All of us at PC Gamer Hardware love a good portable gaming PC. Whether it’s the gorgeous screen and awesome OLED software ecosystem of the Steam Deck or the raw power of the ROG Ally X, the market is flooded with all sorts of devices. And now, GeForce RTX graphics card and mini PC purveyor Zotac is throwing down the gauntlet with its Zone portable, equipped with a 7-inch AMOLED screen.
The display is probably the best-selling feature of the Zotac Gaming Zone, and we first saw it (and the sticky gloves) back in January at the annual Computex event. In terms of size, resolution, and refresh rate, it’s typical for the market (7-inches, 1080p, 120Hz), but it uses an AMOLED touchscreen panel with a claimed color gamut of over 100% DCI-P3 and 150% sRGB.
Zotac has equipped the Zone (or ZGZ, for tiny?) with a decent set of control options, with dual Hall sticks and dual-stage adjustable triggers, radial knobs around the sticks, dual touchpads, and two buttons on the back. Of course, we won’t know how well it all works until we get our hands on the ZGZ and test it out properly, but at least there’s no shortage of control options.
The rest of the hardware is pretty standard for a state-of-the-art gaming laptop — an AMD Ryzen 7 8840U with 8 CPU cores, 16 threads, and 768 RDNA 3 shaders to handle all your gaming tasks. This is all supported by 16GB of LPDDR5-7500 RAM, which is pretty good and swift, but after spending hours using the ROG Ally X with 24GB of RAM, I think 16GB is a bit too little.
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It’s a similar story with storage, which is only 512GB. Given the size of many games these days, that’s not really enough, though the Zone uses a standard PCIe 4.0 M.2 2280 interface, which should make it straightforward to expand your storage with a speedy gaming SSD.
But you do get a built-in stand, WiFi 6E and Bluetooth 5.2 wireless connectivity, a UHS-II microSD slot, and two USB4 ports for supporting external displays and peripherals. There’s even a fingerprint scanner and a 720p front-facing camera, so there’s no shortage of extra goodies. Zotac also makes dedicated dock AND case.
Weighing in at 692g (1.53lbs), I expected the Zone to have a huge battery, but it only has 43Wh. That would have been acceptable a year or two ago, but considering the ROG Ally X has an 80Wh battery at a similar weight, I think Zotac missed its chance here.
As with all gaming laptops, specs only tell half the story. How it feels in your hands, how it manages heat and noise, and the software ecosystem all play a huge role in how enjoyable these devices are. If we get a Zotac Gaming Zone for review, we’ll be sure to let you know.
