Introduction
Zotac, primarily recognized for their graphics cards, has been branching out into other product categories in recent years. They offer a variety of mini PCs, and their latest venture has led them into the realm of PC gaming handhelds. Today, we’re testing the Zotac Zone, Zotac’s first gaming handheld. This device introduces several innovations to the Windows gaming handheld market, such as an HDR OLED display, adjustable triggers, and dual radial dials for adjusting settings like screen brightness, audio volume, and RGB.
The Zone is based on AMD’s Ryzen 7 8840U APU, consisting of an 8-core/16-thread Zen 4 CPU and a Radeon 780M GPU. You’re also getting 16 GB of LPDDR5X memory, 512 GB of PCIe 4.0 SSD storage, and a UHS-II microSD card slot. Other goodies worth mentioning include dual trackpads and a built-in kickstand. While the 7-inch OLED display is the star of the show, the Zone is much more than just a pretty OLED face, as you’ll see on the following pages. Before we move on, we’d like to thank Zotac for providing the review sample.
| Specifications | |
|---|---|
| Model: | Zotac Zone |
| Dimensions: | 285 x 115 x 35 mm |
| Weight: | 692 g |
| Display: | 7 inch, 1920×1080, 120 Hz OLED |
| Variable Refresh Rate: | No |
| Processor: | AMD Ryzen 7 8840U Hawk Point |
| Integrated Graphics: | AMD Radeon 780M RDNA 3 |
| Memory: | 16 GB LPDDR5X 7500 MT/s |
| Storage: | 512 GB M.2 2280 NVMe PCIe Gen 4 x4 SSD UHS-II microSD slot |
| Battery: | 48.5 Wh, 3-cell Li-ion 65 W PD GaN Charger |
| Audio: | Built-in microphone Built-in speakers 3.5 mm audio jack |
| Connectivity: | 2x USB4 ports |
| Wi-Fi: | Intel Wi-Fi 6E AX210 Bluetooth 5.2 |
| Cooling: | Active cooling (heatsink/fan) |
| Operating System: | Windows 11 Home |
| MSRP: | $799 / €849 |
| Miscellaneous: | 6-axis gyro Lanyard tie-point 1.0MP front camera Hall Effect thumbsticks and triggers 2x Trackpads 2x Programmable Grip buttons |