Far from Steam Deck, ROG Ally and Legion Go, Pocket Go takes a different approach to the portable console.
Mainly known for its smartphones, Chinese brand Tecno Mobile has decided to enter the handheld console market in order to broaden its spectrum. The problem is that, even though the market is still very young, it already boasts a number of competitors, some of whom have some pretty strong arguments. For example, the Steam Deck is backed by Valve and its Steam service, the number-one platform for PC game sales. The ROG Ally benefits from the power and expertise of ASUS, a well-known brand in the world of PC components. Finally - to mention just a few models - Lenovo's Legion Go is inspired by the Nintendo Switch, with its detachable controllers.
Tecno Mobile
To survive, Tecno Mobile has decided to innovate, and it was at the Mobile World Congress currently taking place in Barcelona (February 26-29) that the Chinese brand unveiled its project. Called Pocket Go, the console innovates by integrating one of the latest processors, AMD's Ryzen 7 8840HS APU. A very powerful processor with 8 Zen 4 cores and 12 RDNA 3 processing units. It's backed up by 16 GB of LPDDR5 RAM and a rather hefty 1 TB PCI Express Gen 4 SSD - components whose intricacies we don't know, but which should ensure good performance from the "beast". That said, this is not the way to stand out from the crowd.
Tecno Mobile has therefore gone one step further by completely revisiting the display concept. Rather than integrating an LCD or even OLED panel, as on the latest version of the Steam Deck, the Pocket Go simply comes with augmented reality goggles. Two 0.71-inch micro-OLED screens are present at eye level, and Tecno Mobile assures us that the sensation is the same as if we had a 215-inch screen six meters away from us. Tecno Mobile obviously insists on the immersive aspect of such a solution, while connection with the controller's built-in console is via a USB-C cable. Does this mean that the glasses could be used on another device? Tecno Mobile says so, talking about connecting them to a smartphone, for example.
Tecno Mobile
Alas, we won't know much more for the moment, and we have no details, for example, on the image definition of the screens or on the autonomy of the whole set. We also need to be able to judge the comfort of both eyes/head and hands, while Tecno Mobile does not specify the weight of the whole package. That's still a lot of questions, and we've saved the most important ones for last, since despite the presentation at Barcelona, Tecno Mobile has yet to announce a launch date or price. What remains is a devilishly intriguing concept.
