No gaming handheld has been able to challenge the Steam Deck on both price and performance, and this streak looks set to continue with the Zotac Zone price, which has now been confirmed as $799.
Time will tell whether the Zotac Zone can make a name for itself as one of the best handheld gaming PCs, but launching at the same price as the Asus ROG Ally X is far from ideal. Asus already had skin in the game, and a big brand reputation, prior to the release of the Ally. Zotac, however, is starting from scratch in this market.
To many, it won’t matter that the Zotac Zone is packing an AMD Ryzen 7 8840U APU or 1080p, 120Hz AMOLED display. All they’ll see is the sky-high $799 price tag, and maybe the Windows operating system, both of which are big detractors.
Just last week, Valve announced that SteamOS is preparing to launch on the Asus ROG Ally. This is a bold move that has generated a lot of interest in the future Asus handheld. This is only bad news for the Zone, which will limp behind based on its operating system.
Ignoring the Steam Deck’s far more attractive price for both the LCD and OLED models, the Asus ROG Ally X, also priced at $799, poses a massive headache for the Zotac Zone. Both share similar APU power with eight cores and 16 threads at up to 5.1GHz and work off AMD’s Zen4 and RDNA 3 architecture.
Throw in the fact that the Zone has a much smaller battery, 48.5Wh compared to 80Wh, and just 16GB of LPDDR5X-7500 RAM against the 24GB in the Ally X, and the $799 price of the Zone becomes all the more puzzling. The only unique headline feature the Zone has left is its AMOLED display, but it’s hard to say right now whether that’s worth the price parity with Asus.
We were incredibly impressed with this new handheld when we went hands-on for our Zotac Zone preview, but despite its strong showing, this price decision might be too much for it to overcome in an already competitive market.
When the Zotac Zone is released, you can check out our list of the best Steam Deck games to find titles that run great on handheld devices. You can also keep up with all our Gamescom coverage for the latest game and tech reveals live from Germany.
