The Handheld Steam Machine With Linux & AMD SoC Moves Ahead

Smach Z, the portable/handheld Steam Machine powered by Linux, is moving ahead and hopes to launch to market this time next year.

The Smach Z is powered by Linux and designed to run the compatible Steam Linux games. This handheld has a 5-inch 1080p touch-screen, 64GB of internal memory, haptic controls, 4GB of RAM, and is powered by a new AMD G-Series embedded APU. The AMD SoC provides Jaguar CPU cores and Radeon GCN graphics with 2GB of video memory. The reported battery life of the device is five hours.

The Smach Z just launched on Kickstarter and has already raised $112,195 of their $976k goal. There are 34 days left. Pricing on the Smach Z with early bird sales starts out at 249 EUR and goes up from there with different offerings.

The Smach Z pre-orders are expected to begin shipping next October while they hope to go retail next December. More details can also be found on SmachZ.com. I haven't seen them say what Linux graphics driver they plan to use, but time should tell. With the hardware not shipping for another year, by then hopefully the new Catalyst stack that rides atop the AMDGPU DRM driver will be into good shape.