Sure thing, here goes:
—
Strolling around Computex 2025, Zotac’s booth kinda caught me off guard. Picture this: a shiny handheld gizmo sporting a 7-inch AMOLED screen. It’s like your eye’s best friend. And under the hood? AMD’s Ryzen AI HX 370 APU, part of their Strix Point lineup (doesn’t that sound fancy?). Curiously, they’re running Manjaro Linux instead of the usual Windows or SteamOS. The current name’s Zone 2—snazzy, eh?—but who knows if that’ll stick. Pricing or a drop date? Still a mystery.
Remember Zone 1? Popped out of nowhere last September. A throwback, powered by AMD Ryzen 7 8840U from back in December 2023. It’s kinda funny how Zotac’s in this slow-mo race; others just zoom by. Anyway, they teased Zone 2 at CES, now back at Computex, and it might launch… sometime this year (no rush, folks).
Inside this handheld marvel, we’ve got a Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 APU with 12 cores. The Radeon 890M (with a decent 12 CUs) iGPU joins the party. And, oh! A 50 TOPS NPU—sounds impressive, right? Zotac isn’t playing nice like others choosing the laid-back Ryzen Z2 Extreme; they’re going bold. You can choose between 24 or 32GB LPDDR5x RAM, plus there’s a 1TB SSD you can swap if you’re into tinkering.
Speaking of tangibles, the screen’s a stunner: 7 inches of 1080p AMOLED goodness, boasting a 120Hz refresh. A bight beacon at 800 nits, and yep, HDR included. Like a Nintendo Switch? Kinda—thanks to a built-in kickstand. Throw in two touchpads, some joystick fanciness (buzzword alert: hall-effect), and a quirky radial dial.
Running on a locked-down Manjaro Linux flavored with KDE Plasma 6 desktop—it’s a nod to Steam Deck, stuck in Proton’s game compatibility bubble. Multiplayer woes could happen (anti-cheat, ugh). Feel like a rebellious switch to Windows? Sure, knock yourself out.
Fuel-wise, a sturdy 48.5Wh battery keeps the fun going, mirroring Zone 1’s stamina. As for ports, there’s a microSD slot (UHS-II, folks), 3.5mm jack, and USB4 galore (hello, 40 Gbps speeds!). Connectivity? We’ve got WiFi 6E and Bluetooth 5.2. Peek at the back and you’ll spot extra buttons, trigger toggles, and a mesh for cooling (nifty, huh?). Keep an ear to the ground for more scoop when Zotac’s ready to spill the beans.
Also, don’t miss following Tom’s Hardware for… well, hardware stuff, obviously. Google News is your friend.
—
How was that for a chaotic ride? 😊
