\n<\/p>\n
Zotac already teased<\/a> that the Zone would have an OLED screen, something that only the Steam Deck OLED has managed in PC handhelds before \u2014 as well as two-stage adjustable triggers like an Xbox Elite gamepad and drift resistant Hall effect joysticks. But did you know it\u2019ll also have symmetrical PlayStation-esque joysticks, programmable dials around each one, twin Steam Deck-like trackpads, a small built-in kickstand, a Windows Hello camera instead of a fingerprint reader, and both top and bottom USB4 ports?<\/p>\n<\/div>\n The handheld\u2019s powered by an AMD Ryzen 7 8840U chip, and you shouldn\u2019t necessarily expect a lot from it \u2014 it\u2019s largely the same as the 7840U that powered prior handhelds, with the same Radeon 780M iGPU inside. But like the ROG Ally X and Lenovo Legion Go, it does upgrade to LPDDR5X-7500 memory, which seemingly gave the Legion a slight performance bump<\/a> over the original Ally \u2014 and at a more modest 1080p resolution. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n Less pleasingly, Zotac appears to have outfitted it with a modest 48.5 watt-hour battery pack as well, smaller than that of the Steam Deck OLED and vastly smaller than the 80Wh packs that Asus and MSI just announced \u2014 and its 7-inch 120Hz OLED screen doesn\u2019t support variable refresh rate<\/a> any more than the Steam Deck\u2019s one did. It does sound nice and bright at 800 nits, however, and I\u2019m intrigued by the programmable jog dials.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n As you may know<\/a>, Zotac was one of the first companies to try AirJet\u2019s intriguing solid-state cooling tech in a mini-PC, and PCWorld<\/em>\u2019s Adam Murray took the opportunity to ask if Zotac was planning to use the tech in a handheld, too. But while AirJet maker Frore Systems seems to think it\u2019d work<\/a>, Zotac suggested the current AirJet isn\u2019t yet designed to cool chips as high wattage as the 8840U \u2014 and that cost might also be a concern. For now, the Zone has a single traditional fan and a couple of smallish vents to help keep it cool.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n