ZOTAC Unveils Cutting-Edge ZONE GAMING Handheld Prototype Powered by AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 at CES 2025

We had the opportunity to get up close with the fresh ZOTAC ZONE GAMING prototype during the CES 2025 exhibition. Although it is not a polished product, we witnessed it function as it operates as a working prototype, and with the updated hardware, it is expected to offer considerably enhanced performance compared to the ZOTAC Zone we previously reviewed last year.

The primary update is the 4 nm Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 processor. The Strix Point architecture introduces a 12-core/24-thread CPU (four performance cores and eight efficiency cores) rooted in the Zen 5 architecture, featuring 24 MB of shared L3 cache and 1 MB of L2 cache per core. It is also equipped with a Radeon 890M, a RDNA 3.5 architecture GPU hosting 16 Compute Units. ZOTAC has additionally increased the LPDDR5X RAM to 32 GB and expanded the M.2 2280 PCIe 4.0 SSD storage to 1 TB. The Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 has a standard TDP of 28 W, alongside a configurable TDP that ranges from 15 W to 54 W, providing ZOTAC ample flexibility. It further includes a 50 TOPS XDNA NPU.

The latest Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 represents a considerable enhancement from the Hawk Point Ryzen 7 8840U found in the original ZOTAC ZONE handheld, which came with an 8-core/16-thread Zen 4 CPU and Radeon 780M GPU. Naturally, the first edition featured 16 GB of LPDDR5X memory and 512 GB of M.2 NVMe 2280 PCIe 4.0 storage.

ZOTAC opted to maintain the same 7-inch 120 Hz OLED display, which is not a disadvantage as it already had an advantage over other handhelds available, being the only one with an OLED screen. Certainly, some upcoming handheld devices, such as the newly announced Legion Go 2, will feature upgraded hardware in terms of Ryzen Z2 Extreme and an OLED display.

The additional specifications comprise hall effect joysticks and triggers, a 48.5 Wh battery, Wi-Fi 6E, Bluetooth 5.2, UHS-II microSD card slot, USB4 ports, and an integrated kickstand. This time, ZOTAC is presenting a White Edition, so we may see several different variations if and when the new ZOTAC ZONE is released later this year.