There has been a niche market for laptops and convertibles with displays no larger than 8 inches for some years. It’s not a big enough market to make it popular, but it’s enough to keep some businesses afloat. These little laptops have become nearly as powerful as many mid-range notebooks at almost the same price, thanks to breakthroughs in manufacturing and hardware. GPD, on the other hand, is attempting to take it to the next level by providing the Pocket 3 with something that most similar devices lack: a variety of ports.
The strength and weakness of these mini-laptops have always been their size. Because their compact size is incredibly portable and may be used in situations where even the smallest 11-inch laptop would be problematic, on the other hand, users have had to make compromises in terms of typing comfort and the number of ports accessible.
The GPD Pocket 3 is an attempt to address the latter. Some innovative designs have attempted to handle the keyboard problem, but with some compromises, and now the GPD Pocket 3 is trying to do so. While it still includes a fixed set of connectors, such as a full-sized HDMI, Thunderbolt 4 (or USB-C), and even a 2.5Gbps Ethernet port, it also has a modular architecture that allows you to swap between various alternatives. Unfortunately, at the time, the options were restricted to adding a USB-A connector, an RS-232 port, or a KVM switch.
Unlike earlier mini-laptop versions, the GPD Pocket 3 has a powerful Intel Core i7-1195G7 processor and 16GB RAM. On a laptop, this compact, that type of hardware would have been unthinkable a few years ago, but that’s how far things have progressed. The 8-inch display can spin around to fold down into a tablet, replete with support for an active stylus with 4096 levels of pressure, and still maxes out at 19201080, which is fine for its size.
The modular port concept may not appeal to many customers, especially if there aren’t many port options, to begin with. Instead, the available GPD modules appear to be geared for engineers or advanced computer users who require what some could consider legacy ports. Hopefully, more options will become available shortly, especially if the concept takes off.
The GPD Pocket 3 is available on Indiegogo for $999 for the laptop alone or $1,079 for the computer and modules. There is a less expensive $650 option ($730 with modules), but it comes at the cost of downgrading to an Intel Pentium Silver N6000 processor and only 8GB of RAM. There may be enough time to make a selection, but each category has just 500 units accessible during this campaign.
Source: indiegogo
