After making its grand entrance at Computex, the Zotac Zone is finally available for pre-order. This is just the latest competitor attempting to dethrone the Steam Deck OLED and ROG Ally X, but it carries the same price tag as ASUS’ offering. The difference here is that the Zone is powered by the AMD Ryzen 7 8840U while sporting a 7-inch AMOLED display.
This alone puts it on par with the likes of the OneXPlayer 2 Pro, GPD Win 4 2024, Ayaneo Flip, and others. However, along with the 8840U, Zotac is pairing the Zone with 16GB of RAM and 512GB of storage. Thankfully, Zotac opted to rely on the more traditional 2280 NVMe form factor, as opposed to the 2230. This means that it should be easy and cheap to upgrade the storage when you inevitably bump up against the included 512GB SSD.
Zotac Zone Specs
- Display: 7-inch AMOLED, FHD (1920 x 1080), 120Hz
- Processor: AMD Ryzen 7 8840U
- Graphics: AMD Radeon 780M
- RAM: 16GB LPDDR5X
- Storage: 512GB M.2 NVMe 2280
- I/O: 3.5mm Headphone Jack, 2x USB-4 w/ DisplayPort 1.4 & Power Delivery 3.0, UHS-II microSD Card Reader
- Connectivity: Wi-Fi 6E, Bluetooth 5.2
- Battery: 48.5Wh
- Extras: Built-in Front Camera, 2-Stage Adjustable Triggers, Radial Dials, Dual Touch Pads
- Dimensions: 310 x 135 x 40mm
- Weight: 700g
Another potential benefit of the Zotac Zone is that along with the Hall Effect Triggers and Joysticks, we have dual touch pads, much like the Steam Deck. This offers a much easier experience when trying to navigate and use Windows than something like the ROG Ally X.
Zotac even went so far as to include a selfie camera, which can come in quite handy if you want to use the Zone for streaming. You could also use it as a webcam for video calls if you want to turn the Zone into your desktop computer at home.
Currently, there is only one configuration set to be released, and it’s priced at $799. This is the same as the ROG Ally X, but again, the Zone sports a newer processor and an AMOLED display. Although we’re still waiting for Zotac to make the listing live, it seems that we’ll be able to pick up the Zone from a few different retailers, including Amazon, B&H Photo, Newegg, and Micro Center.
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