Maybe giant gaming handhelds are where it’s at

If you thought the Steam Deck was big, let alone Acer’s Nitro Blaze 11, get a load of this Frankenstein’s monster of a PC gaming handheld I’ve cobbled together. This is a pre-production version of Asus’s upcoming ROG Flow Z13 tablet combined with a GameSir G8 Plus clamp-on mobile controller; the Z13’s AMD Strix Halo processor makes it probably the most powerful handheld gaming device you can play. That is, of course, until your hands cramp under its weight.

It’s utterly ridiculous, I love it, and I’m beginning to think big screens are the future.

I’m not the first to try this outlandish experiment, as I got the idea from Redditors who did something similar with an earlier version of the same tablet. But after trying it myself, I’m starting to rethink what gaming handhelds might possibly become. The freshly-announced Nintendo Switch 2 reportedly stretches its screen to eight inches, and Acer’s handheld turns it up to 11; maybe portability isn’t as important as a lethal dose of pixels straight into my eyes?

Let’s get one thing out of the way: you probably shouldn’t pair this specific controller and tablet like I did. The Z13 isn’t really designed to be clamped by a pair of controllers, and I had to overextend the GameSir G8 Plus to make it fit — it isn’t designed to work with anything bigger than an iPad Mini, and the hyperextended springs can aggressively snap shut if you accidentally dislodge the gamepad in use. The one time it happened to me, it missed my fingers, but it was a startlingly close call. Consider yourself warned.

Why risk my soft, bruise-easier-than-a-peach hands with such a setup? When I got my mitts on the Acer Nitro Blaze 11 at CES and compared it to the Steam Deck, I was instantly of two minds. The angel on my shoulder told me “This is entirely too big and, frankly, a little uncouth” while the devil on my other shoulder thought “Hell yeah! Plant me on the couch like I always do with my Steam Deck and let me burn my retinas with as much screen as I can hold!”

After some of you fine commenters seemed to agree with my wide-eyed sense of id on the latter, I realized the ROG Flow Z13 I’d been carting around the show floor could fulfill my fiendish desire.

This is obviously not a review — since the Flow Z13 is a pre-production unit — but the AMD Ryzen AI Max Plus 395 “Strix Halo” chip, with its 40 freaking graphics cores, ran circles around today’s gaming handhelds. I was able to play Helldivers 2 and Indiana Jones and the Great Circle with a mix of low and mid settings in the tablet’s native 2560 x 1600 resolution and easily maintain 50+ or 60+ fps in each, respectively. Could you do that with a laptop? Of course! But I just did it with an entire computer sandwiched between two gamepad halves.

I’ve spread a fair amount of “Managed Democracy” in Helldivers 2 on the Steam Deck, and while it’s certainly playable, you have to not mind this game looking like it’s from the PlayStation 3 era. It sings on the Z13 by comparison — at least until it’s drowned out by low battery warnings. I couldn’t sit too far from the power cable, as the Z13’s battery drained from 100 to 10 percent in around 90 minutes. But, frankly, that’s not terrible compared to an original Steam Deck, and perhaps downsizing to a more modest 1920 x 1200 resolution or lowering the chip’s TDP might help.

But what surprised me most was how okay I felt using Windows on this “handheld.” The jumbo-sized screen makes touch targets in Windows 11 actually tolerable. For the first time in the PC handheld space I didn’t instantly lament, “Boy does this thing need SteamOS or Bazzite.” I still might prefer those, but in this format I can live with Windows, especially since a tablet that also serves as a laptop and a handheld is an intriguing triple-threat. (It’s something I only currently see OneXPlayer attempting with its quirky X1 line.)

As for portability, well… this combination is definitely an acquired taste, as it weighs in at a hefty 3.6 pounds according to my kitchen scale, about 1.3 pounds heavier than Acer’s hefty Blaze 11 and a full 2.2 pounds more than a Steam Deck. It’s like holding two Steam Decks and a Nintendo Switch with attached Joy-Cons all in a single package.

Don’t even dream of playing this way in bed unless you intend on slipping into dreamland via a concussion, should the hefty tablet slide out of its controller bookends. You don’t even need gravity working against you to risk the tablet slipping out, as the overly stretched-out GameSir controllers can twist and pivot around the side rails of the Z13 while in use.

The large, sturdy kickstand of the Z13 does helps a whole lot with all this weight, letting you prop it up on your lap or a table for support. But if you plan to take this device anywhere but the couch, the clamp-on controllers aren’t entirely convenient; you’ll have to decide if your definition of “portability” involves a setup and breakdown process every time you move locations.

I’ll concede that despite how fun it’s been to try the Z13 in this way, it makes a whole lot more sense to just prop the tablet up on a table or desk and play with a traditional controller. The GameSir is not meant to hold this much weight, and after playing for a few hours straight I had some pain in both hands that would likely not happen with a larger gamepad purpose-built for this setup.

But this ridiculous little experiment showed me there’s definitely something to oversized handhelds. Maybe Acer’s Blaze 11 will just be the first foot in the door to a larger trend of stay-at-home handhelds, a market where Sony’s PlayStation Portal has already found its footing. If Asus ever put out proper controller add-ons for its Z13, sized and fitted to balance out its weight, perhaps the company could even sell it as a 13-inch handheld gaming PC.

I used to think the Switch or the Steam Deck were the ideal size, but after trying this jumbo-sized experiment and seeing that the Switch 2 will also be bigger than before, I’m comfortable saying there’s no perfect size for these devices. I’m excited to see all sizes of handhelds enter the space, even if they’re gigantic.

Photography by Antonio G. Di Benedetto / The Verge