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I miss netbooks. There, I stated it. Yes, they had been all the time tremendous cramped to make use of, packed touchpads that even a mouse would describe as “a little small,” and so they had been drastically underpowered in addition. But there was one thing particular about having such a tiny Windows gadget for getting stuff performed.
But after testing the world’s first glasses-free 3D laptop-handheld hybrid at IFA 2025, I had a crystallizing second — the netbook craze has been in entrance of me your complete time and I simply didn’t see it.
As my friend Cale Hunt over at Windows Central surmised, gaming handhelds are the new netbooks. Reading his ideas final month, I wasn’t satisfied. But after going hands-on with the Digiera Holomax, he is undoubtedly onto one thing!
Let me clarify why.
Power play
One factor that I positive am glad isn’t coming over from netbooks is the shortage of uncooked horsepower. This is a beast that ought to be capable of hold with the likes of the Xbox ROG Ally X — packing an AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 chip, as much as 64GB of RAM and as much as 4TB of storage.
For stamina, there’s an 80 Wh battery that the corporate says can final 10 hours (…sus), and all the things is stored cool with a mixture of copper warmth pipes, an aluminum heatsink and a 4,200 RPM fan.
But we’ve obtained to speak concerning the display right here: an 11-inch 2560 x 1600-pixel decision panel that’s able to autostereoscopic 3D. Using a wise eye-tracking system constructed into the bezel, it might discover your peepers, and use AI to transform 2D content material to 3D in your eyes solely. The impact is spectacular — it jogs my memory of Acer’s SpatialLabs 3D tech in terms of producing a crispy picture that doesn’t hurt your eyes.
And of course, this is a hybrid device. You’re currently seeing it in handheld mode with those ergonomically sound controllers attached magnetically on the side, but there’s also a keyboard to attach to the bottom too. Once you attach the board and begin to type, your mind is taken back to the Netbook era.
One big problem
But with all of this, there’s one crucial issue. MSRP: $2,699. In the gaming handheld space, that’s diabolical. Even in the laptop space, that’s unseemly — the Asus ROG Flow Z13 with its monster Ryzen AI Max+ 395 CPU (vastly better at gaming than the Holomax’s 370) is $400 cheaper.
That’s steep and if this makes it to market, I can’t in good conscience say you should purchase it. This is an attention-grabbing gadget for positive — the shape issue and methods to make use of make it an enchanting one to play on. But for practically three grand? You’d greatest be completely positive that is all the things you’ve ever needed.
Outlook
So in a method, we’re taking a look at a Nintendo 3DS on steroids right here — the show on the Holomax is attractive, the controls really feel nice, the keyboard is peak netbook, and the ability inside is certain to maintain all of it working easily. But at $2,700, that’s the place the love story ends.
All the identical, I admire Digiera’s hybrid for serving to me to open my eyes to one thing vital: netbooks aren’t useless, they’re simply gaming handhelds now.
While I sit right here loads and say that Windows 11 form of sucks to make use of on a handheld, I do know that’s not the case for everybody. For some of us on the market (I’ve seen the setups), these smaller gadgets have develop into their go-to for all the things — having a dock at house to pop it straight right into a desk setup and work, a transportable monitor and keyboard for working on-the-go, and so on.
It’s an attention-grabbing various use case to devoted gaming gadgets that I really feel will come into focus correctly as we see this new crop of Ryzen Z2 Extreme chips drop. That extra multi-threaded horsepower will assist transfer issues alongside properly.
If you wish to know what else has been on present on the Berlin Messe, take a look at our Best of IFA awards to see what exciting new tech there is across a variety of categories.
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