A year or two ago, gaming handhelds were the most exciting, fastest-growing segment in the PC market. So exciting that Acer announced a couple of models that I’m not sure ever actually landed at retail. But in 2026, as memory and storage shortages cripple the consumer PC market, things are a lot more complicated — just ask Valve. Acer’s back at Computex 2026, announcing a fresh gaming handheld based on Intel’s new G3 gaming chip.
The Acer Predator Atlas 8 is the first of Acer’s handhelds (however many there are) to get the flagship Predator sub-brand, as opposed to the more mid-range or budget Nitro Blaze series. To be perfectly honest, the most interesting thing in there is the chip, the new Intel Arc G3 Extreme, based on Panther Lake/Core Ultra 3. This is Intel’s first custom-made chip for handhelds, an alternative to AMD’s Ryzen Z series.
The Arc G3 Extreme features Arc B390-level integrated graphics, at least according to Intel, with the non-Extreme version stepping down slightly to Arc B370. The G3 Extreme has two performance cores, eight efficiency cores, and four low-power E-cores. The non-Extreme version has two fewer cores (likely six efficiency cores). The integrated B390/B370 graphics can handle up to Intel XeSS 3 upscaling.
Acer
How is Intel going to do with a chip designed specifically for PC gaming handhelds, presumably those running Windows? How will the performance and battery life compare to a dozen or so AMD versions? The only Intel gaming handhelds we’ve seen from a major vendor before was from the underwhelming MSI Claw series. I’d love to get my hands on the Atlas 8, if you’ll pardon the pun, and try out a little Dead as Disco.
The rest of the handheld is, well, a handheld. It’s using an 8-inch, 1200p IPS screen with 120Hz refresh rate, and it has “up to” 24GB of RAM (I feel a pain in my wallet) and 1TB of gen 4 storage. You’ll get hall effect analog triggers, though there’s no mention of that anti-drift tech on the dual analog sticks. It’s got all the standard controls plus two extra rear buttons and adjustable steps for the triggers, like most premium controllers have these days.
Acer
The internals are also pretty standard. You get a beefy 80 watt-hour battery, which is huge for a device that’s under a kilogram… but some models (presumably the cheaper ones) will get a 60 watt-hour battery. Actual life will probably depend on Intel’s tuning of that chip, and how much Microsoft can improve Windows 11, more than actual physical capacity. There is some serious cooling going on, with both a plastic fan and one with a “Predator AeroBlade” metal one. You get two Thunderbolt 4 USB-C ports, a MicroSD card slot, and Killer Wi-Fi 7. Other than that, it’s pretty standard for handhelds.
Acer says this is going to go on sale in October. And boy, does four months feel like a long, long time from now.
Acer
Valve just brought the Steam Deck back after three months of absence, with a price now starting at almost $800. Assuming that this new Acer Predator handheld will be on the premium side of things, at least in the Extreme package, I’d say that the Legion Go 2 is the more comparable device…and with a bunch of price increases, that’s now in the $1500-2000 range. We’ve now fully abandoned the idea that handhelds are an affordable alternative to a conventional PC gaming setup.
There is a market for high-end PC gaming handhelds, bumping against (or sometimes fully crossing over into) the territory of gaming laptops. But is it enough for the now very crowded market, where Valve, Asus, Lenovo, Acer, and a bunch of others are competing? Is there even enough for both Intel and AMD to have dedicated chip lines?
Considering how chaotic this year has been, I think it would be foolish to predict much of anything this far out — and I wouldn’t be surprised to see that October target slip a little.
