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GPD Pocket ​

Specs ​

BIOS hotkeys ​

  • BIOS Setup: Del
  • Boot device select: F7 / Fn+7

Windows 23H2 experience ​

I installed Windows 23H2 using Rufus on my GPD Pocket, and out of box not even battery indicator works. Make sure to either have Wi-Fi or Ethernet dongle that doesn't need extra drivers, or have a copy of latest driver package and 7-zip on a USB drive.

WARNING

Use 7-zip for extracting archives provided by GPD. Built-in Windows unarchiving tool fails with cryptic errors.

  • Enter inf folder, right click on Install-drivers.bat, run as administrator.
  • Enter exe folder, right click on Install-drivers.bat, run as administrator.
  • Restart, let Windows Update install extra drivers and software, e.g. Intel HD Graphics Control Panel

That's it. No unknown devices, everything seems to work. YMMV, but i assume older articles i find about driver installation on GPD Pocket are so long and complicated because they were based on Windows 10 experience.

More info:

Windows 24H2 LTSC experience ​

LTSC seems to be a great choice for GPD, but my setup got corrupted shortly after installing drivers the same way i did on 23H2. I wonder if it's one specific driver being incompatible with 24H2, next time i attempt a reinstall i will install drivers one-by-one and take notes. To be continued...

Linux experience ​

In 2024 i tested a couple Linux distros on GPD Pocket and out of box experience with most of them ranged from unusable to productive but randomly unstable.

Features like touchscreen, screen brightness hotkeys and sleep seem to work best on bleeding edge distros like Fedora, that also insist on using Wayland by default. Due to intel GPU being no bueno even on release date, and also a couple bugs in linux driver, i would suggest using X11 to have better input response.

In the end, Fedora setup i was using survived for about of month of almost daily use as a secondary machine, then got corrupted after another random crash.

I would only retry Linux on GPD if i had time to spend on a distro like Arch, Gentoo or NixOS. This machine is too weird and buggy to ever be fully supported by a mainstream "easy" distro.

Charger compatibility ​

GPD Pocket requires 9V USB-PD mode for charging, and therefore is incompatible with Nintendo Switch charger HAC-002 that can only do 5V and 15V.

Make sure amber LED on power button is on when performing OS and BIOS updates.

USB-C dongle compatibility ​

Quite a few reviews of this device mention issues with external display support through USB-C. These issues seem to be fixed now.

With Windows 11 23H2, BIOS and drivers updated, compatible dongle, and quality 9V USB-PD charger - i can use GPD Pocket with external 1080p display and battery level goes up even during high CPU utilization.

WARNING

Installing "optional driver updates" through Windows Update on Windows 11 23H2 breaks compatibility with every USB-C dongle i tested. At best, charging will work, and maybe USB-A port (but only if you disconnect charger).

Frequently asked questions ​

  • Is keyboard comfortable?
    • No.