GPD is known for squeezing Windows 10 into small devices, and the new GPD Pocket is no different.
Following a wildly successful Indiegogo campaign, the GPD Pocket is an Intel Atom-based PC that you can, as its name suggests, fit in your pocket.
The GPD Pocket offers a glimpse at the future of Windows 10, as more and more of us seek ultra mobile computing solutions. But this isn't Windows 10 on ARM; this is a full x86 PC.
Running either Ubuntu or Windows 10, the GPD Pocket has impressive specs for its size, which clocks in at an admirable 180 x 106 x 18.5 mm. The GPD Pocket is perhaps most easily compared to Microsoft's Surface 3, complete with a magnesium chassis. However, there are some key differences. The GPD Pocket is physically smaller, slightly lighter, and claims better battery life. It also beats the Surface 3's display PPI, but sheds the Surface's 2-in-1 configuration.
| Category | Specification |
|---|---|
| CPU | Quad-core processor/Quad threading 1.6GHz |
| GPU | Intel HD Graphics |
| RAM | 8GB |
| Storage | 128GB |
| Touch Display | 1920×1200,7 inch, 323 PPI, IPS technology, Retina |
| Screen | Corning Gorilla Glass 3 |
| Dimensions | 180 x 106 x 18.5mm |
| Weight | 480g |
| Ports | 3.5mm headphone jack, Micro HDMI, USB Type-C 3.0, USB Type-A 3.0 |
| Connectivity | Bluetooth, WiFi |
GPD claims that its Pocket device beats the Surface 3 on performance, in part, due to the fact it uses active cooling. The Surface 3, like all Surface devices, tend to throttle under load to prevent overheating.
The GPD Pocket, given its size, utilizes a TrackPoint pointing stick as opposed to a full trackpad, but there are plenty of ports for connecting USB mice, and Bluetooth connectivity if you want to stay fully wireless.
GPD is targeting a June 2017 launch for the GPD Pocket, and you can purchase one through their Indiegogo campaign right now for $399, which seems pretty reasonable.
With the Surface Mini reportedly canceled, this looks to be the next best thing in the interim. Hopefully, we'll have a full review up of the GPD Pocket in the future.
Reader comments
GPD Pocket is a tiny Windows 10 PC that offers a glimpse at the future
<p>I think this will make a lot more sense with a long lasting ARM chipset. </p>
Out of the box with the GPD Pocket, WiFi signal was weak, 5G bands do not show, and could not connect. This is before any Windows updates! Had to connect to Internet using a Ethernet dongle through the USB port. I also ran through all Windows Updates to OS Build 15063.483, so got driver version 1.558.53.15 for Broadcom 802.11ac Wireless PCIE Full Dongle Adapter (might need to separately do "Update driver" under "Network adapters" in Device Manager to get latest driver version), but suspect those steps are not necessary.
Fix found!
1. Download https://mega.nz/#!VUZx1AAb!XdDyLUbytthJ832RZfxGFrMCS2RxyWPjLOmJvi4Zf0E (for US Backer on http://www.gpd.hk/news.asp?id=1519&selectclassid=002002 ; but you don't need to know that).
2. Extract 4356r2nvram.txt using RAR Opener from Microsoft Store.
3. Copy 4356r2nvram.txt into C:\Windows\System32\drivers (using Ctrl-C then Ctrl-V) by enabling admin permission (just answer "yes" to activate for this copying process).
4. Reboot.
Now signal is strong, 5G bands show, connect without issues.
This procedure doesn't make sense at all, but it works! Learnt different bits from different sources. Wish GPD Support would just clearly state this fix. Better yet, this file should be on the Pocket when delivered!!
Except for lack of a camera so can't properly Skype, this thing is a workable beauty.
This missing 4356r2nvram.txt is also https://1drv.ms/t/s!Amg9wimDZkLKbmU72-b2gV7zxoE for easy download and copying into C:\Windows\System32\drivers.
A lovely design, in use esprcially when you don't want to hold a laptop or even larger tablet. You can work, game on, listen music on a beautiful small pc. Also a device only to have because its beautiful made.
This is old stuff, it's useless. The evolution is Continuum and the foldable Surface Phone...
Pocket PCs are back
"Your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn’t stop to think if they should."
It look like macbook pro
I think I'd be buying an iPad Pro instead of this, or a HP Elite X3 & bluetooth keyboard. I respect their enthusiasm and it looks like they are trying to build a quality product but the vision they have just feels really dated/backwards.
Looks like it's basically the same specs as the GPD Win.
to increase competition chek this device:
https://www.akyumen.com/default-item/holofone/#display
It's only a competitor if you have no understanding what this product is or what the target market is. What you posted is just some random phone manufacturer. Not a competitor.
Are you crazy....? A smaaaaaaal little PC that is the same size as a smart phone....? Now all you need is smaaaaal little people to use it on small little desks hey?
Child labour lobbysts are going to have a blast!
Hey Lenovo! Where's my 7-inch Yoga? With LTE, of course.
Wow... If this were a few years back, this would be amazing. Isn't ARM going to make this irrelevant?
The future? Mono laptops are far from futuristic, regardless how tiny they get. The future belongs to multi-formfactor PCs like the Surface Pro (a 3-in-1) and soon a Surface Phone (which should be a practical 4-in-1).
This seems to be a little smaller than the Dell Minis. The minis were a great idea but had such bad hardware that they were practically unusable.
A glimpse of the future? To people who don't remember the Sony Vaio P maybe.
I met a lady at LAX who had a brand new Sony vaio tiny notebook. She was headed to Asia and loved her Sony vaio.
1920×1200 res on a 7" screen? Pass.
Nobody wants this. Remember how netbooks were a thing? Need a bigger screen. 11 inches minimum
The design of the Dell Mini was a great netbook. It had a fully usable keyboard that was a delight to use. Unfortunately, the hardware couldn't keep up with the changing times.
Would get one of it is under 6 inches, 7 is just awkward. If i have to put it in my bag anyway, i would prefer a traditional laptop
+1020
I have a surface pro 3 and Windows is hard enough to use on that due to everything being so small, it is impossible to use scroll bars, video controls or window controls, and takes multiple attempts using my pinky. Tablet mode really doesn;t help with this. So I think Windows would be totally unusable on such a small screen. It would need to run windows Phone or somehting.
All this really needs is LTE. LTE is one reason why Microsoft is doing Windows on ARM. The lack of LTE on Intel systems on a chip is a complete fail.
Exactly! I don't get why MS just doesn't add support for telephony, sim cards, etc to windows 10, ditch mobile and let OEMs go wild in making mobile devices. Of course, they would have to allow mobile apps to run on these devices.
That is a really stupid idea
can this make phone call ?
I would just love my Dell Venue 8 Pro to charge. :(
The chocolate keyboard sounds delicious!
Is there any difference between this and the old terrible netbooks we used to have? Honestly the keyboard looks way too cramped to get any work done easily.
This reminds me of the old Netbooks
Yep. It's the netbook fad all over again. Except this time with possibly decent performance.
Netbooks filled a nich back then, they weren't really a "fad." Back then, they filled the niche that smartphones occupy today. Now, people simply demand more performance from windows laptops and leave the internet browsing to the smartphone.
But there already were smarpthones. Well, phone capable PDAs, but that's semantics.
I never got the point of netbooks though.
Now only if i could fold the screen all the way back 360 degree, could put in a sim card for 4g connectivity and had a stylus too. ...
Has a nice sleek look to it. Definitely interested in this.
Rebirth of the UMPC
love the size, I might bite if it had an i3 and 8gb or RAM.
I assume no, because I didn't see it any of the pictures and by the pictures I do see, it looks mechanically impossible, but does anyone know if the screen can flip all the way around like a Yoga or other new foldable convertibles so that it's like a thick tablet for touch? If not, it seems pretty silly to make something this small and not let it be used in the most common form factor for small devices. I guess that's not their target market, but I think leaving out that functionality probably gains them little and really narrows the appeal.
The future? More like going back in time to things like these: http://vintagecom.net/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/Zeos-Pocket-PC-Computer...
However, I can't say this isn't a good thing. Those tiny PC's were pretty snazzy and more options are good for everyone. Plus, this new version of an old concept is much more powerful and cute.
Don't forget about the Sony Vaio Z! I owned the 7" version back in the days. http://blogs.yahoo.co.jp/noriyasu8732/62418434.html
I used it for typing on the go back then, maybe watched some movies. I even tried photoshop but honestly, why would you want to try and do that on a 7" screen.
I'm interested in this but on the other hand, it's a niece product afaik. Shame about the atom cpu, but if this comes out with a SD835 with W10 on it, you can color me *very* interested.
Very mixed feelings. I'd have to see and try it myself.
Terrible promo video. And why only women? Odd.
Feminists everywhere smh.
This is not the future. I cant imagine who would want this now that mobile devices with an OS and apps designed around small touch screens exist. If I did want a Windows tablet this small for UWP apps, I would much prefer a tablet to make it even smaller - not a weird tiny clamshell. Maybe I'm just out of touch - I do use a Windows Phone...
I too have no need for this. The concept of a tiny laptop is very outdated in this literal meaning, while continuum-powered smartphones are better suited.
However, some people working in the IT sector (such as system administrators) could use this to manage servers while out on business trips and stuff like that. Yes, in the business world it works well. Normally you bring a laptop, but this would be more portable and powerful enough to remote manage servers with. As far as consumers go, the need for this product is ... zero. Like people say here in the comments, tablets or full-size laptops, as well as pc towers and other equipment like it, are better for most things you need.
Maybe for some. I do this kind of support as a database admin. I find a SP4 to be more than portable enough. Going smaller at the expense of functionality is not really helpful. Most admin tools I use like SQL Server Management Studio, VMWare, Active Directory, etc would be very difficult to manage on a tiny screen like that.
I recommend trying a 7 or 8 inch Windows tablet so you will BELIEVE...
I never back any gofundme style things. NOT worth it. I have seen to many people just take money and run! This looks really cool. Make a full dock for desktop and it would be really neat to have.
Isn't the name "pocket laptop" or a "palmtop" more of an accurate description. It's basically just a tiny laptop.
NEVER EVER SUPPORT INDIEGOGO! I have been ripped off once before. This will come out on Amazon if it is worth it. Wait. Indiegogo as a company is thieves and liars.
Same here, will wait for the market release of this thing and we shall see then...
Reminds me of the old sony pocket pc
Video at 0:26: "ROM: 128GB"
A bit concerning that the company building it doesn't know the difference between ROM and Flash... I highly doubt this thing has 128 GB of ROM... that would be enough for a UEFI operating system more complete than Windows, and even the UEFI code and setup utility is usually stored on EEPROM since years, not ROM, to allow updating it without swapping chips.
Might be a translation issue, company is based in China.
Chinamen prease no Lingrish well speak goodtime
I've noticed there is a nagging trend in the tech world as of late to call Storage Drives "ROM" . A HDD or SSD wouldn't be very useful if they could only be read and not written to now, would they?
The form factor seems impractical. The keyboard is too cramped for "laptop use" and the form factor does not lend itself to touch usage.
It's clear that surface 3 has less power than it... But what would happen if you compare it to Surface 4 pro?
The video claims it is a 4GB/Atom configuration, same as a top end Surface 3.
I'm waiting for something this size with a stylus.
The dream.
If we don't have dreams, what do we have?
We have realities
I am sick of this reality, bring back Game of Thrones!
yes!
I have two elderly mobile pro 900s, but I'm getting so tired of trying to find fresh(er) batteries and screens to keep this old stuff going.
I love this form factor and even my HP mini 2133 still hits a sweet spot with its larger size. There have been some interesting small foldovers, but keyboard problems always seem legion.
What then would be more awesome, is if the screen can fold all the way to the back so you can use it with stylus better.
Hmmmm interesting. I did want to upgrade from a surface rt to a surface mini....
The Atom's gotta just die or get replaced already. Bought a Lenovo stick, plugged it into the TV, thinking it could serve up Sling or YouTube at a given moment. But the crawling performance just isn't worth it. This seems like a great device and I'd probably get one but only when x86 on ARM comes to fruition.
X86 programs won't come to an arm processor, but windows arm (still in development, available only on upcoming snapdragon 835) will run an emulator taht can execute x86 programs
The Lenovo Stick has an Intel® Atom™ Z3735F Processor. Not the same at all. The X7-Z8700 in the GPD is literally twice as fast and I think it supports dual channel RAM as opposed to the 3735's single channel. I used to have a Surface 3 with the same chip as the GPD Window and it was very passable, even with multiple displays plugged in.
Oh, the GPD Win is even smaller, and it has an integrated XBox-Like controller
Toshiba Libretto
Also OQO and many others from Japan during the 2000s
I would love to handle this device for about a week or so, just to get an idea how practical this would be to use as a full PC. I can definitely see MS making a similar, but better device, with a removable and/or foldable keyboard. However, Windows 10 is not quite ready for this kind of mobility. It's getting there and i see MS adding features to make a portable device like this useful as a phone, too. Hopefully, that will be MS's focus with their RS 3 update.
W10 is a lot closer than Ubuntu to handle this kind of form factor. Set it to Tablet Mode and it would be functional.
If it at least folds down completely flat, then I might be interested
That impressive though with only intel hd graphics I doubt you can play asphalt 8 or dungeon hunter 5 from Windows store :(
I'm playing modern combat 5 kinda smooth on my pc with core i5 2nd gen and onboard grafic
I'm talking about this tiny thing. Not your PC spec. Lol good to know your pc can as I would expect a i5 more powerful for gaming
That's also what he's talking about. Most Intel CPUs have the same on-board graphics, so this'll handle them fine. Asphalt 8 and Dungeon Hunter 5 would work fine on this.
Ok, so, you're not too far off but for the wrong reasons. Most CPUs from any given generation of desktop processors (at least current generation) carry the same on-board graphics. Mobile processors vary a bit more. However, in this case, the 2nd gen i5 carried the HD Graphics 2000/3000 on-board graphics. The HD Graphics 405 (which is in the atom found in this machine) is benchmarked a bit below the 3000 (various items put it 3-10% lower in various benchmarks). So, while GhostEchelon's comment was off, your's is more correct, but it appears by chance, because these are *not* the same on-board graphics. They just happen to not be far off each other in regards to performance. Though, again, this is in benchmarking, not real world. i don't know either of these games so don't know how much power they require. its highly likely the games won't perform as well as on GhostEchelon's machine, but i can't say if it'd be bad enough to make it unplayable.
The GPD pocket is just re-design of the GPD-Win which can play a very surprising number of big name AAA games (you find lots of Youtube videos demos), Intel's hardware and display drivers have come a long way and Windows Store games derived from mobile titles generally run well.
However given the GPD-Win went through numerous revisions and fixes I would not rush out to get a GPD-Pocket until reviewers have had a very good look at it.
There is also likely to be a GPD-Win 2 which if your interested in a PC handheld of sorts would be better to wait for, or even celluar PC's but they probably wont show till 2018 and it remains to be seen if they can run AAA Xbox Anywhere titles on Windows Store.
This is the semi-unofficial forum for GPD win English speakes.
http://boards.dingoonity.org/gpd-windows-devices/
Why are you playing these loser games on Windows? Go to Steam and play proper ****.
Those two games were completely playable on my HP Stream 7, which had an older Atom processor and 1 GB of RAM. I think they'll play perfectly on this.
but WHY would you do that? Just buy a tablet and you can enjoy all the games you want. No need to buy this product :)
You can play Asphalt 8 on hardware as low as that of the Lumia 520 you know.
it has 4GB of RAM, not 8
edit: Oh it says 8GB on their site but 4GB in the video
Weird, might be two different versions. I'll reach out for clarification.
An update on the indiegogo page says: "Dear Backer
Here is a really good news for you guys.As many backers suggestion.We finally decide to upgrade the 4G RAM to 8G for free,Memory type is still LPDDR3-1600.^^"
It's already updated to 8G. And the CPU also updated to Z8750.