Earlier this year, I knew about GPD Win 3, a windows 10 handheld. After watching many reviews, I decided to preorder it. I rarely preorder anything because I know it probably won’t end well. The last time, I preorder anything, it was the Microsoft Surface Pro 4.
I received the machine in early June. The device works as advertised and I am very happy with it. I downloaded almost everything I have on Steam. Simulators, Genshen Impact, World of Warships and streaming programs. Everything can be downloaded and works as expected. This is the dream device I always wanted but is it?
The moment I got my machine, I reinstalled Windows 10 Pro. Win 3 is a bit heavy and hard to hold. The fan is loud and the back is cold. The screen is very small even smaller than my phone. Windows 10 doesn’t scale well on small devices but it works. Win 3 has two modes, mouse and controller. Most of the time, I use controller mode because I am always in steam big picture mode. However, this doesn’t mean that mouse mode is back. It works very well once you get used to it. It is instantly from controller to mouse but it takes about 3s to switch back. I am not sure why. It is always good to change to controller mode and start the game. Otherwise, the controller may not work.
Controls on Win 3 are fine. It can be awkward sometimes and many people agree with it. It is not the best layout but it is fine. I spent lots of time playing GTA V on it and it works most of the time but sometimes, the game crashes. This is a major issue with Win 3 but it is because of the poor Intel drivers. The XE graphics is very powerful but the driver is letting it down. Certain games don’t work well because of the driver. It may improve over time but this is something need to take note of.
Another issue is the display. It is 1280x720 but actually, it is 720x1280 so it is like a phone display. This breaks some games because the display is clipped with software. Also, there is no way to update the resolution so 720p is the only option. Certain games may run better if it is 568p? I don’t know. By using an external display, it works better but what’s the point if it is not a handheld. My desktop is just next to me so why not play games on it? I can do 4K ultra. The whole point of Win 3 is using it as a handheld.
The dock was bundled with the opinion I picked. It was the sliver mode with 1165G7 and dock. It is a handheld but when docked, it becomes a NUC, Intel NUC. I see it as a NUC with a controller and a 2 hour battery. The cooling on Win 3 is amazing and I can push it to 30W TDP and maybe even 35W. It is an absolute beast. However, I use it as a handheld most of the time and set it to 15W only. This doesn’t mean that it is not great when docked.
Overall, I enjoy playing games on GPW Win 3. It can play most games but due to poor drivers, some games are not playable. It is just an all in one device for me because I can play everything on it (with streaming). Steam Deck was also announced recently and it should be much better than Win 3 in terms of GPU performance but the form factor and extendability, Win 3 is still better. I will buy one when it is available. Later, I will decide if Steam Deck is better for me.