It’s been 3 days after I got this GPD Pocket. I’ve been forcing myself to use Pocket other than any other laptops. So after 2 days of using it I think I have gained a general knowledge of this thing. Here’s a few bits I would like to share.
On Typing
When it comes to typing, the layout of the keyboard is the most important thing. GPD must has done some hard work on embedding the QWERTY keyboard into this 7” device.
a. “Tab” key is the most frequently used key of mine. In this device they change the key to a different place which is not easy for me.
b. The numbers’ keys: Usually the number “1” is on top of the “Q” letter key button and “2” is on top of “W”. but on GPD it’s changed so I have to take time to adjust to this new layout while typing with mistake occasionally.
These two are most disadvantage parts for me. Other than that I I don’t find anything else as unconvenient as those two. If you’re not a designer perhaps these changes won’t affect you that much. Some sacrifices are must when you’re trying to improve the system in general so this is acceptable. The general size of the keyboard is matched with most people’s hands so this is for all.
On Surfing the Internet
My concern about surfing the Internet is how fast it will run while I am watching on-line videos. But I will try to do all the basic stuff at the beginning.
First I open the browser and create 24 tabs on the searching engine sites like Google and there’s no obvious glitch at all. The viewing is quite smooth, without using the mouse to turn up and down the page. One thing I do like to point out is that you don’t have a mouse with you. All the control of the cursor is depending on that little pole under the blank space key button. This sucks a little bit because when you want to turn the whole page down it will be a bit hard.
And then I try browsing some windows shopping sites. It does slow down a little bit when you open a page which is full of images. It takes time to load the whole page. After the whole page is loaded, it’s quite smooth to browse the whole page again.
Now let’s talk about watching the online videos. First of all I open the YouTube site and choose a random video. It has the option of 1080P playing so I choose it. It takes a while for the page to show the entire video and it goes into full-screen directly. The frame seem a little bit delayed. But the video seems normal. When you click to Esc the full screen, it takes 1-2 seconds to finish. I think this is a normal time for most Windows OS device.
On Video Editing
Usually I would like to use Adobe CC Premiere to edit my videos (mainly from the videos I take with the smart phone and edit them before uploading/posting it on websites). I try with the video that take with iPhone 7 which is in 1920*1080 pixels and 30fps mp4 format. And the time of loading the software for the first is about 5-8 seconds. The screen is not as big as a traditional laptop and actually it is not easy to look at the small texts. I only cut the length of the video, didn’t add too many special effect on it. It takes 8 seconds to finally preview the edited video I just edit with premiere. I won’t suggest doing the long video-editing on this device, definitely not. Let alone After Effect which I don’t even think we need to try.
On programming
I am programmer, so the performance on programming is one of my biggest concerns too. GPD Pocket supports Ubuntu 16.04 (maybe most people would prefer Unix system because most of the massive servers are in Unix system)
Before rebooting it to Ubuntu, I try doing it on windows as well. Because most of my operation are under the environment of Linux (Docker, Giftflow), so I am now going to install an Ubuntu server then connect it with ssh.
Pocket has eMMC ROM, and equipped with Atom processor. That’s why it takes me half an hour to install Ubuntu server. Then I choose cmder under the Windows OS. Pocket and Wim are quite a good match, some simple changes can be control in full screen of cmder. The experience is close to unbuntu OS even though the keyboard can be an issue here.
Summary
In general, GPD Pocket is really a portable and easy to take around with. If you have too much work to do I would still suggest you to bring your big laptop with you. The typing on GPD Pocket is a bit harder than a traditional laptop. If you travel for work a lot and there always emergency work for you to solve this GPD is still considerable. Because all the desktop function you can ask for it can provide. The size and the weight are the most beautiful thing about this item.
Advantage: small, long standby, full Windows Desktop, Ubuntu.
Disadvantage: small screen, limited keyboard layout
The laptop has 8GB RAM and supports Ubuntu, this is really good enough for me. Once this product is produced, I truly believe that it has its target consumers. The small size can be an issue for you but it’s not for someone else. A man’s trash is another man’s treasure. If you’re a fan of umpc, you can consider getting yourself a 2in1 windows tablet, this GPD pocket definitely isn’t for everyone.
Here’s where you can get a GPD Pocket for yourelf
