AMD’s best chip makes its debut in first handheld
We've seen many handheld PCs lately, but the GPD Pocket 4 looks nothing like a Steam Deck.
AbJimroe
GPD
Is it a laptop? Is it a tablet? Is it a gaming handheld? No, it’s just the new GPD Pocket 4, and it’s a bit of all three — although without much of an emphasis on “gaming.” Unlike the Steam Deck, GPD’s new mini-PC packs some of the latest hardware and could blow away its competitors.
Obviously, the form factor of this thing is fascinating, but the AMD Zen 5 chip under the hood is equally interesting. GPD’s Pocket 4 will be the first handheld to use one of AMD’s best processors, the Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 (12 cores/24 threads) and the Radeon 890M iGPU. This should give it a leg up in performance over systems like the ROG Ally X, especially when it comes to gaming.
Aside from performance gains, though, the device comes equipped with an 8.8-inch 2,560 by 1,600 touchscreen with a 144Hz refresh rate that can reach up to 500 nits of brightness. Some of the other specs include LPDDR5X RAM running at 7,500MT/s and up to 4TB of SSD storage.
GPD also serves up plenty of ports, including one Type-C USB 4 port, one Type-C USB 3.2 port, and two Type-A USB ports (one 3.2 and one 2.0), as well as one HDMI 2.1, a 3.5mm audio jack, and a microSD card reader. There’s also a 2.5Gbps Ethernet port for wired connections.
GPDOn its product page, GPD doesn’t place much emphasis on gaming, although it’s mentioned here and there in regard to system performance. The company instead leans into the impressive versatility that this mini-PC serves up. The keyboard is bound to be nice both for gamers and creatives, but there’s also a lot of flexibility — you can use the GPD Pocket 4 in laptop and tablet modes, and the screen can rotate up to 180 degrees. Honestly, it’s more of a tiny 2-in-1 laptop than a gaming handheld.
As pointed out by Tom’s Hardware, there’s one caveat to consider, and it’s that the GPD Pocket 4 will not make the most of its powerful Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 processor. The chip inside the mini-PC is limited to 28 watts; in general, the CPU can go up to 54 watts.
Considering the small size of the device, it makes sense that the wattage would be limited, but this also means that we can’t expect anywhere near the maximum performance that the Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 can put out at 54W. If not for this limitation, this could’ve been the most powerful gaming handheld; now, we’ll have to wait and see how it compares to the Z1 Extreme.
It’s unclear when this device will hit the market or how much it’ll cost. For now, it’s definitely an interesting little device to imagine, even if that’s all it ends up being.
Monica is a UK-based freelance writer and self-proclaimed geek. A firm believer in the "PC building is just like expensive…
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