The $1300 Acer Predator Atlas 8 handheld is finally US-bound, and its pre-orders

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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.

The US gets the more powerful Atlas 8

Only one configuration is headed to the US for now, and it is the higher-end model. It uses Intel’s Arc G3 Extreme processor with Arc B390 graphics, paired with 24GB of LPDDR5X memory and 512GB storage. The handheld also has an 8-inch 1920 x 1200 IPS touchscreen with a 120Hz refresh rate, VRR support, and 500 nits of peak brightness.

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Acer has also packed in an 80Wh battery, dual Thunderbolt 4 ports, Wi-Fi 7, a UHS-II microSD slot, and dual-mode triggers. Two fans handle cooling, including Acer’s 89-blade metal AeroBlade fan, which the company claims can improve airflow by up to 10%.

$1,300 puts it firmly in premium territory

The Atlas 8 runs Windows 11 and supports Xbox Game Pass, so it works more like a compact gaming PC than a closed console. Acer is also bringing over PredatorSense controls from its gaming laptops for monitoring performance and changing system settings.

At $1,300, none of that comes cheap. The price puts the Atlas 8 well above mainstream handhelds and directly into enthusiast territory. For comparison, the Steam Deck OLED starts at around $790, and you can pick up a Nintendo Switch 2 for $500; there are also other options from ASUS, MSI, and Lenovo if you want a Windows-based device. That said, this console has a significant raw-performance advantage over the AMD Ryzen AI Z2 Extreme-based consoles like the ROG Xbox Ally X20.

That performance gap likely explains why Best Buy’s first round of pre-orders has already sold out, with online orders expected to reopen on November 1, along with in-store availability.

Sudhanshu Kumar Mangalam Contributor Sudhanshu Kumar Manglam is a tech journalist at Digital Trends, where he covers consumer technology, science, and games.

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