Acer unveils the comically huge Nitro Blaze 11, a gaming handheld more than three times the weight of a Nintendo Switch

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Embiggened.

A man smiling as he gazes into the yawning abyss of his massive Acer Nitro Blaze 11.
(Image credit: Acer)

While others at PC Gamer have been extolling the virtues of their Steam Decks, I've held off on shelling out for a PC gaming handheld for one main reason: None of the gaming handhelds on the market are big enough to double as an impromptu charcuterie board. Luckily, at CES 2025, Acer just unveiled the Nitro Blaze 11—an upcoming gaming handheld hellbent on stretching the boundaries of the word "portability."

The Nitro Blaze 11 features a 10.95-inch, 144 Hz WQXGA screen, which conveniently gives the device the necessary proportions for acting as a serviceable eye shield if you find your gaming session interrupted by an unexpected flashbang grenade. According to the press release, the veritable slab of allegedly-portable computing is powered by a Ryzen 8040 processor, a Radeon 780M GPU, and 16 GB of LPDDR5x RAM. And with up to 2 TB of storage, it can be big on the inside, too.

While it's comforting to know that the Nitro Blaze 11 will have a passing chance at returning a tennis serve should the need arise, I am concerned about how my wrists will feel after an hour of supporting its 1050g weight. That's roughly 2.3 pounds—more than one and a half times the weight of a Steam Deck OLED, and more than three times the weight of a Nintendo Switch. Thankfully, it's got detachable controllers and a Switch-style kickstand, sparing my wrists the pain of my advancing carpal tunnel and my loved ones the pain of having to wonder, "Why on Earth is he holding that?"

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Lincoln Carpenter
Lincoln Carpenter
News Writer

Lincoln has been writing about games for 12 years—unless you include the essays about procedural storytelling in Dwarf Fortress he convinced his college professors to accept. Leveraging the brainworms from a youth spent in World of Warcraft to write for sites like Waypoint, Polygon, and Fanbyte, Lincoln spent three years freelancing for PC Gamer before joining on as a full-time News Writer in 2024, bringing an expertise in Caves of Qud bird diplomacy, getting sons killed in Crusader Kings, and hitting dinosaurs with hammers in Monster Hunter.