[Lèirmheas Hototh]First of all, I welcome GPD. UMPC “GPD Pocket 4” reached its peak with Ryzen AI 9 HX 370

GPD Technology’s unstoppable challenge to UMPC continues in 2024. The “GPD Pocket 4”, announced at the end of October, combines the AMD Ryzen AI 9 370 HX mobile flagship processor with an 8.8- inch that supports WQXGA (2,560 x 1,600 dots), and has 206.8 x 144.5 x It is an ambitious result with a size of 22.2mm and a housing weighing around 770g.

The “GPD Pocket” series is a business series that emphasizes productivity, compared to the company’s “GPD WIN” series for mobile gamers. The first generation was equipped with a processor called Atom x7-Z8750 and had weak specifications, but the second generation “GPD Pocket 2” has a Core m3-7Y30 and has been transformed into a device with practical performance.

The third generation “GPD Pocket 3” released in 2021 is Core i7-1195G7, and while it achieves mainstream performance, it is also enriched with functions by adopting a modular structure , but in the three years since then, this device, which has been released. after several years, he finally switched his processor to AMD. There are many other new features, so I’m sure many users will be interested. I would like to check it on the loan machine immediately.

By the way, as of November 27, as of this writing, they are seeking investment on Indiegogo, and the following structure is available as a result of investment. The sample we received this time has a configuration Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 + 32GB memory + 1TB SSD storage, which is not included in this configuration.

• Ryzen 7 8840U / 16GB Memory / 1TB SSD – 126,896 yen
• Ryzen AI 9 365 / 32GB Memory / 2TB SSD – 161,806 yen
• Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 / 64GB Memory / 2TB SSD – 204,347 yen

The fourth generation has become the largest chassis in the series.

The GPD Pocket series was introduced in 2017. After the Windows tablet hype subsided, UMPC unveiled a 7-inch clamshell with a keyboard large enough for touch typing, creating a buzz the among UMPC enthusiasts. By the way, the main body size was 180 x 106 x 18.5 mm, and the weight was about 480 g.

The previous generation, GPD Pocket 3, introduced many unique elements into this. making it ideal for industrial use. GPD Pocket 4 has evolved while following most of the features of GPD Pocket 3.

The first point is a significant increase in the CPU, the Core i7-1195G7, which had 4 cores and 8 threads with the Tiger Lake generation architecture, has become the Ryzen AI 9 370 HX with the Zen 5 architecture, 12 cores / 24 threads. To be honest, I think Core i7-1195G7 has a level of performance that will be enough even in 2024, but the difference in the number of CPU cores will probably make a big difference depending the application.

Second, the resolution of the liquid crystal display has been increased from 1,920 x 1,200 dots (WUXGA) to WQXGA, and it has also increased in size to 8.8 inches. Since the amount of information is increasing, users who do not want to compromise on the amount of information even on a small screen will be happy. Another good development is that the refresh rate has increased to 144Hz, making scrolling movements smoother and less likely to lose track of the mouse pointer.

Comparison with GPD Pocket 3 (left). It is obvious that it has become bigger

The third is to update the model structure. The mechanism itself, which connects with two left and right screws + pogo pins, has not changed, but the space for the connecting part has been enlarged. Before, it had USB 3.2 Gen 1 (standard equipment), serial port, and KVM, but GPD Pocket 4 has microSD card slot (standard equipment), serial port (investment return price 2,144 yen), KVM (7,356 yen), and 4G LTE It became a model (16,855 yen).

Modular structure of GPD 4 pocket

Here are the two models I got this time. The bottom is the standard microSD card slot, and the top is the 4G LTE modem. It seems to be usable as it is a model with technical specifications, but unfortunately the APN input field did not appear and I could not use it.

The GPD Pocket 4 module component has been changed from 28 pins to 20 pins. Different sizes, they are no longer compatible

Comparing GPD Pocket 4 with the first generation, the volume has increased by 88% and the weight has increased by 60%, making it the largest in the series, but with that a big change has already been made with the GPD Pocket 3, it is no longer on the same playing field. On the other hand, compared to GPD Pocket 3, the volume is 22% more and the weight is 6% more. The number of CPU cores has tripled, and the LCD resolution has almost doubled, so forgive me! That may be the case.

Comparison with previous GPD pocket series. GPD Pocket 4 became the largest

By the way, it’s the largest size in the GPD Pocket series, but it’s actually about half the footprint of the aforementioned 13.3-inch dual-screen notebook “GPD DUO,” so if you ask me if it is UMPC, it is definitely UMPC.

Performance improvement with Ryzen AI is not just a matter of time

Let’s continue by looking at the benchmark results. This time, as usual, we will use “Cinebench R23” to measure real CPU performance, “PCMark 10” to measure overall PC performance, “3DMark” to measure 3D performance, and “Final Fantasy XIV: Benchmark Golden Finale” to measure true. game performance. For comparison, “GPD DUO”, which has a higher TDP (56W) as standard, and “GPD Pocket 3”, which is equipped with the previous generation Core i7-1195G7 (standard settings PL1 = 15W / PL2 = 20W) We are prepared (some data used from previous reviews).

First, in terms of CPU performance, the result was a world away from the GPD Pocket 3. Not only is single-core performance improved by 43%, but multi-core performance has reached nearly 4.5 hour. At such high speeds, it feels like you’re using a different machine, especially when using heavy processing.

Results for: Cinebench R23

On the other hand, the highest performance is around 77% of GPD DUO. As expected, the sizes of the layers are completely different, so it would be better to think of Ryzen AI as a processor with excellent power efficiency that does not significantly reduce performance even if power consumption reduced. Or rather, since it is an 8.8-inch camera with this performance, there is nothing to complain about.

If we take a closer look at the results of PCMark 10, which measures the overall performance of a PC, the Essentials score, which is directly related to the general operating feeling, is not much different from the GPD Pocket 3. The main differences around the Spreadsheets Score, which is calculated using OpenCL, and Digital Content Creation, where the overall performance of the CPU/GPU is directly linked to the score. In this area, the number of CPU cores has increased significantly, and the advantages of Ryzen AI, which has a powerful GPU, are clearly visible.

PCMark 10 results

The 3D performance is about 2 to 3 times higher than GPD Pocket 3. With the Core i7-1195G7, you can’t even run tests using ray tracing like Port Royal / Speed ​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​a​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​a​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​war–PR (CRC)77 Bay 3DMark, which shows the advantage of Ryzen, which has a strong GPU. On the other hand, there is not much difference from GPD DUO, so the difference in power limit is mainly due to CPU performance.

I also played the MMORPG “Black Desert” as a test, and when used in conjunction with AMD FidelityFX Super Resolution, I was able to play with enhanced image quality without any problems. This is a remarkable evolution from the Core m3 generations “GPD Pocket 2” and “GPD WIN 2”, which were able to run at the lowest image quality and resolution.

As for battery life, when I ran the PCMark 10 Modern Office battery test with the brightness set to 40%, it ran for 6 hours and 52 minutes until the remaining capacity reached 6%. Since the GPD Pocket 3 took 4 hours and 22 minutes, this means that the time was extended even though the CPU had more cores and the LCD was bigger and faster. The battery capacity of GPD Pocket 3 was 38.5Wh, but the capacity of GPD Pocket 4 was increased to 45Wh. This seems to have been achieved along with CPU power savings.

Who is the strongest power in the history of UMPC?

It’s a little disappointing that it’s not as accessible as the original GPD Pocket and how light the GPD Pocket 2 is. However, the GPD Pocket 4 has finally achieved performance that surpasses even a regular notebook PC , or even a small current PC. For users who have followed UMPC since Libretto 20 and experienced a rock bottom performance with Crusoe, the milestone achieved by GPD Pocket 4 is like a dream.

How you use this implementation is up to the user, but if you like following UMPC to this point, you probably already have a way to use it. Anyway, I bought the GPD Pocket 3 with my own money, but since I have a history of working normally at my company, I believe that the GPD Pocket 4 can be used as a major tool without any doubt about it.

Personally, more than anything else, I would like to thank GPD, who brought life back to the once thought “dead” UMPC market in 2016, and have continued to ‘ release new products for eight years. There is a saying in Chinese that says, “Everything is difficult at first,” but past technologies and products have proven that in the PC industry, “it is more difficult to continue.”The reason GPD can continue to do so is because of its strong roadmap and vision to maintain business scale that is focused on areas. I can’t wait to see where GPD Pocket 5 goes.