Handheld gaming PCs for image editing

[nandbytes]

My brothers bought these new handheld gaming PCs to attention (mostly for gaming and not really for editing)

GPD WIN3:The world’s 1st handheld AAA game console

1165G7/1135G7 processor, 16GB LPDDR4x 4266, 1TB NVMe SSD, 60 FPS for the latest AAA games | Check out 'GPD WIN3:The world’s 1st handheld AAA game console' on Indiegogo.

www.indiegogo.com

AYANEO: World’s First 7nm Handheld Gaming Device

6 cores AMD Ryzen 5 4500U Mobile Processor with Radeon Graphics. Unmatched levels of performance. | Check out 'AYANEO: World’s First 7nm Handheld Gaming Device' on Indiegogo.

www.indiegogo.com

I am not so much interested in a gaming device but these gaming devices come with a dock and they can drive 4K monitors. Considering they are capable of playing some rather graphically intensive games I wondered how they'd perform for editing images with software like Lightroom, photoshop, capture one etc. They seem to run standard windows 10 operating system on a x86 machine so there should be no compatibility issues.
I am not suggesting using one of these as a handheld editing device even for one second (because I hate editing even on my laptop let alone a itch-bitsy screen on these devices). But since they can be connected to a good monitor may be they can be capable, easily transportable editing PCs. And on holidays etc may be even work as a backup for images.

Just a thought and I wondered if any one here might be interested in such a device for editing and plus gaming if you are so inclined.
p.s. this is not so much a "I need advice" thread, its more of a discussion thread if any one is interested.

My brothers have GPD XD plus android device, and it works pretty well for its intended purpose. So these are a real deal i.e. they are not scams or kickstarters that'll disappear with the money.
Also GPD have been running a while with a few previous iterations already sold.

 

[hashcake]

At those prices I doubt anyone would be tempted.

 

[nandbytes]

May be may be not. You can get a more powerful tower or equally powerful one for less money. But that of course isn't the point of this device.

 

[ancient_mariner]

I think a major issue would be upgrade path, because something made to be so compact is likely to use specialised versions of components and be hard to work on. One could think of these devices as the equivalent of a Mac mini with built in screen, and that makes the pricing seem sensible.

If I had a need to save space then there might be a compelling argument for such. As it is, I'd prefer a conventional machine I can fix.

 

[nandbytes]

I currently use a M1 Mac air. Upgrade path is basically nonexistent for me.
Furthermore more I personally don't believe the whole upgrade path dream. About every 3-5 years electronics moves on and they don't work nicely with each other. You end up having to do a massive overhaul anyway. It's a bit like "my grandfather's hammer" i.e. I have changed the head three times and the handle twice but it's still the same hammer
I wouldn't buy a machine that wouldn't last be at least 3-4 years, preferably longer (without upgrading components that is)

 

[ancient_mariner]

I currently use a M1 Mac air. Upgrade path is basically nonexistent for me.
Furthermore more I personally don't believe the whole upgrade path dream. About every 3-5 years electronics moves on and they don't work nicely with each other. You end up having to do a massive overhaul anyway. It's a bit like "my grandfather's hammer" i.e. I have changed the head three times and the handle twice but it's still the same hammer
I wouldn't buy a machine that wouldn't last be at least 3-4 years, preferably longer (without upgrading components that is)

When I bought my Macbook I just couldn't afford the spec I would have liked, but I could add memory, bigger HDD, then SSD. With the XPS I now use, the base hardware was already a great spec (pay Apple prices for non-Apple hardware and you get something decent) but I've added hard drives that have made it much more useful. I would agree about swapping out processors being fairly fruitless if you started with a good spec (but not if it was a budget job) but better graphics, more memory, more storage can all make a machine valid for much longer than having a sealed & limited box.

 

[nandbytes]

When I bought my Macbook I just couldn't afford the spec I would have liked, but I could add memory, bigger HDD, then SSD. With the XPS I now use, the base hardware was already a great spec (pay Apple prices for non-Apple hardware and you get something decent) but I've added hard drives that have made it much more useful. I would agree about swapping out processors being fairly fruitless if you started with a good spec (but not if it was a budget job) but better graphics, more memory, more storage can all make a machine valid for much longer than having a sealed & limited box.

I generally find buying under spec'd PCs to be false economy to some extent (I appreciate not everyone can or want to buy a massively spec'd up workstation).
you end up spending more in the longer run trying get its performance up. Only thing that seems to scale well is the hard drives IME.

anyway I think we are going off on a tangent slightly. The handheld gaming PCs above can't really be upgraded and they don't pretend to be otherwise. In fact one of them is sold as a "console" in the title. Consoles are seldom user upgradable.
I personally find the 16GB RAM to be limiting especially if you are using LR or PS. they'll easily eat all that up. but many people inc. myself were running happily with 16GB RAM, so may be it'll serve people well enough for few years?

As you mentioned initially if someone is looking at a (M1) Mac mini but want a PC instead and also interested in some gaming or other windows based apps this can be interesting. You can get things like intel NUCs but they cost an arm and a leg in comparison.

 

[Mauri3205]

I have sworn off mobile CPUs. The specs may look good like the 4500U but if you push it then it can’t sustain the performance and will underclock itself to manage heat. Such CPUs are typically around the 15-25 Watt mark, higher end mobile CPUs are around 35-45 and desktop is typically 65+. This is not 100% but this is how I think of them at least for my purposes.

A 65W CPU has much more thermal headroom than a 15W mobile CPU before thermal management kicks in. I faced this a lot when trying to encode and decode 4K video, gaming among others.

 

[nandbytes]

I have sworn off mobile CPUs. The specs may look good like the 4500U but if you push it then it can’t sustain the performance and will underclock itself to manage heat. Such CPUs are typically around the 15-25 Watt mark, higher end mobile CPUs are around 35-45 and desktop is typically 65+. This is not 100% but this is how I think of them at least for my purposes.

A 65W CPU has much more thermal headroom than a 15W mobile CPU before thermal management kicks in. I faced this a lot when trying to encode and decode 4K video, gaming among others.

interesting points but I read the reviews of the previous generation i.e. GPD win 2 and its seems to be fine heat wise for playing games at least.
If it had serious heat issues and performance throttling issues it surely wouldn't be such a big hit among gamers.

I'm quite keen to give a chance just because its a cool gadget. but unfortunately my brothers are students and they cannot afford it and I am not really into gaming enough to justify the cost of this device for just testing purposes.

 

[Mauri3205]

interesting points but I read the reviews of the previous generation i.e. GPD win 2 and its seems to be fine heat wise for playing games at least.
If it had serious heat issues and performance throttling issues it surely wouldn't be such a big hit among gamers.

I'm quite keen to give a chance just because its a cool gadget. but unfortunately my brothers are students and they cannot afford it and I am not really into gaming enough to justify the cost of this device for just testing purposes.

I agree that for gaming it could be fine but I do transcoding on Plex, Folding@Home and a bunch of other things which take the CPU to 100% sustained. Admittedly the latest CPUs I worked on recently were 6 and 7th generation so things may be different now but keep in mind the base frequency is also lower on mobile CPUs.

My use cases are probably somewhat more niche relative to others. Incidentally the Intel T series is very intriguing. Combines the best of both worlds perhaps.

 

[JonathanRyan]

By the miracle of targeted ads, this crossed my timeline today

ONEXPLAYER: World’s Best Handheld Game Console | Indiegogo

It's a fair bit cheaper and actually exists But I'm still not sure on the use case.

As a gaming machine it's tiny but so is the screen. I guess you can take it to a LAN party (or whatever the millennial equivalent is) and jack into a screen etc and maybe useful for holidays but as a primary gaming machine, I don't really see it. And high powered phones / Switches are good for mobile gaming.

As a portable Win 10 machine......an NUC would go in a pocket. It doesn't have a screen but then, I can't see running Photoshop or Excel on an "8 inch" screen anyway. And your original links are knocking on the door of the cost of a Razer Stealth.