The trend for portable hybrid PC consoles continues unabated, and a new player has even entered the scene.
Many companies are keen to follow in the footsteps of Valve and its Steam Deck, which spawned a new market when it was released just over two years ago. Whether ASUS, Lenovo or MSI, they have all tried to replicate the success of Steam Deck, albeit with a subtle twist. All these companies have put their trust in Microsoft and its Windows 11, while Valve relies on its own Linux-derived operating system, SteamOS. Newcomer Zotac is no exception to this "rule", and its Zone console will in turn be delivered with Windows 11.
Presented at Gamescom 2024 in Cologne, which has just closed its doors, the Zone is a portable console that takes up all the standards of the genre, with, in particular, this disctinctive format "imposed" on all by Valve: the console is horizontal, with the controls separated into two parts placed on either side of the screen. With regard to these controls, Zotac has tried to innovate, or rather, to take up what has made Valve so successful, with two touchpads on each side, when, at best, Windows 11 rivals only offer one.
© Zotac
That said, Zotac's biggest change to the handheld console recipe concerns the screen. Instead of an IPS panel, an AMOLED screen is used, as Valve did with the second version of its Steam Deck. The image should be much more beautiful, colors more faithful and blacks deeper. The problem is that this asset for the Zone comes with a few shortcomings. Indeed, Zotac has opted "only" for 16 GB of LPDDR5X memory, a 512 GB SSD and a 48.5 Wh battery. Specifications that were good enough last year.
VideoCardz compares the most popular consoles © VideoCardz
But then, in recent months, the technical specifications of portable consoles have evolved, and while ASUS still makes do with an IPS screen on the ROG Ally X released last June, it has equipped its machine with 24 GB of LPDDR5X for extra capacity, whereas on these machines, video memory has to be "created" by taking part of the system memory. ASUS has also opted for double the SSD capacity (1TB) and a much larger battery (80 Wh) for greater autonomy. All this, for a price that's virtually identical to that of the Zotac Zone: $799 in both cases and 849 euros for the Zone, while the ROG Ally X is priced at 899 euros.
For users, the difficulty will therefore be to decide between a console with a superb screen and practical touchpads (the Zotac Zone) or a machine that may be a little less well-endowed in this respect (the ROG Ally X), but with higher-capacity RAM, a more comfortable SSD and an impressive battery, so that the term "portable" can be applied for a little longer. Make your move!
