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Steamboy is now the Smach Zero and it has a price tag

Meet the Smach Zero, the latest creation in hand held gaming.

Previously called the Steamboy, the Smach Zero borrows from the latest smartphone technology and Valve’s Steam controller and the result is something rather cool.

Revealed at Gamescom last week, the Smach Zero features a 5 inch 720p screen, flanked on either side by touch pads similar to those found on the Steam controller. It also boasts a D-pad, the requisite face buttons and four triggers on the back.

There's no denying the Smach Zero looks great
There’s no denying the Smach Zero looks great

Under the hood the Smach Zero packs an AMD G-Series SoC from the Steppe Eagle family based on the Jaguar CPU architecture and GCN-based graphics from Radeon. You get 4GB of RAM to run your games and 32GB to store them on although this can be upgraded with external memory when you need it.

The machine features an HDMI port, Wifi, Bluetooth and USB On The Go (OTG) technology as standard while the PRO version will have LTE connectivity as well.

So, what about games? According to the creators, Smach Zero will be capable of running the 1 185 games that are supported on SteamOS and Linux.

What does worry us though is the size of games. That 32GB internal memory simply doesn’t feel like enough especially when you consider that some of the supported games can hog upwards of 30GB in storage space. Yes there is external memory support but lugging around a 1TB portable drive is less than ideal.

Some games hog your hard drive, will Smach Zero cope?
Some games hog your hard drive, will Smach Zero cope?

The Smach Zero will be available from November 10th this year at will cost you $300 (R3856,51) if you pre-order on the Smach Zero website (once they open pre-orders that is).

This sounds like a great little machine and the specs show that the Smach Zero will pack a punch as well, but we can’t shake the feeling that the age of hand-held gaming consoles has been eclipsed by smartphones. Mind you, given the fact that games on Steam are way cheaper than titles for the PS Vita or the Nintendo 3DS, so maybe the Smach Zero stands a fighting chance.

[Image – Digital Trends]

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