Hand held devices. It seems everyone is getting in on the action of on the go gaming. Nintendo is trying to bridge the gap between console and hand held with their upcoming Nintendo Switch. Many clone makers have released Sega Genesis licensed hand held devices, to varying degrees of success. We have covered the GPD XD Android gaming device ourselves (article here) and it seems there are more on the way. One interesting upcoming hand held device is the SMACH Z hand held gaming PC. If you love PC gaming this is the device for you.
First of all, this is not an Android device running a Windows emulator or anything. This is a full-fledged Windows device with a six inch screen. Under the hood is enough power to run quite a few AAA titles from the Steam digital distribution service. You won’t be fragging away with Battlefield 1 on ultra-high, make your eyes bleed, resolution but you can still game quite well on this hardware.
Some of the highlights you can enjoy on the SMACH Z include Portal 2, DOTA, Left 4 Dead 2, Team Fortress 2, Civilization V, Metro: Last Bronx, Borderlands 2 and the Witcher 2. The SMACH Z is going to probably be your easiest way of playing any of those titles on the go. Console gamers will be right at home with using the right analog stick to move the camera while computer gamers may have to make use of the touch screen to look around. The controls are apparently going to be fully customizable by you so if you don’t like the default setup – change it.
The SMACH Z comes with the AMD Merlin Falcon RX-421 System on a Chip running four cores at 2.1 GHz each. There is going to be at least 64 gigs of hard drive space (128 if you go for the SMACH Z Pro model) and 4 gigs of RAM (8 gigs in the Pro). The screen is six inches with a resolution of 1920×1080 (trust me, on a small screen like this that is going to be plenty). For those that like to game on their TV’s there is an HDMI out and Bluetooth available so you can hook the SMACH Z up to your TV and play with your wireless controller on the couch.
Okay, you may be thinking is Windows the only operating system this thing will run? Nope. You can get the SMACH Z with the SMACH Z OS (customized Linux distribution just for this device). Keep in mind there are not as many games available for Linux as there are Windows. Thankfully there are lists available for Steam releases (Windows and Linux respectively).
Over on the Kickstarter page for the SMACH Z there are a few more games listed and their graphic settings and the performance achieved. This should help potential backers to better understand what they are backing here.
Like what you see? Hit their Kickstarter page and pledge. You won’t be alone. As of this writing they have already smashed their goal and have plenty of time left to reach stretch goals.