Why it matters: GPD has spent the past year updating its various ultra-portable PC models to AMD's Ryzen AI chipset, substantially improving their gaming and AI performance. Although the company's latest product, the MicroPC 2, instead uses a low-power Intel Twin Lake CPU, it shares the GPD Pocket 4's updated design at half the price.
Pre-orders for GPD's upcoming MicroPC 2 are now open. With shipping set to begin in September, early-bird pricing for the 7-inch Windows 11 PC with a swivel display starts at $495, around half the cost of the company's other 2025 handhelds.
Starting with last year's GPD Pocket 4, the Hong Kong-based ultra-portable PC maker has rapidly released new models in multiple form factors featuring Ryzen AI 9 processors and Radeon 800M series GPUs. Although the lineup offers better-than-Steam-Deck performance in variants resembling a Sony PSP or a nano laptop, they typically cost over $1,000.
Users waiting for an update to GPD's sub-$500 model from 2019 receive a substantial spec upgrade with the MicroPC 2. Like the GPD Pocket 4, it features various modern expansion ports, a fingerprint scanner, and a touchscreen that turns 180 degrees and folds over the keyboard, essentially making it a pocket 2-in-1.
Although the new Intel N250 Twin Lake CPU maintains the original MicroPC's 4-core, 4-thread arrangement, the boost clock frequency increases from 2.6 GHz to 3.8 GHz, while the L3 cache expands from 4 MB to 6 MB. According to GPD, the MicroPC 2 quintuples its predecessor's Geekbench 6 Vulkan GPU score and exceeds the older model's single-core CPU score by more than an order of magnitude.
Additionally, the newer model supports up to three 4K 60Hz external monitors through an HDMI 2.1 port and two DisplayPort 1.4 USB-C ports. Two additional 10Gbps USB 3.2 Gen2 Type-A ports are also included.
The 1.08-pound, 6.74 x 4.36 x 0.92-inch pocket PC comes with 512GB of storage as standard and supports expansions through PCIe 3.0 NVMe SSDs and microSD cards. The only available memory configuration offers 16 GB of LPDDR5 RAM.
Although the MicroPC 2 ships with Windows 11 24H2, it also supports version 6.14.3 of the stable Linux kernel, allowing users to install Android, ChromeOS, Ubuntu, Debian, and other distros.
GPD's spec sheets compared the 2019 model favorably to the original Microsoft Surface Go, and the MicroPC 2 might have more significant advantages over the Surface Go 3. It has a higher-resolution touch screen, 2-in-1 functionality, and more ports in a package that is nearly a pound and a half lighter and hundreds of dollars cheaper.