Acer has the Nitro Blaze range of handheld gaming PCs, including a variant that’s just for streaming games from another system. Now, what some may consider an upgrade, especially with the branding, has appeared, this comes in the form of the Predator Atlas 8. As with its Nitro cousins, the number here indicates the screen size, but there aren’t any other variants with different sizes. At least, not yet.
Speaking of the Nitro cousins, none of the Nitro Blaze models have made their way to our shores. With that likelihood in mind, I took the opportunity to get a quick feel of what it would be like to game on the Predator Atlas 8. As before, the caveat being that I only had much time as was socially acceptable to hog it during the showcase.
First impressions were great. The most obvious thing with the Predator Atlas 8 was that, relative to the competition, it was pretty light. Not as much as the streaming-only Acer Nitro Blaze Link, but definitely so compared to the handhelds of competitors. I can’t say for certain what the threshold is before you start feeling the weight on your wrists, but it’s probably more than 15 minutes. The better ergonomics also helps, but it’s probably not something you’d immediately notice.
As mentioned earlier, the 8 denotes the screen size. Beyond that, it’s a WUXGA (1,920 x 1,200 16:10) 120 Hz touch screen, and Corning Gorilla Glass Victus with DXC on top. The latter is meant to reduce glare, and for what it’s worth, it’s enough to make it so that you don’t see indoor lights reflected on the screen.
Acer has given the Predator Atlas 8 the brand new Intel Arc G3 Extreme processor and the Arc B390 integrated graphics. It’s a great fit, considering the latter was made for such devices, and with Forza Horizon 6 being the game on demo, the game was perfectly smooth. There was no FPS counter on, but it does look to be running a smooth and constant 60 fps. Having up to 24GB of RAM helps too, but it’s unclear what amount the demo units on the show floor actually had. Unfortunately, there was no opportunity to try other games here either.
Of course, being the more premium product, you get a bit of everything with the Predator Atlas 8. Hall Effect triggers, locks for said triggers, and extra buttons at the back. Well, one on each side. There’s even RGB lighting on the rings around the asymmetrical analogue sticks. And for whatever reason, they are slightly stiffer than those on the Nitro Blaze Link. Overall, this is probably the better implementation, that little bit of extra resistance helps with finer granular control.
But don’t let the rainbow show fool you – a rep tells me that despite the fancy lights and the fact that this would be a premium product, the analogue sticks don’t use magnetic tech. Which means no Hall Effect, and no TMR; just the old potentiometers. Which is a major bummer, especially if it starts drifting before the battery life starts obviously deteriorating.
The rest of the buttons on the Predator Atlas 8 feel mostly similar to the ones on the Acer Nitro Blaze Link. It’s not necessarily a bad thing, as there is sufficient feedback when pressed to actuation, even if they are likely to be membranes underneath each. But for whatever reason, only the d-pad on the likely pricier product feels slightly worse to press than the streaming device.
Then we get to its battery life, which is probably ]the hardest element to get a good read on. After all, during the showcase, the line to try out the Predator Atlas 8 was consistently the longest, and it spent about as much time unplugged as it did plugged in. So with all that in mind, I couldn’t tell you whether the up to 80 Wh battery lets it last more than two hours of intense gaming. I did see at one point that there was 5% of battery charge left at one point.
Of course, with Acer not yet revealing the price of the Predator Atlas 8, it remains to be seen if it can achieve a better price to value ratio as it did with its weight. That being said, as mentioned earlier, none of the handheld gaming PCs made by Acer have made it to our shores. Which leads to a pretty grim outlook as far as prospects of it being available locally goes.
