Smach Zero, the portable Steam Machine, will be up for pre-order in November

A portable version of Valve's Steam Machines is a great idea. We said as much when we came across the SteamBoy last year even though we knew little about it.

Now, in the wake of Gamescom, we know quite a bit more about it as the SteamBoy's manufacturer's were at the show.

First up, the SteamBoy is now called the Smach Zero. It's not quite as catchy but whatever - the title of it isn't important.

We also know that it'll be available to pre-order from November 10th at $299. This is a special early bird price so it'll actually be more than that once launched.

If you do pre-order then you can expect your Smach Zero to arrive in the first quarter of 2016, apparently.

But what are you ordering? It's a good question. One thing we were after last year were the system specs. And now we can give you them. Here they are (courtesy of The Escapist):

• AMD embedded G-Series SoC 'Steppe Eagle' with Jaguar-based CPU and GCN-based Radeon graphics
• 4GB RAM
• 32GB internal memory plus SD Card Slot, USB OTG
• 5-inch Touch screen with 720p resolution
• Configurable tactile gamepads
• HDMI video output
• Wi-Fi, Bluetooth connectivity
• 4G mobile network connectivity (PRO model only)
• SteamOS

In less technical terms, what the Smach Zero enables is for you to play Steam games on a handheld device.

That should mean you can walk around town playing PC games such as Half-Life 2, Civilization V, Dota 2, Tropico 5, BioShock Infinite, and Cities: Skylines.

And, as we noted last year, its controls layout is like a PS Vita's, so it should be fairly easy to handle.

That's all for now. But keep an eye on Smach Zero's website for updates and special price point offers.