GPD Pocket 2
I have to admit, i am a sucker for very very small laptops. I had quite a few of those, although always long after their hayday. They where neither necessary nor useful enough to justify the expense in comparison to my usually very limited budget. In recent time, that got better. The budget, not my lack of sensibility. I ain't sensible. And when i stumbled upon a decent offer for a used one one of these in really good condition, i jumped on to it. And i really love it! So cute!
And it's actually quite useful in a way. It fits in many pockets, in any fully stuffed backpack and its so light i usually not even care. And if i need to do something for which a phone is ill suited, its usually at least moderately up to the task.
Performance
Somewhat Meh but then ok-ish. Really depends on what you want. Web browsing is a bit sluggish but totally bearable. Video playback in HD is no problem. Thanks to the decent amount of RAM even multiple tabs are usually no problem.
Some big application may take some time to start, the eMMC is not the fastest thing in the world. Heavy Java-Applications can be a bit annoying. NetBeans for example take some ten seconds to start the first time. But then, using it is fine again. For my very small projects at least. May be totally different for larger Projects.
I did not try, but really demanding tasks like video editing will probably be a pain. Games may work though. Depends on the game. The integrated Intel GPU is new enough to be rather capable. Older and less demanding games may work like on many common modern notebooks without dedicated GPU. Except when they are CPU limited.
But then, really, for what it is, its fine. There are some faster, similar small devices, but those are very expensive. That said, its fine for me, but it may be unusable for you.
System
- GPD Pocket 2, 2019 7" UMPC, 513g # Less than a kilo with powerbank, mouse, psu, cables and bag
- UEFI Boot ✓
- ACPI events ✓, ACPI keys ✓
- S2R ✓, S2D ?
- power consumption 1.9W # Great!
- Intel Core m3-3965Y SOC (2 Cores, 1.5GHz, 6W TDP)
- cpufreq ✓ # via pstates
- turbo ?
- 8GB LPDDR3
- Intel HD 615 ✓
- 128GB eMMC5
- 1 USB 3 Type C Port ✓ + PD ✓ + DP ✓ # PD works on PD/QC phone chargers supplying 9V or more
- 2 USB 3 Type A Ports ✓
- Intel Wireless 3165 (802.11a/b/g/n/ac) ✓ # only g and n tested
- Managed Mode ?
- Bluetooth 4.2 ✓
- Sunrise Point Audio ✓
- Headset connector ✓
- Speakers ✓ # Sound is bearable for voice
- Microphone ?
- 7" 16:10 glossy 1920x1200 H-IPS ✓ # by default in portrait mode see section "Display"
- Touch ✓
- Brightness control ✓
- Pointing device ✓ # Optical sensor, kinda like a trackpoint. Works for me :)
- Keyboard ✓ # two keys have the same scancode
- Battery 26Wh ✓ # internal, replaceable
Display and Touch
Works out of the the box with Fedora 35, except that the screen is in portrait mode. Can be rotated by usual means, though. I use gnome's screen settings. Works fine, except that boot and login are still rotated. But i do not really care. Touch was always rotated correctly. But i mostly tested with Fedora's default Wayland, not much with Xorg. Seemed to work there too, though.
HiDPI
The resolution is a bit krass, 1920x1200 on 7". To much to be comfortable (and i like small print!). But the default HiDPI setting on gnome seems to be 2 times, which is way to big then.
Keyboard
Small, obviously, but quite good. Decent feedback and hub. Works out of the box. As far as i am concerned, all keys are there.
On thing, though: two of the keys send the same scancodes. One can install the japanese keyboard firmware, then they send different keycodes (but the labeling is then wrong). No worry, the japanese firmware seems to have no other consequence.
Pointing device
Is a bit fiddly. I guess its basically a common optical sensor like it would be in an mouse, but mounted upside down. One just moves a fingertip above it to move the cursor. A bit like a optical version of the classic trackpoint. I mean, it works. Better than just the touchscreen. But still, a bit fiddly. If you liked the classic trackpoint you will probably be ok with this thing.
Works out of the box. Has to dedicated buttons. Not perfect, but a decent compromise.
Power supply
So far i could power the thing from any USB Type C (and Type A with QuickCharge) charger which could deliver at least 9 Volts. Very nice.