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It feels like about time that we get some new and exciting handhelds, don't you think? Yesterday, Intel announced new Panther Lake chips designed specifically for handhelds, called the Arc G-Series (Arc G3 and G3 Extreme), and while we've already seen MSI's expensive Claw offering featuring one of the new chips, Acer has now also sprung one on us in the form of the Predator Atlas 8.
To my eyes and noggin, it seems very much like the Lenovo Legion Go S in design, which isn't a bad thing at all because that handheld is very comfy.
The new Acer even shares the exact same screen specs: 8 inches, 1900 x 1200 resolution, VRR support, 120 Hz max refresh rate, and 500 nits of peak brightness. And again, that's no bad thing at all because the screen on the Legion Go S is just about perfect for a handheld, in my opinion—well, perfect excluding an OLED.
So how about differentiators? Well, the most important differences will, I think, come primarily of course from the new G3 and G3 Extreme processors, but also from the battery. The latter is rated to 80 Wh, which is great for a handheld and matches the Asus ROG Xbox Ally X, which holds its juice for an impressive amount of time.
Combine that with a new Panther Lake chip, though, and we'll hopefully have a handheld that can stay awake for a very long time. Acer SVP and GM Jim Johnson mentions the handheld's "exceptional battery life", and I'm cautiously optimistic about that actually being the case, though our previous tests with Panther Lake had it pretty neck-and-neck with previous-gen Lunar Lake on the battery efficiency front, so we'll see. Intel's Lunar Lake was already good on that front anyway, I suppose.
One possible downside is that the handheld will be quite heavy. If you get the version with a 60 Wh battery, you're looking at "under 770 g", and if you go the whole hog with an 80 Wh battery, it'll be "under 810 g." For reference, the ROG Xbox Ally X weighs 715 g for the version with an 80 Wh battery.
The new Acer handheld also has an 'AeroBlade' fan, which the company says is the "first metal fan in a handheld" and delivers up to a 10% increase in airflow compared to a plastic fan.
The Predator Atlas 8 will offer a maximum of 1 TB of storage, and it will max out at 24 GB of RAM rather than 32 GB. That limitation is a little more acute with handhelds, too, given that memory will be shared between the system and the GPU. Still, 24 GB should be more than enough for handheld gaming.
In all, to my eyes, this looks like it'll essentially be a slightly heavier Legion Go S with the benefits of new Windows/Xbox software and, of course, the new Intel chip. It'll all come down to how well that performs. Oh, and pricing, of which there's no word yet. Acer says it will be available in North America, EMEA, and Australia from October 2026, so we shouldn't have too long to wait to find out.
1. Best overall:
Lenovo Legion Go S SteamOS
2. Best budget:
Steam Deck
3. Best Windows:
Asus ROG Xbox Ally X
4. Best big screen:
Lenovo Legion Go
5. Best compact:
Ayaneo Flip DS
