If you’re entering the crowded market of Steam Deck-inspired gaming handhelds, you need a gimmick to stand out—like the Legion Go’s detachable mouse thingy or the Claw’s Intel chipset.
XPG decided on two key features for its upcoming Nia: a unique tilt-up screen that reminds me of old-school HTC phones, and user-replaceable memory. Adam breaks it down from the Computex show floor.
The Nia is in early stages of development right now. XPG can’t even say what processor it will use since it’s the next-gen version of AMD’s APU design. But one thing they’re leaning hard into? LPCAMM2 memory, the exciting new memory standard for laptop power users.
Not only is this memory faster and more efficient than existing SO-DIMM cards, it’s user-replaceable with a little bit of screwdriver action—and still skinny enough to be used in an ultra-thin chassis.
Giving users access to something as essential as system memory is a big deal, and it’s even more important for performance on these gaming handhelds that must share memory between games and Windows (unlike laptops with discrete graphics cards). Presumably, users will also be able to swap out the M.2 SSD.
It’s early days for both the Nia design and CAMM2 as a memory standard, so we’ll have to wait and see how this all pans out in the final product. For more looks at the coolest hardware from Computex, be sure to subscribe to PCWorld on YouTube.
Author: Michael Crider, Staff Writer, PCWorld
Michael is a 10-year veteran of technology journalism, covering everything from Apple to ZTE. On PCWorld he's the resident keyboard nut, always using a new one for a review and building a new mechanical board or expanding his desktop "battlestation" in his off hours. Michael's previous bylines include Android Police, Digital Trends, Wired, Lifehacker, and How-To Geek, and he's covered events like CES and Mobile World Congress live. Michael lives in Pennsylvania where he's always looking forward to his next kayaking trip.