Acer’s Predator Atlas 8 gaming handheld goes on sale in the US exclusively at Best Buy on 1 November 2026 at $1,299.99, Acer said in a statement reported by The Verge on 27 October 2026.

It is the first gaming handheld Acer has sold officially in the US.

Acer has announced several handhelds under its Predator and Nitro brands. None of them had an official US release before the Atlas 8. The company announced the Atlas 8 on 28 May 2026 and said at the time it would be available in North America, EMEA and Australia from October 2026, with prices varying by region.

What $1,299.99 buys

Best Buy is carrying one configuration at launch, the Intel Arc G3 Extreme model. It pairs Intel Arc B390 graphics with 12 Xe3 GPU cores, 24GB of LPDDR5X memory and a 512GB PCIe 4.0 SSD. Acer’s May announcement also listed a second version with a standard Arc G3 chip and Arc B370 graphics.

The display is an 8-inch 1920×1200 IPS touchscreen with a 120Hz refresh rate and 500 nits of brightness.

The handheld runs Windows 11 Home and ships with Xbox Game Pass. Acer’s specification sheet lists two Thunderbolt 4 ports, a microSD card reader, Wi-Fi 7, Bluetooth 5.4, two 2W speakers, full-size joysticks and Hall-effect analog triggers with a switch to a micro-switch mode. The battery is up to 80 Wh.

Acer says the cooling system uses two fans, one made of metal with 89 blades at 0.1mm thickness. The company says the metal fan gives up to 10 per cent more airflow than a plastic fan, based on its own internal testing.

Acer’s product page lists up to 32GB of memory and up to 1TB of storage, according to HotHardware, which said other configurations could follow the Best Buy model.

Preorders sold out

Best Buy opened preorders in October and they sold out, Acer said. Online orders reopen on 1 November 2026, the same day the handheld goes on sale in Best Buy stores.

The Verge said the price matches the Xbox Ally X20. HotHardware said the Atlas 8 appeared to be the least expensive handheld it could find built on an Arc G3 Extreme chip.

HotHardware compared it with MSI’s Claw 8 EX AI+ with 32GB of memory and 1TB of storage at $1,799.99 at Best Buy, and the OneXPlayer 3 with 24GB and 512GB at $1,549 on sale at OneXPlayer’s store, down from $1,699.

The device measures 299 x 127.4 x 28.5/58.37mm, according to Acer’s specifications.

Acer lists the handheld under model number PA08-I51 and says it weighs under 810g with the 80 Wh battery.

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