Zotac Zone review – solid performance just isn't enough, it's too late and too expensive

Gaming handhelds galore have released in the past couple of years with the latest, in every sense of the word, being the Zotac Zone.

The is yet another gaming handheld to hit the market, and coming in later down the line compared to the competition means it needs to perform exceptionally well, and have defining features, to truly hit the mark in such a congested segment. Unfortunately, my time with the Zotac Zone has been relatively average, with the handheld not having any particularly major issues, but it's not really brought anything new, or remarkable, to the table either.

Coming in too late and too expensive, with a price point of £849 / $849 / AU$1275, the Zotac Zone needed to justify its price point. While it feels like its halfway there with some flashy features, such as radial dials on the joysticks, a fingerprint scanner and a webcam amongst other things, I'd have taken better specifications, a bigger battery or a lower price, over these meh features, any day of the week.

Zotac Zone design

In terms of design, you get a dark grey chassis, which is matte so thankfully doesn't pick up too many fingerprints, and feels quite premium. Unlike the original , which took a leap coming in a pure white shell, the Zotac Zone has stuck to the classic greyscale theme in line with devices like the and grey .

Featured on the device are symmetrical joysticks, as well as a super satisfying clicky d-pad and of course your A/B/X/Y buttons. Radial dials are present on the base of the joysticks which you can program to whatever you require and while this is seemingly a cool addition, it's one I didn't find myself using at all. You also get two track pads on either side of the device, which function the same way as the track pads on the Steam Deck.

Here's a rundown of the Zotac Zone's key features:

• Two-stage adjustable triggers
• Radial dials
• Webcam
• Fingerprint scanner
• 2 USB-C ports
• MicroSD card slot
• 3.5mm headphone jack
• Dual touch pads

The rear of the device houses two additional buttons, labelled M1 and M2, and these can be programmed to replicate any other required button. However, these additional buttons don't register as additional inputs in all titles, so be warned, you may not be able to use them all the time. You also get adjustable triggers, with switches on the back of the device to swap between a full trigger press and hairline triggers, depending on what is more important to you.

You'll find a fingerprint scanner on the top of the device, which also acts as the power button. In my time with the device I didn't find myself using this at all, in fact, I didn't even set it up. While it provides another level of security for your Zotac Zone, it's just inessential, considering you can set up your device to be pin or password protected, like all Windows devices.

Another strange feature you'll find is the webcam. I booted it up, just to see how it looked, and while it was passable for video calls, it's not something I would find myself using on a regular basis, if at all. There aren't really any occasions that come to mind that would require me to use a webcam on a handheld gaming device like the Zotac Zone, which renders this feature pretty useless in my view.

Zotac Zone specs

The Zotac Zone specs are pretty good, but nothing to write home about when compared to other handheld gaming PCs on the market. The Ryzen 7 8840U APU provides essentially the same level of performance as the AMD Ryzen Z1 Extreme chip which is featured in the Asus ROG Ally and .

Considering the Zotac Zone is coming in so late, over a year after the launch of the Asus ROG Ally, you'd expect Zotac to learn from the mistakes of the competition. But with the Zone only featuring 16GB of RAM, its clear that this hasn't been the case. After launching with 16GB of RAM in it's first gaming handheld, Asus quickly released a brand new Asus ROG Ally X just a year later with 24GB RAM, as 16GB was just not enough.

• Processor: AMD Ryzen 7 8840U APU
• Operating System: Windows 11 Home
• Memory: 16GB 7500MHz LPDDR5X
• Storage: 512GB PCIe 4.0 NVMe M.2 2280
• Display: 7-inch FHD (1920x1080) AMOLED
• Battery: 48.5Wh

Another prime example of Zotac not learning from the competition is the battery capacity, sitting at just 48.5Wh. This is another element we saw both Asus and improve in the Asus ROG Ally X (80wH) and Steam Deck OLED (50Wh) respectively. I found myself getting between 60 and 90 mins of AAA game time on the Zotac Zone, which is ok, but disappointing for a product that's more expensive than the competition. Of course, if you're playing indie titles or less intensive games then you'll get a longer playtime, I was able to get closer to four hours and sometimes even six when bringing down the power slider, which is explained below.

The Zotac Zone features a 120Hz screen, which has slowly become more common for gaming handhelds. The Asus ROG Ally X and MSI Claw both feature 120Hz screens and the Lenovo Legion Go packs an even faster 144Hz refresh rate. This again puts the Zotac Zone on par with the competition despite coming in so much later.

Zotac Zone performance

Similar to other gaming handhelds on the market, you can choose your power limit, but instead of being limited to different modes to choose from you can actually adjust a slider. Of course as you move the slider up, you get a higher performance output, but in turn the device gets hotter and the battery will deplete much faster. I would recommend using this higher output mode only when you're plugged in.

When trying to adjust the slider in the settings, sometimes I was just unable to do so. I had no idea what the issue was, even when restarting the device the issue persisted and it took a couple of restarts to work again. Hopefully this is something that can be fixed with a quick patch but was super frustrating at times.

I tested the Zotac Zone in a variety of games such as Counter-Strike 2 and Cyberpunk 2077, running them at 1080p resolution and at medium to low settings. While not providing out-of-this world frames when compared to alternatives, all games were playable.

• Street Fighter 6: 43 fps
• Baldur's Gate 3: 30 fps
• Counter-Strike 2: 90fps
• Cyberpunk 2077 (automatically capped): 30 fps
• Valorant: 78 fps

Of course for more intensive titles, such as Cyberpunk 2077 and Baldur's Gate 3, I had to adjust the graphics settings to run at pretty much the lowest possible settings in order to achieve playable frames. With games that are so pretty to play on PC with the benefit of ray-tracing, it can feel a bit sad to see them in this light however that doesn't make them unplayable by any means, just a bit ugly.

For example, the Asus ROG Ally X runs Street Fighter 6 at 52 fps while in performance mode – and this is with better graphics settings, medium to high. Baldur's Gate 3 also ran at a somewhat more comfortable 42 fps on the Asus ROG Ally X. While there aren't many OLED options on the market, in my personal opinion, there's not much benefit to having a gorgeous AMOLED screen if you have to sacrifice frames and graphics to have it.

The device stayed relatively cool while playing even quite intensive titles on the highest output mode and charging the battery at the same time. By no means was it cold to the touch, but you were more than able to carry on playing and using the device as normal even as it heated up. Expectedly, the touchscreen got very hot to the touch but this again didn't make it unusable but just something to be cautious of.

You get pretty good performance from the Zotac Zone, a wide range of games run smoothly and the AMOLED screen looks great. I also got consistent frames in all the games I played, AAA and indie titles alike, but unfortunately, that's not enough for the Zotac Zone to justify its higher price point, considering a majority of gaming handhelds can provide that experience for a lower cost.

Overall thoughts on the Zotac Zone

Realistically, the Zotac Zone is a good device when isolated, but when compared to other options on the market, which are objectively better specifications wise and still come out cheaper, it makes you wonder who this device is for. The features slapped on, including the webcam, and fingerprint scanner, feel like a forced way for Zotac to score points without really considering the end user and whether or not they will ever need or use these features.

The higher price point of the device is really the nail in the coffin for me. Had it been the same price as some of the competitors versions, it would have been easy to recommend thanks to the AMOLED display. Disappointingly, considering these devices are expensive anyway, I just cannot recommend one that is at a higher price point, and yet offers little to no difference in performance and in most instances, lower frames.

However, if you are specifically looking for the features on offer, and an AMOLED screen is important to you, then feel free to spend the extra cash, because the performance is solid. I was just hoping for better.