ARC opens pre-orders for ARC X1 handheld at Rs 29,500 for its waitlist community

NEW DELHI: ARC, an Indian handheld gaming start-up, has opened pre-orders for the ARC X1, a 7-inch Android gaming device, according to the company website. The first "Community Batch" is priced at Rs 29,500 for people already on its waitlist, while every later batch is listed at Rs 33,500, with taxes included in both figures.

Pre-orders opened on 2 October. To hold a unit, a buyer pays a token amount of Rs 999. The pages reviewed give no shipping date, so buyers are reserving a device that is yet to reach anyone.

What the ARC X1 offers

The specification page lists a Snapdragon G2 Gen 2 chip built on a 4nm process, with 8GB of LPDDR5X memory and 128GB of UFS 3.1 storage. A microSDXC slot takes cards up to 1TB. The screen is a 7-inch Full HD LTPS panel running at 120Hz, with 500 nits of brightness and Corning Gorilla Glass 3.

Much of the pitch is about the controls. The device uses TMR (tunnel magnetoresistance) analog sticks, which ARC says avoid stick drift, plus Hall-effect analog triggers, two programmable rear buttons and dual linear resonant actuators for haptics. Two RGB rings sit around the joysticks.

A 9,300mAh battery charges at up to 27W over USB Power Delivery. ARC quotes about 8 hours of gaming and up to 10 days of standby, and adds that actual results depend on the game, brightness and performance mode. The handheld weighs 450 grams. It has an active cooling system with a copper heatsink and a centrifugal fan, Wi-Fi 6E, Bluetooth 5.4, a 3.5mm headphone jack and USB-C display output.

OwlOS and the repair angle

The software side is a controller-first operating system called OwlOS, which the company says is built on AOSP, the open-source base of Android. According to the specification page, it offers a unified game library, native Android gaming, cloud gaming, a game launcher, an FPS overlay, quick resume, per-game performance profiles, controller remapping and resolution scaling, with updates delivered over the air. The company has a dedicated OwlOS page as well.

ARC also makes a point of repairability. The listing says the battery pack and joysticks are replaceable, the daughterboards are modular and spare parts will be available. For a gaming device, where sticks tend to wear first, that is a claim buyers will want to test once units are in hand.

Who is behind it, and what is still unclear

The site is operated by Zenali Innovative Technologies Pvt. Ltd. In its About page, ARC says it wants to build "India's handheld gaming future" and to make great gaming accessible without compromise. It also runs a video series called Inside ARC, with ten episodes so far on the build, covering topics such as the first prototype and the search for a manufacturing partner.

Several things remain open. The pages reviewed for this report carry no delivery timeline, warranty terms or independent test results, and the battery life and performance figures are the company's own. The site lists a Refund and Return Policy, which buyers should read before paying the Rs 999 token.

The Rs 29,500 price applies only to that first community drop. How the hardware, software and support hold up will be clear only when units start shipping.