Yesterday Acer announced the Predator Atlas 8, one of the very first handheld gaming PCs with Intel’s new Arc G3 chip at its heart. At the time I noted that the previous Acer handhelds were released under the Nitro sub-brand… but budget handhelds aren’t really a thing in 2026. There is, in fact, a new Nitro handheld coming. But it’s basically a PC version of the PlayStation Portal.
The Nitro Blaze Link is a gadget that looks almost identical to the original Asus ROG Ally, but it’s exclusively for streaming games from a nearby PC. So, yeah, essentially the PlayStation Portal without the Sony branding, or something like the Logitech G Cloud without Android. Or is it? I don’t know what software the Nitro Blaze Link is running — Acer isn’t saying — but it’s “built for flexible play around your space.”
The gadget is about half the weight of other PC gaming handhelds at 464 grams (just a hair over one pound), about the same weight as the original Nintendo Switch. It’s packing a 7-inch, 1920×1200 touchscreen, standard Xbox-style controls (no rear paddles), and a headphone jack if you don’t want to use the 2-watt speakers. You’ll need to connect to a gaming PC over Wi-Fi 6 for “low-latency play.”
There’s a lot we don’t know about the Nitro Blaze Link. Will the streaming software be proprietary, and limited to Acer-branded laptops and desktops? Or will you get access to Steam streaming, GeForce Now, Xbox Game Pass, et cetera? Will the device run Android like the aforesaid Logitech, so you can load it up with some local mobile games or emulators? Yo no se. The early promotional material calls this a “a streaming-first handheld and companion device that extends the capabilities and reach of an existing PC gaming setup, without the hardware overhead of local processing.”
But the most crucial element for me is the price. If it lacks any of those options, I’d have very little reason to pick this up over any number of Android-powered handhelds that can do all of the above. A quick search shows that you can get a 7-inch Android gaming handheld for around $250, so Acer will have to offer the Nitro Blaze Link for considerably less, or bump up its capabilities to match.
Maybe that low hardware overhead means it can be cheap — no need for ruinously expensive RAM or storage, the culprits behind insane PC handheld prices — but that’s also the point of the PlayStation Portal. Which is $250. Hmm. We’ll find out in “Q4 2026.”
