The OneXPlayer X1 Pro is back on the market with a fresh, anime-inspired look, upgraded internals, and an absurdly high price point. If you haven’t laid eyes on this handheld before, it’s like the Microsoft Surface and the Nintendo Switch had a baby — and this particular model looks like it was delivered on the floor of an anime convention dedicated to Evangelion.
In addition to being a gaming handheld, it’s also a 2-in-1 PC. A kickstand on the rear lets you prop up the screen, and it has a detachable keyboard — also Evangelion-themed — that you can remove on the fly. The gamepads on both sides of the screen give it the look of a bug with too-small wings, but they can be detached and used as a gamepad.
That’s probably a good thing, since it has a 10.95-inch display. OneXPlayer doesn’t provide an exact weight, but we can’t imagine it’s easy to play for extended periods of time with a size like that. It sports a whopping 64GB of RAM and 2TB of onboard memory — more than enough for you to keep all your favorite games and every season and spin-off of Evangelion you can think of.
It also has an Intel Core Ultra 7 255H, an upgrade from the original model’s Ryzen AI 9 HX 370. The display supports up to 120Hz, has a maximum brightness of 540 nits, and is 2.5K HD resolution. There’s also a 65wH battery and a 100W fast charging to keep you powered up while you play.
Bear in mind, this new version is a limited edition, so stock won’t last forever. And honestly, while the specs are impressive, we aren’t sure it justifies the $1,650 price tag. That’s enough to buy a relatively high-end gaming PC (or 3.5 Nintendo Switch 2 consoles), and the only thing that sets it apart from its base version is its dedication to a particular anime waifu.
Then again, the original version of the OneXPlayer X1 Pro isn’t much more affordable. It has a starting price of $1,500 (or currently $1,360 on sale.) This handheld is definitely more of a novelty, but it’s a cool piece of hardware nonetheless.
Acer’s Predator Atlas 8 finally has a US release date and price, several months after the company first showed off the handheld in May. The highlight is the Intel Arc G3 Extreme chip inside, which has been adopted by only a couple of other consoles besides the Atlas 8. This version will go on sale exclusively at Best Buy on November 1 for $1,299.99.
Acer originally said the Atlas 8 would arrive in North America in October, but left pricing open at the time. The launch came amid the ongoing DRAM crunch, which has made memory more expensive across the PC industry and complicated pricing for hardware makers.
Gaming laptops and I have a complicated relationship. One of my first gaming rigs was an Acer Predator that was already outdated when I bought it. I was a broke college kid, and that was the best I could afford. So trying out high-end gaming laptops is always fun. But ASUS' ROG Zephyrus G14 is a lot more than a laptop that can run AAA games. It is portable, so you're not lugging around a 2.5kg machine everywhere you go. It is built well, none of that plastic chassis, and can even function as a normal laptop outside of just gaming.
Google Play is borrowing one of the Nintendo Switch’s most useful little tricks. A new Sidekick tool called Playbacks captures a short clip after something interesting has already happened, sparing players from running a screen recorder throughout an entire game.
Playbacks is part of Google Play Store v53.8 and keeps saved clips on the phone. Google first announced it earlier this month, but the new Play Store update marks its arrival for players. Anyone who has watched a perfect win vanish because the record button came too late already understands the appeal.