If you’ve never heard of the SMACH Z portable gaming console, don’t worry. You’re not alone in this. What you should know is that the people responsible for its creation are prepping to put it into production, sometime in early 2019.
The SMACH Z first came on to the scene back in 2016. Back then, the hardware used in the device’s alpha build comprised a non-Ryzen SoC and Radeon R7 GPU inside.
Design-wise, the SMACH Z looks a lot like what would happen if a Steam controller and a mobile phone were to have a child. The console features an analog stick on the left, the traditional four-buttons combination on the bottom right, and haptic touchpads on both sides. Like all modern controllers, there’s also four trigger buttons that sit at the top of the device.
The haptic touchpads are also customisable with what the brand calls Z-Pads. Judging from the animation on its official page, most of the Z-Pad designs also pay homage to the controls of other video game consoles, such as the SNES, Nintendo 64 and Sega Genesis.
Specs-wise, the “final” device sports a 6-inch Full HD touch display, an AMD Ryzen Embedded V1000 processor, up to 8GB DDR4-2133 RAM, up to a 128GB M.2 SSD, and a integrated Vega GPU with eight Compute units. In terms of ports, the SMACH Z features a USB Type-C, one USB Type-A, a micro USB port, one DisplayPort, and SD Card slot, and an 3.5mm microphone and headphone jack combo.
Out of the box, the SMACH Z’s creators says that the handheld console is capable of playing just about any game, either independently or via a client. Including Steam, GOG, Origin, Battle.net, and UPlay to name a few.
The SMACH Z is available in three variations; a normal SMACH Z with 4GB RAM and 64GB M.2 SSD, a Pro version that offers 8GB RAM, a 128GB M.2 SSD and 5MP camera, and an Ultra version that comes with 16GB RAM, a 256GB M.2 SSD, and the same 5MP camera as the Pro. The official SRP for each variant are US$699 (~RM2930), US$899 (~RM3768), and US$1099 (~RM4607).
If reading this has enticed you into ordering the SMACH Z, you may want to do it right now. As the parent company is offering a 10% discount off all console variants, bringing the prices down to US$629.10 (~RM2637), US$809.10 (~RM3391), and US$989.10 (~RM4146) for the SMACH Z, SMACH Z Pro, and SMACH Z Ultra respectively.
(Source: SMACH Z via Hot Hardware)
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