Batteries suck. They’re just awful. They’re heavy, take up a lot of space, and they inevitably degrade with use. In fact, why don’t we just get rid of them altogether? Oh, right, because they’re the only way to power electronics without plugging them in. But GPD isn’t letting that stop its designers from pulling the battery out on its newest handheld.
GPD has been at this game even longer than Valve, delivering tiny, almost-pocketable gaming machines since long before the Steam Deck. But the Chinese manufacturer has definitely gotten a boost from the new craze for PC-powered handhelds, and the new GPD Win 5 is its most ambitious design yet.
With a 7-inch screen, a chassis that looks a PSP with gigantism, and AMD’s top-of-the-line laptop/workstation Ryzen AI Max+ 395 chip inside, it can turn heads all on its own. (That’s the same chip in the Framework Desktop!) But it might also raise some eyebrows, because it can’t actually turn on without external power.
That power comes in the form of an 80-watt-hour external battery pack or a 180-watt DC adapter. The body of the device itself, which is remarkably small despite cramming in the most powerful 16-core mobile chip around, just doesn’t have the space inside. Based on the promotional images, it looks like the device needs all that room for an elaborate dual-fan cooler system that keeps the hardware from burning through the plastic.
But don’t imagine that this is an Apple Vision Pro situation. The battery can clip onto the back of the device, so it’s easy enough to hold in your hands or slip into a bag without any extra cables.
VideoCardz.com reports that while there’s no internal capacitor, it’s possible to hibernate the device and switch to a new power source if you run the external battery dry. Scoff if you like (I certainly did), but my coworker and handheld fan Adam Patrick Murray says he mostly plays handhelds like the Steam Deck on his couch plugged directly into power, so clearly some PC gamers are into this.
Other highlights include up to 128GB of RAM (with 96GB shareable with the Radeon 8060S integrated graphics), 4TB of storage before the microSD card, dual USB-C ports plus USB-A for easy expansion, and an additional “mini SSD card slot” in a format I don’t recognize. And it’s no slouch when it comes to the handheld experience, thanks to creature comforts like Hall effect sticks, shoulder triggers with a “clicky” mode, a 120Hz screen, and a tiny touchpad a la the Legion Go S.
The system will launch in September, but there’s still no word on price. For the sake of comparison, the current GPD Win 4 2025 runs about $830 to $1,165 depending on how it’s configured, so expect the Win 5 to be even more pricey.
