I was just cruising around Computex 2025, not really sure what to look for, when bam! This handheld thingy from Zotac caught my eye. It’s got a 7-inch AMOLED screen hooked up with some Ryzen AI HX 370—yeah, that’s a mouthful. The thing breaks the norm by using Manjaro Linux instead of Windows or SteamOS. They’ve dubbed it “Zone 2,” but who knows if that name will stick or what it’ll cost. It’s all up in the air.
Now, talking about the “Zone 1” — anyone remember that? It dropped last September, running last-gen AMD Ryzen 7 8840U. Zotac’s definitely not rushing things compared to other brands. I mean, they were talking Zone 2 already at CES in January, and now, here we are again. The Zotac folks said the Zone 2 name’s just a placeholder, but that might change.
What’s under the hood? Oh boy, it’s an AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 APU with a bunch of bells and whistles—12-core, 890M graphics, etc. Zotac’s going big with this one, unlike others playing it safe with the Ryzen Z2 Extreme. They’re also giving you a crazy 24 to 32GB of LPDDR5x RAM. And yeah, there’s a 1TB SSD you can swap out if you’re feeling adventurous.
The canopy of the story? The display, a 7-inch AMOLED that’s all decked out and ready to shine—a 1080p touchscreen, 120 Hz, super bright at 800 nits, with HDR. Reminds me of the Switch, except this one’s got touchpads, joysticks, and even a dial. Throw in a kickstand for some tabletop fun.
What really throws me off though is the Manjaro Linux OS—like, it kinda feels like SteamOS, and it can run games thanks to Proton, though the catch is, several multiplayer games might not work thanks to anti-cheat issues. You can always switch OS if you’ve got the patience.
Battery life seems on par with its predecessor, featuring a 48.5Wh battery. For ports, it’s got a bit of everything: USB4, microSD, and the classic headphone jack. It’s wireless savvy too—WiFi 6E and Bluetooth 5.2. Looks like it’s got some heat-management design on the back, which suits me, I guess. More deets should be dropping before the launch, but who knows when that’ll be.
So that’s the scoop. Random musings and all. And don’t forget to follow Tom’s Hardware if you want that daily tech goodness.
