It has been revealed that handheld PC specialist GPD is busy working on a successor to the Windows-powered GPD Win 3 5.5-inch gaming handheld. The new GPD Win 4 is a 6-inch portable, though on first impression are little has changed on the outside. Nevertheless, some significant spec uplifts are rumored such as a move to the AMD Ryzen 7 6800U processor with RDNA 2 graphics.
The four most important changes introduced with the GPD Win 4, according to tiny-tech specialist Liliputing are; the upgraded processor mentioned above, new hall effect analog sticks, the slider keyboard getting upgraded to physical keys, and some ergonomic tweaks.
GPD hasn’t made the Win 4 handheld official yet, but there have been sporadic information bursts across platforms like Twitter and Weibo. Lillputing has collected images and info from various disparate sources such as YouTuber Cary Golomb, and some Discord channels. We've also seen some fingerprint festooned real-device images surfaced by Cc on Twitter. (To see images in the tweets below, expand them).
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The GPD Win 3 was powered by an Intel Tiger Lake processor with Iris Xe graphics. However, the GPD Win 4 is tipped to be exclusively AMD, relying on a Ryzen 7 6800U processor with on-board RDNA 2 graphics for fast 3D acceleration.
How will this AMD mobile processor perform in such a size and power constrained form factor? We have a good idea from mobile gaming enthusiast ETA Prime’s recent video exploring the delights of a different new GPD portable – the Win Max 2. In brief, ETA Prime described the performance delivered by the AMD mobile chip as "crazy fast."
There are other upgrades that should be better for gaming and general computing. Hall effect analog sticks should help prevent drift problems. Moreover, the sticks are now adjustable and users can change the nubs between high and low profiles. Of course, physical keys will be a big step up for the slider keyboard too, compared to the capacitive touch keys of the previous model.
Reflecting on the mix of renders and photos we have at this time, the GPD Win 4 looks like a very worthwhile upgrade. We hope it goes official soon so we can confirm specs, availability and pricing.
