A while back, we heard talk of a new portable Steam Machine coming out called the "Steam Boy". Not much info on what it was, how it'd look, when it'd release...until now. Resurfacing as "Smach Zero", the company behind it, Smach Zero (what a great name), has officially announced a price and a general ship date, along with a few basic specs.

Here's what we know now:

• The Smach Zero is expected to ship in Q4 2016, with preorders supposedly opening November 10 for $299/€299.
• The Smach Zero has 4GB of RAM, 32GB of internal storage, a 720p touch screen and HDMI output. EDIT: Other sources now confirm there is an SD Card slot for expandable storage, along with USB OTG.
• The Smach Zero carries an embedded G-Series SoC "Steppe Eagle" from AMD, with a Jaguar-based CPU and GCN-based Radeon Graphics.
• And, of course, the Smach Zero is going to launch with SteamOS and "1000's of Steam Games ready to play". EDIT: Sources claim the portable will be able to handle games like Cities Skyline, Civ 5, BioShock Infinite, Half Life 2, and Dota 2 no problem.

The video below is what the company released while at Gamescom on Saturday.



Source
EDIT: Additional Source

I'm quite interested in this project myself, I've always been fascinated by the idea of a portable game system that is essentially a PC, and this project so far looks to be exactly what I've been looking for! If this portable truly boasts a full x86 version of SteamOS, and specs enough to play a good amount of the Steam library, then I'd definitely be interested in giving one a purchase.

 

[puss2puss]

Exactly, i mean, that way you could build your machine depending of your budget..a quad core for low budget, a 8core for higher etc etc.. i can imagine atleast 8 cores, 6GB ram, a graphic card with 2GB vram,.. would be about 600$ for the built, not bad!imo..

 

[RevPokemon]

Exactly, i mean, that way you could build your machine depending of your budget..a quad core for low budget, a 8core for higher etc etc.. i can imagine atleast 8 cores, 6GB ram, a graphic card with 2GB vram,.. would be about 600$ for the built, not bad!imo..

Issue is off course heating. Personally in specs per price I expect it to be about in laptop range but what you said sounds about right but then again storage is a big factor considering how large the games are.

 

[Tom Bombadildo]

I doubt it unless you can change the os

Why would you need to change the OS? Assuming it runs the full version of SteamOS, you would be able to just fine. Linux has tons of emulators for just about every system, and SteamOS is just a DE on top of Debian.

 

[puss2puss]

Issue is off course heating. Personally in specs per price I expect it to be about in laptop range but what you said sounds about right but then again storage is a big factor considering how large the games are.

Yah..well i guess microSD would be atleast a solution but GTA V wouldnt even fit on a 64GB sd.. anyway

 

[RevPokemon]

Why would you need to change the OS? Assuming it runs the full version of SteamOS, you would be able to just fine. Linux has tons of emulators for just about every system, and SteamOS is just a DE on top of Debian.

Well from what I heard your normally better off just dual booting say Ubuntu with steamOS but I guess it depends on which emulator and if performance is changed

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Yah..well i guess microSD would be atleast a solution but GTA V wouldnt even fit on a 64GB sd.. anyway

Heh sd cards generally don't have as good of speeds but an ssd would be good if they could add it

 

[Tom Bombadildo]

Well from what I heard your normally better off just dual booting say Ubuntu with steamOS but I guess it depends on which emulator and if performance is changed

I dunno what you heard, but emulators run just fine of SteamOS, there's virtually no performance difference between SteamOS and any other Linux distro of the same type. All emulators that run fine on Debian...run fine on SteamOS. And practically all emulators run fine on Debian.

 

[puss2puss]

True.. but like i said..microsd would only be a solution.. but ssd would be better,.but the price would jump higher too

 

[RevPokemon]

I dunno what you heard, but emulators run just fine of SteamOS, there's virtually no performance difference between SteamOS and any other Linux distro of the same type. All emulators that run fine on Debian...run fine on SteamOS. And practically all emulators run fine on Debian.

OK then, I just heard that they had a issue with the extra layers on top of Debian but that was probably the whole pre release open beta

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True.. but like i said..microsd would only be a solution.. but ssd would be better,.but the price would jump higher too

Also if you could use a portable hdd or USB 3 that could work

 

[puss2puss]

OK then, I just heard that they had a issue with the extra layers on top of Debian but that was probably the whole pre release open beta

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Also if you could use a portable hdd or USB 3 that could work

Totally.
..but when i think about it.. i realise the handheld wouldnt even go more then 30minutes before the battery goes out.. damn battery technology that wont follow today's standard! Lol...

 

[RevPokemon]

Totally.
..but when i think about it.. i realise the handheld wouldnt even go more then 30minutes before the battery goes out.. damn battery technology that wont follow today's standard! Lol...

It really depends but it is better that they aren't overkilling it with the CPU or it will kill the battery. Something like an I5 with 4600 would be more than fine to play many games on the settings

 

[matt123337]

You guys complaining about the 32gb of storage... You're supposed to use in-home streaming with it, and only a few smaller (and probably older/less intensive) games are meant to be installed.

 

[CathyRina]

You guys complaining about the 32gb of storage... You're supposed to use in-home streaming with it, and only a few smaller (and probably older/less intensive) games are meant to be installed.

300€ Remote play device? where have I seen that one before...

 

[the_randomizer]

That price sounds a bit steep, and my only issue is storage and battery life, who knows how good either one will be for this handheld. But do we really need another one on the market?

 

[puss2puss]

You guys complaining about the 32gb of storage... You're supposed to use in-home streaming with it, and only a few smaller (and probably older/less intensive) games are meant to be installed.

Oh yeah i forgot i can carry my house if going on vacation or to the parc or wherever
And beside, not everyone want to stream their games..its like someone who uses a wifi routeur vs someone who uses an ethernet cable...
:.anyway, 32GB of storage is tiny.

 

[RevPokemon]

Oh yeah i forgot i can carry my house if going on vacation or to the parc or wherever
And beside, not everyone want to stream their games..its like someone who uses a wifi routeur vs someone who uses an ethernet cable...
:.anyway, 32GB of storage is tiny.

Yeah plus I feel most will probably do a mix. I mean if I only did it for streaming I'd just get a cheap laptop with a controller and do that route

 

[obs123194]

300€ Remote play device? where have I seen that one before...

I mean I can stream steam games on my android phone. This device is meant to play indies titles and games require low pc requirements. it would be cool if you could play skyrim on it

 

[CathyRina]

I mean I can stream steam games on my android phone. This device is meant to play indies titles and games require low pc requirements. it would be cool if you could play skyrim on it

It has better specs than my Pc that I bought 7 years ago and I could play Skyrim 4 years ago with no problems. This isn't going to be "just a indie" machine with these specs. But at the same time 32 gigs are nothing.

 

[RevPokemon]

I mean I can stream steam games on my android phone. This device is meant to play indies titles and games require low pc requirements. it would be cool if you could play skyrim on it

who knows but you could play oblivion on it relativly easy considering it has worked on windows tabs with 2 gb of ram

 

[obs123194]

I'm tempted to get one of these.. however I have a gaming laptop so I don't know if I can justify myself getting on of these.. but again.. -_- lol decisions decisions

 

[Taleweaver]

Interesting...but 32 GB is a joke no matter how you look at it. Even on indie games (which we'll have to be honest about: these are more likely to be linux-compatible), it'll fill up in no time.

As for the "yeah, but streaming from PC"-notion: I can buy a shield tablet or portable right now for that. You just can't both taut on the go and have these specs. More so since quite some of those games also appear on android...