Home Gaming The Smach Z is an ambitious handheld PC that’s not quite there yet

The Smach Z is an ambitious handheld PC that’s not quite there yet

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smachz

The Smach Z is an incredibly ambitious handheld PC that aims to bring Switch-like on-the-go gaming to those who favour PC gaming.

It’s got an incredible set of specs stuffed into a mobile case, with the diminutive AMD Radeon Vega 8 Graphics and Ryzen Embedded V1000 Core processor running at 3.6 GHZ to give it its guts. With upgradeable M2 storage options along with standard upgradeable SO-DIMM DDR4 memory, it offers the chance to play contemporary PC games in a mobile form factor. Furthermore, the board itself can be removed and sent off to Smach Z to upgrade the embedded chips in the future.

When it does eventually ship, it’ll come with a 6-inch 1080p touch screen, and feature Steam controller-styled haptic touch pads, which are modular – so you can remove them to replace with regular analogue sticks, d-pads, or other buttons. Along with the modular controls, there’s a permanent left analogue stick, four face buttons, and 4 trigger buttons, along with an extra pair of buttons along the back of the case for squeeze controls.

With connectivity options aplenty including Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, USB A and C, an SD card slot and more, I was excited to get my hands on the device at E3. Disappointingly, the unit I did get to play with was effectively an empty shell, with content fed to it from an attached laptop. The moulded plastic was ill-fitting, felt cheap and nasty and just wasn’t indicative of a finished product. The company did have a better mould on display that had better edging, a matte, rubberized finish that definitely feels better than the prototype I held in my hands. Said prototype wasn’t even running the target specs for the machine. Instead, to get a feel for how it might run in the real world, I had to demo it on an open PC running on the same hardware that’ll eventually be squeezed into the SmachZ. Admittedly, it did run quite nicely, and I was able to play games like GTA V and Fortnite on the machine at acceptable resolutions and frame rates.

For a device that hit it crowd-funding goals in 2016 and should be shipping soon, it was a little disappointing not to have something resembling a finished product to play with. The Smach Z team says they’re still on track for a September release though – with a closer look at a close-to-final product to be shown at Gamescom.

As ambitious as it is, I think it’s a tough sell at its starting price of $699 for a 64GB version with 4GB of RAM. The $899 pro model features a front-facing webcam, 128GB of storage and 8GB of RAM. That’s a heck of a lot of money just to take PC gaming on the go, even if it does end up delivering on all of its promises. Still, there must be enough interest in it, given that it raised €474,530 in Kickstarter, and a further $748,007 on Indiegogo.

Here’s a look at the specs:

  • CPU: AMD Ryzen™ V1605B SoC at 2.0 GHz base 3.6 GHz boost
  • Cores / Threads: 4/8
  • GPU: Radeon™ Vega 8 Graphics. 8 CU 1.1 GHz
  • RAM: Up to 16GB DDR4 2133 MHz. 4GB (SMACH Z) || 8GB (SMACH Z PRO)
  • Storage: Up to 256GB SSD. 64GB (SMACH Z) || 128GB (SMACH Z PRO)
  • Screen: 6” FULL HD (1920×1080) Capacitive touch-screen
  • Battery: 5 hours of gaming. (4 cells of 3200mAh each. 46WHr)
  • MicroSD Card Slot
  • USB 3.0 type C
  • USB-A
  • Micro-USB
  • Display Port video out
  • Wi-Fi connectivity 5.0 Ghz
  • Bluetooth connectivity.
  • Front-camera 5-megapixels (PRO model only)

Last Updated: June 20, 2018

12 Comments

  1. Original Heretic

    June 20, 2018 at 15:33

    Daft ad, but the device looks awesome.

    Reply

    • CypherGate

      June 20, 2018 at 18:13

      That ad alone has so much cringe it in that it would actually stop me from even considering to buy this thing.

      Reply

  2. Pieter Kruger

    June 20, 2018 at 16:02

    At least they got the buttons right….

    Reply

    • Magoo

      June 21, 2018 at 08:39

      😛

      Reply

  3. Trixter

    June 20, 2018 at 22:12

    The ScamZ demo was also a total farce. Development board does not use same hardware. Exposed by Factor News, the development board features a more powerful APU with Vega 11. That is because the Ryzen V1605B does not exist yet. Factor News again exposed that AMD will only start production of Ryzen 1605B in July. They lied on Face book about their demo also. Now I’ve heard their engineering samples were not Ryzen 1605B either and the latest inside information is that they still could not get their prototype PCB working and will have to make another new PCB which will be the 3rd revision. Don’t expect September since ScamZ have always missed their deadlines. Take a look at Udoo Bolt which also uses Ryzen V1605B and their deadline is December. Udoo is more reliable and well known in the SBC community but they still put December as delivery date despite Udoo Bolt being just a single piece of PCB only. All signs indicate ScamZ is highly untrustworthy.

    Reply

    • Geoffrey Tim

      June 21, 2018 at 12:08

      The feeling I get from having met the guys at E3 is not that they’re deliberately trying to cam people..just that they’re not quite technically capable of delivering the product that’s in their heads.

      Reply

      • Trixter

        June 21, 2018 at 16:33

        You have to also consider the mountain of lies and deceptions ScamZ perpetuated throughout their campaign. The first obvious one was that their previous May delivery deadline was clearly fraudulent when the Ryzen V1605B will not be available until July. This was not the first time since their previous deadline of April 2017 was fraudulent also. If they had a real prototype back in 2016 then April 2017 would be reasonable. But the first prototype they’ve shown at Gamescon 2016 was a fraud. They lied about the the prototype using ClickARM technology on their Kickstarter page. Later this prototype was exposed as using off the shelf cheap tablet parts. In another demo they were simply streaming from a PC containing a Merlin Falcon development board with a different “prototype” that was built for streaming only. This streaming only prototype is similar to that “prototype” shown at E3 2018 but this time the source was a gaming laptop. Yeah they have done this before. This is just the tip of an iceberg. ScamZ also had an Indiegogo campaign but the large bulk of their crowdfunding comes from Kickstarter thanks to that fraudulent prototype. There is also the issue of closed door paywall updates in their private forum with forced NDA on their backers. From insider information, ScamZ will have to make another PCB. This will be the third iteration. The PCBs shown at Embedded World were total duds. ScamZ didn’t reveal the problem about PCB manufacturing till much later. The second PCB iteration also didn’t work for months leading to E3 2018 which is why you get this farce demo. With so much problems you should start to see why they want to hide their updates. Now ScamZ also advertising on Google Ads with the intent of stringing in more unsuspecting new backers to preorder and throw money into their shambolic project. And again they have done this before. ScamZ had tried the preorder thing back in 2015 but without any hardware development at all. I should stress that everyone should be highly cautious and steer clear of this ScamZ.

        Reply

        • Geoffrey Tim

          June 22, 2018 at 11:06

          I definitely get the feeling that people should steer clear. It’s not ready for primetime, and likely will never be.

          Reply

          • Trixter

            June 22, 2018 at 12:25

            You can find most of ScamZ’s lies and deceptions still out in the open. Alas you may hear loyal ScamZ defenders put the blame on Rhombio whom is already known to be dubious in crowdfunding circles but they ignored the part where Rhombio said ScamZ hired them to make the fraudulent prototype that was never a part of ScamZ development. Rhombio may be unscrupulous but was correct in saying ScamZ was incompetent in technical and manufacturing areas. Additionally ScamZ made lots of unplanned mistakes and false promises. As an example, ScamZ promised Microsoft Windows to be included in their original sales pitch but that Microsoft Windows will now be extra cost. When some frustrated backers wanted refunds, ScamZ stated that they could not because they’ve already withdrawn all the funds and spent most of it. However ScamZ’s Kickstarter page stated 50% of the funds will be for manufacturing but they have not started manufacturing yet! Famous Youtuber Lon Seidman was one of those frustrated backers and he issued a chargeback to get back his money. Like to add that ScamZ’s previous May deadline was very likely in response to GPD Win 2’s delivery deadline although they knew very well that cannot be done because of Ryzen V1605B production schedule and non functional dud PCBs. Quite obvious also that ScamZ promoted hefty discounts to try pulling some backers away from GPD Win 2 campaign. That raised roughly another $100K on their crowdfunding. That is not including those preorders on ScamZ’s webshop and who knows how much was collected there. I know couple of guys in my local forum fell for that and now regretting it. Yeah steer clear is the best advice. Spread the word.

      • G-man

        August 19, 2018 at 23:58

        you dont think they are capable of shipping anything but you say “should be shipping soon”. this article is clearly promoting the product and meant to make people believe it will be a real product. Your article is completely incongruent with your comments here. why is that? why didnt you say in the article you think people should stay clear? at most you say you doubt their ability to meet all their promises.

        also they didn’t make a further 700,000 on indigogo, that was the total including the money they had already made on kickstarter. indigogo likes to include the amount made on other sites in their total to make their service look better.

        Reply

      • G-man

        August 19, 2018 at 23:58

        you dont think they are capable of shipping anything but you say “should be shipping soon”. this article is clearly promoting the product and meant to make people believe it will be a real product. Your article is completely incongruent with your comments here. why is that? why didnt you say in the article you think people should stay clear? at most you say you doubt their ability to meet all their promises.

        also they didn’t make a further 700,000 on indigogo, that was the total including the money they had already made on kickstarter. indigogo likes to include the amount made on other sites in their total to make their service look better.

        Reply

  4. jigo santos

    June 28, 2018 at 23:05

    Trailer looks like it’s from 1989-1990. I think the best that they can achieve is Gizmondo 2.0, if ever it reaches actual retail.

    Reply

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