GPD Win 3 Review: The Unofficial Microsoft Switch

[Redaktion]

1080p gaming with integrated Intel Iris Xe is a hard sell to most gamers. On a portable 5.5-inch 720p screen, however, it becomes a whole different story.

https://www.notebookcheck.net/GPD-Win-3-Review-The-Unofficial-Microsoft-Switch.514859.0.html

[KZBFF ELF]

The virtual keyboard is a huge letdown.

[George]

Unless your unit is faulty, the mouse/gamepad switch should switch the joystick/shoulder buttons to work as a mouse rather than as a controller. From what I've heard it works really well.

[Gediminas]

Sounds good, however I've lost faith in GPD. It's common for them to send faulty devices, especially to Indiegogo backers and the way they handle the faults is... disappointing. They're happy to send you a device with a faulty battery and not replace it. The only way to get it is to buy it from them, which is crazy overpriced.

[Henry A.]

Thanks for the review.

You've convinced me to not get the Win 3.

[dodoro]

Thanks for the review. I just asked to get a refund on my IGG backing after reading this.

[Deen0X]

Hi.
About the wake up of the device, is something so typical and easy to solve.
go to device admin, and for gamepad and mouse, disable the feature "allow to wake up the device"

About the keyboard, is the screen touching the keyboard when you're playing? i mean, if you press the screen, is the keyboard touched too?

[AdrianZhang]

非常好的测评

[Allen.Ngo]

Hi.
About the wake up of the device, is something so typical and easy to solve.
go to device admin, and for gamepad and mouse, disable the feature "allow to wake up the device"

About the keyboard, is the screen touching the keyboard when you're playing? i mean, if you press the screen, is the keyboard touched too?

We tried disabling that and it made no difference. As for the keyboard, the problem is that the sliding screen slides against the touch-sensitive keys, so when you slide the screen up or down, it's pressing all the keyboard keys along the way.

Unless your unit is faulty, the mouse/gamepad switch should switch the joystick/shoulder buttons to work as a mouse rather than as a controller. From what I've heard it works really well.

Nothing changes about the joystick/shoulder buttons when toggling the mouse/gamepad switch. The joystick acts as arrow keys regardless of the switch setting.

It's still a pre-production unit, so things may change by the time it launches.

[Thw0rted]

Hopefully this will improve before wide release.  Seems like a no-brainer to disable the keyboard unless the screen is fully slid up; likewise for making sure that all exposed buttons can't wake the system from sleep.  It would be awful if either of those can't be fixed without a hardware revision...

One comment on the review: I noticed that many of the graphics performance scores were given for 1080p rather than (panel native) 720.  Was this tested with the official dock solution? I guess it would reflect performance on a TV, similar to a docked Switch (which tops out at 1080).  Still, it would be good to focus more on handheld (720p) gaming performance.

I'd also be curious to know what can be done to tweak gaming battery life.  Barely over one hour is definitely not enough for a super-portable system like this.  Maybe with tuning it could be bumped up to 2-3?

[Allen.Ngo]

Hopefully this will improve before wide release.  Seems like a no-brainer to disable the keyboard unless the screen is fully slid up; likewise for making sure that all exposed buttons can't wake the system from sleep.  It would be awful if either of those can't be fixed without a hardware revision...

One comment on the review: I noticed that many of the graphics performance scores were given for 1080p rather than (panel native) 720.  Was this tested with the official dock solution? I guess it would reflect performance on a TV, similar to a docked Switch (which tops out at 1080).  Still, it would be good to focus more on handheld (720p) gaming performance.

I'd also be curious to know what can be done to tweak gaming battery life.  Barely over one hour is definitely not enough for a super-portable system like this.  Maybe with tuning it could be bumped up to 2-3?

We tested the games in both 720p with internal monitor and 1080p with external monitor. Iris Xe can struggle at 1080p but it works really very well in 720p.

Streaming games or running cloud games will increase battery life since that will be much less CPU intensive. I'm able to pull 3+ hours with PS4 remote play. A battery bank is a good way to extend local playtime but keep in mind that some cheaper battery banks are not compatible because the Win 3 accepts a minimum of 15 W up to 65 W.

[j]

I have a GPDwin1 and the firmware bug where it just refuses to actually turn on whenever it is plugged to a charger (BIOS just displays the charging animation and stays there) was never fixed.

I totally expect GPD never to fix any of the issues presented in this review.

Which is sad since I really like the Sony microPC form-factor.

[Matthew J Perez]

Would anyone happen to know if it's possible to add a 3g/4g LTE sim to the GPD Win 3 and it'll WORK?

SUPERPLUS Mini PCI-E Adapter with SIM Card Slot for 3G/4G,WWAN LTE,GPS Card (Clamshell SIM Card Holder)

I want it to replace my cellphone