GPD Pocket: the 7 inch laptop

Presentation

First of all, it should be noted that the GPD Pocket is an imported product and is therefore not officially available in Spain. As such, we thank Gearbest for the loan of the product, the merchant site selling the device € 426.48 (excluding taxes and customs fees).

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Construction

What a strange object this GPD Pocket! At first glance, we have the tenacious impression of being in front of a MacBook Pro that would have been washed, as the design and the materials used evoke Apple's notebook. The inspiration is obvious, but the result is successful. The Chinese manufacturer has indeed made every effort to give a "premium" look to its product: chassis entirely in aluminum, solid hinge system, keyboard which occupies the entire length, very high level of finish ... In hand, the product convinces by its manufacturing quality and the impression of solidity which it gives off.

But the GPD Pocket is not just a pretty "miniature" laptop: it aims to be as functional as possible. To achieve this, the Chinese company has implemented a real QWERTY keyboard which is fairly well optimized and has a blue touch button serving as a pointer. Reduced format requires, there is no touchpad; it is therefore necessary to alternate between a purely tactile use on the screen and manipulation of the small blue button. The latter is fairly well placed and allows you to naturally keep your hands on the keyboard. On the other hand, it will be necessary to pass in the options of Windows 10 to modify its sensitivity, because that by default is very weak. Once the correct settings are applied, the cursor becomes fast and precise.

But what interests us especially here is the quality of the keyboard and its practicality in everyday life. GPD has done the best possible integration work, since the keyboard occupies the entire width of the chassis. The keys are fairly well spaced and the race is long. The slightly "brushed" touch is also very pleasant. However, we must admit that its daily use is far from simple. Despite all the efforts, the keys remain small and it is very difficult to type quickly and with all your fingers without making huge shells. It will quickly be necessary to use only its two indexes and thumbs for the space bar, or else grab the laptop with both hands and type with your thumbs, like on a tablet or smartphone. In any case, writing sessions that are a bit long and intensive are to be avoided, unless you have tiny fingers.

Despite its small size, the GPD Pocket offers fairly complete connectivity, GPD having had at heart to keep a certain chassis thickness (between 7 and 10 mm), which allows to wedge a USB 3 Type-A port, a micro port -HDMI, a jack and a USB 3 Type-C port (also used for charging). Bluetooth 4.1 and Wi-Fi a / ac / b / gn connectivity is also part of the game.

The GPD Pocket has a hot air exhaust system on the right side, which allows it to keep a decent temperature. After an hour of stress test under Unigine Heaven, we find a hot spot at 40.5 ° C at the bottom of the keyboard; the rest remains below 38.4 ° C. A slight breath is heard during light use. It remains very discreet and well below the 37 dB generally observed in a living room.

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Screen

The GPD Pocket has a 7 inch IPS touch screen, displaying a resolution of 1,920 x 1,200 px in 16:10 format. At first glance, GPD seems to have worked well on this aspect of the product, and there is an image that is well developed, in a fairly comfortable format.

The figures recorded with our probe, however, qualify this first good impression. The screen of the GPD Pocket is thus in a small average for a laptop, and is largely exceeded by most of the tablets on the market. The maximum brightness rises to 272 cd / m² and the contrast ratio reaches 780: 1. Readability remains good despite everything.

delta color E = 5.1 gamma 2.2 temperature 7950 K

In terms of colorimetry, here again, the GPD Pocket is a student that we would have liked more applied. Delta E is 5.1 (remember that it represents the difference between the actual colors and the colors displayed, and that it is considered to be very good below 3). The color temperature reaches 7,950 K - here, the closer you get to 6,500 K, the better the balance between warm and cool tones. In the case of the GPD Pocket, there is therefore a fairly straightforward drift towards the cold shades. The gamma curve, on the other hand, is particularly stable, indicating a well-defined gray gradient. Finally, there is a remanence of 22 ms, which remains quite bad, even for IPS.

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Performances

The Pocket GPD is equipped with an Intel Atom x7-Z8750 processor, accompanied by 8 GB of RAM and 128 GB of storage in eMMC format (manufactured by Samsung). This very low-power CPU is usually found in entry-level ultraportable PCs, or in the GPD Win from the same manufacturer. The presence of 8 GB of RAM and 128 GB of storage space are however a real plus.

In practice, the GPD Pocket is certainly not a thunderbolt of velocity, but offers a sufficient level of performance in the context of a use limited to office automation, surfing on the web or watching videos. And that's good, since that's exactly what it is for. Due to its format, the use that you can make of it is in any case restricted. GPD has therefore made judicious choices on this point, favoring in particular the presence of 8 GB of RAM and storage in the form of 128 GB eMMC.

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Games

Of course, no miracle here: the graphics part of the Pocket GPD runs on the iGPU Intel HD Graphics 405. A graphics chip quite incapable of running recent games in 3D and we must limit ourselves to pure 2D, or really very old titles. That said, a service like Steam is full of independent games using pixel art, which will adapt very well to this configuration. Pair a small Bluetooth controller, and voila.

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Mobility / Autonomy

In terms of transportability, the GPD Pocket is obviously an excellent student. With its 18 cm long, 10.6 cm wide, 1.8 cm thick and 480 g, it easily fits in a very small bag, an inside coat pocket, or even a pants pocket. Its format is certainly its big highlight.

On the autonomy side, the results are a little more mixed. GPD announces up to 12 hours of use, which seems somewhat exaggerated. In practice, our streaming video playback test (Netflix in Chrome, brightness at 200 cd / m², headphones plugged in) ran for 5 hours 17 minutes. A very average score, which is however not entirely representative of office use. By playing on the brightness and energy saving, it is possible to use the GPD Pocket for 6 to 8 hours. We are still far from the 12 hours announced by the manufacturer.

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Audio

The GPD Pocket's headphone output is of average quality. The distortion rate is low (0.03%), but the output power, although sufficient, remains quite limited. The entire sound spectrum is well rendered.

The single speaker, on the other hand, delivers a very poor sound with limited power. Absence of bass and treble, some mids ... The whole sound hollow and metallic. It is clearly not the best aspect of the product.

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Conclusion

Difficult to note the GPD Pocket, as the product combines the qualities, but remains limited in its uses. GPD has managed to create a real "mini" laptop in 7 inch format, particularly well constructed and thought out. You should however be aware that its extreme compactness does not allow it to be as versatile as an ultraportable and that its keyboard, as intelligently designed as it is, remains difficult to use. A good niche product, which you should buy with full knowledge of the facts.

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