This Gaming Handheld’s Exterior Battery Is not as Dumb as You Suppose

As we’re ready for the ROG Xbox Ally and the following era of slightly more powerful gaming handhelds to hit the scene, I’m caught eager about the place transportable gaming might go if designers bought somewhat weirder with it. China-based firm GPD, identified for providing off-kilter laptops that straddle a enterprise and gamer way of life, has a handheld PC that’s equal elements engaging and ludicrous. It’s the battery, of all issues, that makes the gadget stand out, actually.

The GPD Win 5 handheld PC bears a hanging resemblance to the PlayStation Transportable. In comparison with the Win 4’s T-Cellular Sidekick-like slide-up keyboard, the Win 5’s standout “function” is its exterior battery. Sure, you heard that proper. The gadget’s battery is without doubt one of the largest we’ve seen on a handheld—practically as large because the 7-inch display screen. The battery can connect to the again of the gadget, or you’ll be able to play with the ability unit exterior and wired up. Need one thing even weirder? The Win 5 has a tray like a SIM card slot that houses an SSD for simply swappable storage.

At its showcase on the ChinaJoy tech convention in Shanghai, China, GPD claimed its gadget can obtain graphics capabilities equal to that of an Nvidia GeForce RTX 4060 graphics card, although we’ve but to have it in our fingers to check that speculation. The huge battery pack itself has a 5,170mAh capability and is rated for 80Wh. GPD additionally makes a docking station for the hand held that makes use of the underside USB-C connection. You possibly can plug the battery into the dock, then join a monitor for a full desktop expertise.

Past it wanting like a grown-up PlayStation Transportable, the GPD Win 5 takes the prize as probably the most outlandish handheld I’ve seen as of late, and that features gadgets made to resemble a Nintendo DS and even the OneXSugar Sugar 1 dual-screen device with folding arms. Together with 32GB of RAM, the Win 5 is meant to deal with as much as an AMD Ryzen AI Max+ 395 chip, which has proved itself an especially highly effective APU—or accelerated processing unit—for graphically intensive duties like gaming. Yow will discover the same chips on bigger gaming tablets just like the top-end Asus ROG Flow Z13 or in small, contained PCs just like the Framework Desktop. On a handheld, the Ryzen AI Max is like placing a rocket engine in a toddler’s cardboard spaceship.

Folks on-line had been fast to deride the high-end APU and the need of a separate battery. In spite of everything, how can anyone name a tool transportable if you have to lug an additional battery round as properly? In a post to X, GPD stated the gadget has an influence draw of 70W or extra, which is over 40W greater than most fashionable handhelds can deal with. The corporate stated “an inner battery alone wouldn’t suffice.” The corporate is principally telling customers that if they need near-desktop-level efficiency out of their handheld, then they want a novel battery answer first.

Right here’s a response to among the subjects everybody has introduced up relating to the Win5:

Design Philosophy of the Win5
The WIN5 is a bar-form handheld gaming console designed with most efficiency in thoughts. Its type issue is much like conventional handhelds just like the Steam Deck and…

— GPD Sport Consoles (@softwincn) August 6, 2025

If there’s one primary hindrance to cell gadgets, it’s the battery. Excessive-powered XR headsets just like the Apple Vision Pro require customers to slide a wired battery into their pocket throughout use. We anticipate the upcoming Samsung Project Moohan Android XR headset to have comparable battery limitations. These gadgets require higher-end chips to course of high-resolution photographs, which implies they want bigger batteries to make use of upper TDP, or thermal design energy. If these batteries had been housed on the headsets, they’d be far heavier than they already are.

Handhelds usually carry out on decrease resolutions than your typical higher-end PC, and customers who need to play for greater than two hours have to run them at decrease wattages anyway. This isn’t as large of a deal if you’re paying $550 for a Steam Deck OLED. The restricted graphics efficiency on a handheld just like the Asus ROG Ally X may be often grating if you’re forking over practically $1,000 for it. The GPD Win 5 received’t be probably the most cell of any handheld, however it’s higher to think about it as one thing nearer to a gaming laptop computer, simply with built-in gamepad controls. The dock might show much more crucial for utilizing the hand held as a form of plug-and-play gaming console. This can be a performance-first gadget, and any potential patrons have to deal with it as such. We nonetheless don’t know the way a lot it can price, however we will assume it received’t be low-cost when it hits the market at some unknown date sooner or later.