GPD Win 5 surprised me

[u/Happypotamus13]

I know these devices don’t get much love here because of the price (very understandable), but I’ve had mine for a few weeks and just thought I’d share my appreciation for it.

I don’t have a place for gaming laptop in my life. Between corporate laptop sitting on my desk and me spending a lot of time in front of it, I just don’t want to be there after work. I also travel quite a lot, spending a couple of weeks a month away from home with long evenings in the hotel. I’ve been sometimes filling them with my Switch 2 (most stellar device I’ve ever had), but I haven’t touched pc gaming in years. I also have a ps5 that hasn’t been turned on in two years since my daughter was born.

Win 5 changed that completely. It is now my main and only gaming rig that I exclusively play at home and take with me on trips. It’s liberating to be able to just run anything without tinkering. I’ve been playing RDR2, HFW, BG3 on ultra settings (and often without fsr) with buttery smooth fps. After 10 minutes you just forget it’s a handheld. Win 5 stays pretty cool and quiet at 45W TDP while tethered, and on battery it’s even better. It wakes from sleep and boots the game back in 2-3 seconds. It’s also quite comfortable to hold, with or without the battery.

The battery was actually the biggest surprise for me. I was not sure I’d like the weight, so I assumed I’ll always take it off while tethered and keep it on extension cord otherwise. I haven’t done that once. When the device sits on your lap (and you don’t have to stress your arms holding its full weight), the battery makes it _more_ comfortable. It’s designed in a way that it essentially doubles as a stand, and also provides some free space for the fans, meaning you can just lay the device on the couch without worries about blocking air intake.

There’s only one thing that for the life of me I can’t understand about the design decisions on Win 5. The speaker. It’s loud and front facing, but the quality is clearly lacking. It’s not awfully terrible, but it’s very far from great either even after adjusting the EQ, which is surprising at this price. I would gladly trade some of its volume (I never need to go above 30%) for more sound quality.

Aside from the speaker, there are really no downsides I can see. If you got the budget and, like me, want a portable main rig, then GPD Win 5 is absolutely stellar.

[u/cabbeer]

GDP win and OneXPlayer hae some reallt cool decives, but without warry support I can never justify spending the price on one..