GPD Pocket 4

After I got one for my hobby, my girl wanted one of her own, and it really packs a punch! It runs any game she can throw at it.

I've got the Pocket 4 dual-booting Windows and Gentoo Linux. It takes a little know-how, but very satisfying once it's done. The GRUB menu is still rotated, and may always be, but everything else is great. KDE Plasma runs super smooth and all packages compile way faster than they did on the Desktop I've been using these last several years.

Great device overall! This little laptop is a utilitarian gamer/dev's dream. The chassis is solid aluminum and makes it way a LOT for its size, but considering how feature-rich and sturdy the whole thing feels it's definitely warranted.

Aside from that, I do have some minor gripes. The chassis, buttons, AND screen are all grease magnets. It's the most ideal size for an in-field carry, but hopefully your adventures take you into AC or else you'll have fingerprints all over the cover in seconds. If you have naturally oily hands, then good luck. After mild keyboard use over a week (I often hook it up to an external setup when gaming), I already have the plastic on my space bar that shiny, worn-in, sheen black, along with other common keys like shift. I think it'd be great to put a case or a wrap on it, if you can manage.

Another annoyance is the screen and body's seal. The smooth and slippery metal makes it really tough to get a good grip to open the lid. There's a minor indent, but it's too small to use unless you're using your nail. Issue is, the border for the screen is incredibly small and as far as I've seen, there's no screen protector other than the temporary plastic to protect it in shipping. I elected to keep it and peel off the white "Remove" tab to protect the screen, but the material doesn't seem like it'll hold up over time.

Final problem, which bugs me the most, is the crashes. I admittedly haven't done much troubleshooting (Only had it for a week), but the laptop will suddenly hang and restart if I do things in an "unpredicted(?)" order, like flipping through a menu while it's actively resizing, or changing too many graphics settings at once, or even just unplugging it while a game is running. I'm sure it's a solvable issue, and I genuinely can't tell if it's something I'd done when first using it or if it was something that's wrong with the hardware.

Other than those gripes, the whole thing is a really good package! I got the lowest spec model and I can run pretty much anything excluding modern AAA games. Plenty of flexibility and good build quality!

Does everything I need from gaming to web browsing, best thing I’ve bought in years

This is a powerful pc in a compact portable size. I bought this for its versatility, I can game when I want to and work when I need to. Its high end but that’s because you’re getting top quality tech.

i love this mini laptop up to this point ive never bought my own laptop so while researching i realized i wanted a very portable experience so mini was the way i wanted to go and im glad i did thank you for the great customer service as well

This device has lived up to most of my expectations, and I’m really happy with it. Quick side note: Droix has been fantastic, and I can’t imagine buying a GPD device any other way now. On to the Pocket 4:

This is a pretty novel little machine. A surprising amount of power in such a compact package, and the price wasn’t bad at all given the horsepower (mine is the HX 370 / 64 GB version).

The screen is excellent, although there’s no getting around the fact that it’s still just 8.8 inches. That means working with two windows side-by-side is rarely viable, and when coworkers share their 4K screens on video calls, it's a bit rough. I can zoom in using our conferencing app, but that was a surprise annoyance I hadn’t fully anticipated. Just one of those small-device tradeoffs that reminds you how important it is to know your needs before diving into something this compact. When I’m working in a planned session I dock it at my desk.

A couple of features I really like: The 4G LTE modem and the surprisingly usable built-in keyboard. It’s a huge upgrade from tapping things out on my phone’s screen when I need to write more than a sentence or two. With a little practice, I’m comfortably typing over 60 WPM. I've used it more for documentation and correspondence than coding, since some of the keys are in odd places.

The trackpad and mouse buttons above the keyboard were easy to get used to. Two minor gripes: the built-in mic isn’t great (but I use a Bluetooth headset anyway), and the fan can be a little annoying. It's not louder than my i9 ThinkPad, but the pitch of the fan can be grating in a quiet room. Sometimes it hits that mosquito-whine territory. If there's any white noise or ambient sound around it fades into the background. You can manage it using the MotionAssist app and TDP settings. It’s manageable.

It’s not super lap-friendly due to its shape and weight, but I do use it that way from time to time. I haven’t made much use of the tablet mode. I would’ve used it more if they had kept the active stylus from the Pocket 3, but they didn’t. The tradeoff is better screen resolution, more power under the hood, and the LTE module option, which the Pocket 3 didn’t offer.

Battery life is just okay. With my usage and screen brightness preferences I usually get 4 to 6 hours. Turning down the TDP helps stretch it, but that bright screen is essential for legibility and can be a battery drain. I carry a beefy power bank just in case. It’s enough for how I use it, but not what I’d call all-day battery.

Build quality feels solid and the keyboard action is satisfying. There haven’t been many surprises or compromises, and for the price I paid, I’m pleased. I’m working toward using this as my everything device with a dual-boot setup and some extra customization.

The stock Windows install was clean, no bloatware or weird surprises. That was refreshing. Depending on your needs you may want to swap the stock SSD. Mine came with a WD Blue drive with no DRAM cache, which shows up in slower sustained reads/writes. It’s fine for most use cases, but worth upgrading if you’re doing heavier workloads. Droix doesn’t void your warranty for that kind of swap, which I appreciated.

Despite the name, this thing does not fit in a pocket. It’s too big and heavy for that. Compared to my old slim 13" laptop, it's not a life-changing boost in portability. That said, the full-size HDMI and Ethernet ports are fantastic, and the modular expansion is a plus. You can find similar ideas from Framework laptops, and I’m curious about their new smaller models, but I don’t regret this choice. Framework didn’t have a comparable product available when I needed one, and the HX 370 processor is excellent.

I recently took a weekend trip and packed the Pocket 4 "just in case." It was *slightly* easier to carry than my 13" laptop. I didn’t end up needing it, but it was nice to have. If I ever need to work more extensively while traveling, I might pair it with my Uperfect-X lapdock for a second screen. That’s a 13" display, but I’m considering getting a 16" one to make full-day work more viable when I’m away from the desk.

I’ve only dabbled in gaming on it so far, but I was impressed. I didn’t run anything bleeding-edge, but 5/YO titles ran well and the integrated graphics held up just fine.

All in all, I hope this lengthy but honest review is helpful. This device isn’t for everyone. But if you know your habits and expectations, you can tell whether this form factor and performance profile will work for you. I’m two months in and still totally happy. It runs flawlessly, and even though the fan pitch bugged me a bit, temps stay cool and performance is excellent.

One last recommendation: get a tempered glass screen protector. I added one right away, and I barely notice it. Still crystal clear and touch-responsive. My last laptop made it nearly seven years without major screen damage, and I’d like this one to do the same.

Go...

First off I'm probably not a typical GPD customer as I am neither a gamer or a fan of Microsoft. That being said, I loaded XUbuntu on my GPD Pocket 4 and it performs outstandingly. I had to rotate the display 90 degrees and shrink it by 50% in the XUbuntu settings, but after that it just works perfectly. Thanks so much.

There were many cool UMPCs in the late 2000s. Vaio UX, Fujitsu Loox U, or OQO, each machine in this category was unique and presented the future of PC computing. However, they failed against smartphones due to their weak tech specs. Twenty-ish years later, a full-spec, or even more strong than major manufacturers' high-end machines, is here... with LTE capability (add-on). I thought 8" could be small, but it is fully usable and better than expected, as I used it on a few flights.

Perfect small factor laptop… fans can get a bit loud but you can tweak the settings. I love it.