

Acer Game Space is an all-in-one solution for managing your game library across different apps and storefronts, and it works reasonably well. It’s just a shame that Windows 11 is still such a terrible platform for handheld gaming.

Heat-wise, the Blaze 7 gets a bit warm when playing demanding games like Shadow of the Tomb Raider, but it’s not anything you wouldn’t expect from a device that’s pushing some serious power.

In terms of performance, I didn’t get to run any benchmarks, but Acer had Shadow of the Tomb Raider running on the device, and it looked great. The frame rate was consistent, and the graphics were sharp and clear. I did notice a few stutters here and there, but that’s not uncommon for a handheld.

So, what’s the verdict? The Acer Nitro Blaze 7 looks like a solid performer, and it’s definitely got some nice features like that built-in keyboard button and the dedicated NPU for AI tasks. We’ll have to wait and see how it fares against the competition, but for now, it looks like a contender.