Phil Spencer has professed that he is a proud owner of a Lenovo Legion Go handheld gaming PC, but has experimented with other mainstream portable devices in recent times. Polygon conducted an "extensive" interview with the CEO of Microsoft Gaming—headlines have been generated from this tête-à-tête, mostly focusing on his wishlist of additional digital storefronts appearing on Xbox platforms. Ecosystem familiarity seem to be a very important aspect (in Spencer's opinion)—something that the current crop of handhelds lack: "I want my Lenovo Legion Go to feel like an Xbox. I brought (the Legion Go) with me to GDC. I'm on the airplane and I have this list of everything that makes it not feel like an Xbox. Forget about the brand. More like: Are all of my games there? Do all my games show up with the save (files) that I want? I'll tell you one (game) that doesn't right now—it's driving me crazy—is Fallout 76. It doesn't have cross-save."

He continued: "I want to be able to boot into the Xbox app in a full screen, but in a compact mode. And all of my social (experience) is there. Like I want it to feel like the dash of my Xbox when I turn on the television. (Except I want it) on those devices." Industry rumors have swirled around the possible existence of an in-development Xbox handheld—Spencer confirmed that his hardware design team, headed up by Roanne Sones, has weighed up: "different hardware form factors and things that (they) could go do...What should we build that will find new players? That will allow people to play at times when they couldn't go play (in the past)?"

The Manjaro Linux team exhibited Orange Pi Neo gaming handhelds at the annual FOSDEM event this past weekend. Attendees were welcomed to play around with early examples at the KDE booth in Brussels, Belgium—Orange Pi expressed its ambition (last year) to expand its single-board operation into the flourishing handheld gaming PC market. According to past reports, the Neo was teased throughout 2023—so it was not surprising to witness working prototypes in the hands of open-source enthusiasts in recent days. Orange Pi has selected AMD's Ryzen 7 7840U "Phoenix" APU—a laptop/notebook processor that is emerging as the de facto choice for many handheld gaming systems. The most globally available mainstream Windows 11 options—ASUS ROG Ally and Lenovo Legion Go—sport Ryzen Z1 and Ryzen Z1 Extreme SoCs, that are eerily similar in design to the popular Ryzen 7 7840U chip.

Orange Pi and Manjaro are targeting a late 2024 launch (according to Android Pimp)—this could place the Neo alongside potential next-generation devices with upgraded internals. Neo's unique selling point seems to be a slimmer (than normal) profile—the "ultra slim and small" handheld's dimensions are 259 mm x107 mm x 19.9 mm, coupled with a 7-inch FHD+ LCD screen (1920 x 1200, WUXGA, 16:10, 500 nits peak Brightness, 120 Hz Refresh Rate). A proper D-pad design and "YXBA" button layout indicate that a retro gaming-oriented playerbase is being targeted, although twin hall-effect sticks and linear triggers bring things firmly into the 2020s tech-wise.

Remember the SMACH Z? Me neither. It was a long attempt in the making, with multiple Kickstarter campaigns that finally resulted in an actual product coming to market later this year. The SMACH Z is a handheld gaming PC with an x86 processor, that was originally supposed to use a 5" 720p screen powered off an AMD G-series SoC (System on a Chip). It was then updated to use an AMD Merlin Falcon (Excavator) R-Series RX-421BD clocked at 2.1 GHz SoC with an integrated Radeon R7 series GPU at 800 MHz to run a 6" 1080p display, that was in turn embedded in a handheld gaming console, effectively making it a portable gaming PC. Perhaps it was a good thing that the product took its time, since they have now decided to use updated internals for the final product- once more from AMD- in the form of the Ryzen Embedded V1605B SoC with AMD Radeon Vega 8 graphics.

eBOM reports that AMD has announced it will be showcasing the SMACH Z in their booth presence at the Tokyo Game Show which commences later this week. This marks yet another gaming platform that AMD will be powering, although it is less powerful than the other ones. The SMACH Z isavailable for pre-order in three different variants (Z, Z Pro, and Z Ultra) which have different starting configurations, but can be customized as with most pre-built PCs. All variants can run off the Linux-based SMACH OS or Windows 10, retain the 6" 1080p touch screen, support up to 16 GB of dual channel DDR4 memory and 256 GB of solid state storage, and have an optional camera as well. Prices begin at $699 and go up to $1199, with a 10% discount for pre-order for the console expected to be available December, 2018. For those interested, there are some preliminary benchmarks released by SMACH from earlier this year.