This article is *not* sponsored in any way. I’ve made it because I think it’s relevant for UX fans.

Hello, folks!

Today, I’ve got some cool news for you! The Chinese company GPD, known for its handheld gaming PCs GPD WIN 2, GPD WIN Max and GPD XD, will be releasing a new product called the GPD WIN 3.

You may think, what the heck has this to do with this site, a site about legacy ultra-portable computers made by Sony? Well, the answer is the design of the new GPD computer! Take a look at the tweet from GPD below:

Yes, you’ve seen it correctly. The new WIN 3 will look very familiar for us UX lovers. It features a 5.5 inch screen that slides up to reveal a physical keyboard. A fingerprint scanner and joysticks are also included. In contrast to the UX series, this computer is more focused onto gaming. To facilitate this, various gaming controls have been added. These include a D-Pad, A/B/X/Y buttons and shoulder buttons. Basically a full game controller built-in.

This new computer will also be very performant. With its 11th gen i5-1135G7 or i7-1165G7 CPU, 16GB of rapid 4266MHZ DDR4 memory and a 500GB NVME SSD, it will beat any Vaio UX with ease. It should run most current PC games on moderate settings, the GPU being the limiting factor.

It’s interesting to see that a new product will be inspired on an old system’s design. With this computer featuring mostly the same layout as the past UX machines, it’s surely a nice step forward. The only 2 features you may be missing when compared to a Sony UX, are the cameras and cellular connectivity. But for the latter, you could always use your smartphone as a cellular hotspot.

GPD WIN 3 is expected to launch in January 2021 on Indiegogo and to be shipped around April / May of 2021. Are you getting a WIN 3? Leave a comment below!