Acer Nitro Blaze 7 turns out to be a rebranded Chinese gaming handheld

The Acer Nitro Blaze 7 was officially showcased at IFA 2024. It's the first gaming handheld from the company, and there are a couple of things that make it stand out from the other handhelds. For starters, while most use 7840U or 8840U, Acer's offering packs the AMD Ryzen 7 8840HS, which can be configured at over 35W TDP.

Another highlight of the gaming handheld is the screen. The Nitro Blaze 7 sports a 144 Hz display with support for AMD FreeSync Premium. The Asus ROG Ally X, in comparison, has a 120 Hz screen. Although the Legion Go has a 144 Hz display, it has no VRR or FreeSync.

While all those do make Nitro Blaze 7 stand as a solid gaming handheld, it isn't actually Acer's original design. Acer might not even be the one that's manufacturing the device. As pointed out by ETA Prime, it's actually a rebranded variant of what was supposed to be the Terrans Force Handle 7.

Terrans Force Handle 5 has the same design, and the Chinese company was seemingly planning to upgrade the Handle 5 with better specs. This would've eventually brought out the Handle 7, but now that Acer is offering it as Nitro Blaze 7, that may not happen.

Like ETA Prime notes, this rebranding isn't surprising, as Chinese manufacturers tend to do it quite often. But so far, this has been common among mini PCs, not gaming handhelds. However, as gaming handhelds are becoming popular, we will likely see more rebranded handhelds coming out in the future.

Now, even if the Nitro Blaze 7 is a rebranded gaming handheld, its specs, especially the FreeSync Premium display and Ryzen 7 8840HS, do make it a proper competitor to the Z1 Extreme ROG Ally and Legion Go (512 GB curr. $599.99 on Best Buy). Of course, it's still unclear whether it offers a good value because Acer hasn't revealed pricing details yet.