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Bill Loguidice / How-To Geek
Summary
- The GPD Duo dual-screen laptop enhances productivity, but notable flaws inhibit its afloat potential.
- It's bulky and heavy, but versatile predisposition options with touchscreen and pen enactment marque it a almighty tool.
- The GPD Duo offers fantabulous show prime and performance, but has mediocre bundle stableness and a unspeakable trackpad.
Effective multi-display multitasking astatine location oregon the bureau is comparatively easy, but, erstwhile connected the go, not truthful much. The GPD Duo aims to boost your mobile productivity with a almighty dual-screen laptop. Unfortunately, notable issues clasp backmost its potential.
GPD DUO
The GPD Duo is simply a almighty dual-screen laptop with unsocial features, but suffers from mediocre bundle integration and prime of prime hardware components.
Pros & Cons
- Dual displays are productive
- Displays are bully quality
- Touch and pen input
- Video input for apical display
- Versatile orientations
- Terrible trackpad and fingerprint reader
- Bulky and heavy
- Unfriendly archetypal setup and updates
- Unstable astatine times
- No pen included
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Price and Availability
The GPD Duo is disposable from Amazon and nonstop from GPD successful a assortment of configurations starting astatine $1750, excluding merchantability pricing. The configuration successful this review, which features a Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 CPU, 64GG LPDDR5X RAM, and 2TB PCIe 4.0 2280 storage, is $2,200, excluding merchantability pricing.
Included successful the container is the laptop, 100W USB-C AC adapter, USB-C to USB-C cable, and paperwork.
Specifications
Operating System Windows 11
CPU Ryzen AI 9 HX 370
GPU Radeon 890M
RAM 64GB
Storage 2TB
Battery 80Wh, PD 3.0
Display (Size, Resolution) 2x 13.3-inch AMOLED; 2,880 x 1,800
Camera Yes
Speakers Stereo
Ports USB-A 3.2 Gen 2 (2), 3.5mm combo, SD card, USB-C 4.0 DP, USB-C 4.0, RJ45 Ethernet, Oculink, HDMI 2.1, USB-C DisplayPort Alt
Dimensions 11.69 x 8.25 x 0.94 inches
Weight 5 lbs.
Design and Hardware: Bulky and Comprehensive
Bill Loguidice / How-To Geek
The large upside to the GPD Duo is its built-in 13.3-inch dual displays. While determination are plentifulness of add-on mobile monitors that connect to an existing laptop display, it's undeniably convenient to person the 2nd show permanently attached, eliminating setup and cables. Of course, with this convenience comes immoderate bulkiness astatine 13 inches heavy erstwhile folded and a value of implicit 7 pounds.
Bill Loguidice / How-To Geek
Because the 2nd show is hinged, it tin beryllium folded wholly back, truthful the GPD Duo tin beryllium utilized arsenic a single-screen laptop. This flexibility allows the GPD Duo to beryllium utilized successful antithetic orientations, with the 2nd show facing retired towards the assemblage oregon folded successful to usage the laptop similar a tablet acknowledgment to its touchscreen and pen enactment for some displays.
There's immoderate wobble connected the apical surface erstwhile the laptop is afloat open, unless you usage the built-in kickstand. Even with the kickstand extended, the GPD Duo tin beryllium utilized connected your lap, though it does bounds the angles wherever the little surface tin beryllium positioned.
The achromatic backlit chiclet keyboard feels beauteous good, with reliable presses from its reasonably well-spaced keys. It's not my favourite laptop keyboard, but it meets expectations, dissimilar the trackpad.
Besides being connected the tiny broadside astatine astir 4.3-inches diagonal, trying to click connected a country of the trackpad requires a batch much unit than it should and conscionable feels awful. It tracks OK and supports the accustomed multi-finger gestures similar pinch-to-zoom, but overall, it's 1 of the worst trackpads I've utilized successful caller memory.
Bill Loguidice / How-To Geek
There are plentifulness of useful, high-performance ports, starting with 2 USB-A 3.2 Gen 2 ports connected the close side, which are adjacent to a powerfulness fastener that includes an embedded fingerprint reader. On the near broadside is simply a operation 3.5mm headphone and microphone jack, a full-size SD paper slot, a USB-C 4.0 DP larboard that supports up to 8K 60Hz output, a USB-C 4.0 larboard that supports throughput of up to 40GB/s, and a pinhole reset button.
Bill Loguidice / How-To Geek
On the rear is an RJ45 Ethernet port, Oculink port, and a full-size HDMI 2.1 output. The 2nd show has a carnal power for brightness and a USB-C larboard that supports DisplayPort Alt Mode for video input. This means that the 2nd show tin beryllium utilized for video output from compatible devices, but does not enactment audio. While the deficiency of audio is thing of a negative, having the enactment of utilizing the 2nd show independently with thing different than the laptop remains a unsocial worth proposition.
Bill Loguidice / How-To Geek
It's besides worthy noting that the keyboard, trackpad, and laptop lawsuit are each fingerprint magnets. Surprisingly, erstwhile utilizing the 2 displays arsenic touchscreens, they look much resistant to fingerprints than the remainder of the laptop.
Sights and Sounds: A Feast for the Eyes, Not Ears
Bill Loguidice / How-To Geek
Both displays are Samsung OLED panels with a 2,880 x 1,800 solution and 255 PPI pixel density. The brightness, detail, and colour are excellent, with 100% of the Adobe RGB and 133% of the sRGB colour gamuts. Each show lone has a 60Hz refresh rate, but since this is not a gaming laptop, it's not peculiarly important for either 1 to beryllium immoderate faster, peculiarly with a 1ms effect time.
Default scaling is 200% successful Windows 11, which I recovered a spot excessively large. Instead, 175% gave maine a spot much country to enactment without making the substance excessively tiny astatine each panel's autochthonal resolution.
While determination is precise small to kick astir with specified prime displays, determination are inactive a fewer issues to note. For one, due to the fact that of the constricted tilt scope of the bottommost show erstwhile besides utilizing the apical display, the erstwhile is acold much apt to prime up reflections. The 2nd is that, due to the fact that the apical sheet counts arsenic an outer DisplayPort display, erstwhile the laptop goes to sleep, it disconnects each time. On wake, it reconnects, and you'll request to determination your windows backmost onto its surface if you're utilizing it arsenic an extended show alternatively than a duplicate oregon 2nd surface only.
Bill Loguidice / How-To Geek
Both panels besides diagnostic 10-point interaction input, and 4,096 levels of unit sensitivity from Microsoft Pen Protocol-compatible pens. Unfortunately, nary pen is included, but I was capable to seamlessly usage the aforesaid pen from my Microsoft Surface Book 3. Thanks to its versatile orientations, the GPD Duo makes for an fantabulous touch- and pen-input platform.
The built-in webcam, which is astatine the apical of the bottommost display, is beauteous basal and doesn't enactment Windows Hello login. It maxes retired astatine a solution of 2,560 x 1,440 astatine 60 Hz and does a bully occupation nether antithetic lighting conditions. The built-in stereo microphone records clearly, but has minimal inheritance sound isolation capabilities. Other than immoderate space limitations erstwhile utilizing the kickstand, it's a webcam I'd person nary occupation utilizing for astir video conferencing needs.
The speakers endure a spot from a deficiency of bass, truthful they tin dependable level astatine times, but clarity, separation, and situation dependable simulation are excellent. Even astatine 100% volume, which tin capable a tiny room, there's lone flimsy muddiness. Interestingly, I didn't find a immense quality with measurement levels past 60%, truthful you tin mostly apical retired determination to prioritize clarity.
Benchmarks, Games, and Overall Performance: Buggy and Productive
Bill Loguidice / How-To Geek
You tin archer the GPD Duo is not needfully targeted astatine the North American wide market, due to the fact that some the manual and the archetypal Windows 11 setup default to Simplified Chinese. Of course, it's casual capable to flip to the English conception and prime the 3rd enactment aft Deutsch connected the Windows 11 setup, but it turns retired that this deficiency of streamlining extends beyond the archetypal boot.
For instance, erstwhile you get into Windows 11, you're lone initially provided a section account. If you privation to usage Windows 11 to its fullest, you'll request to acceptable up a connected Microsoft relationship similar immoderate different Windows laptop.
Related
Unfortunately, retired of the box, my GPD Duo didn't enactment with my Wi-Fi network. To circumvent this, I had to link the laptop via Ethernet, which did let it to summation an Internet connection, but past regular Windows updates didn't work. Instead, I had to spell to the authoritative GPD Firmware & Drivers site and usage Rufus to flash the AI 9 HX 370 ISO record update to a 64GB USB drive, past travel the instructions to overwrite the existing 2TB drive. While this did lick astir of my bundle issues, this is possibly the biggest of the galore examples, of however this instrumentality is not truly suitable for a mainstream audience.
Even applying GPD's ain regular updates, my laptop inactive occasionally crashes aft going to the Windows 11 desktop. Maybe a aboriginal update volition hole this, but aft galore months of usage, I'm not peculiarly hopeful.
The operation powerfulness fastener and fingerprint scholar is besides unreliable, astatine slightest for the second function. It usually works OK erstwhile I'm successful Windows, but erstwhile I powerfulness on, it often fails to work immoderate of my registered fingers to really login, forcing maine to benignant my pin code. The fingerprint scholar is much vexation than convenience.
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Outside its mediocre Windows 11 integration and stability, arsenic expected for a laptop with these specifications, show is excellent. It breezes done Microsoft Office, Adobe Photoshop, and much without issue. Especially with the dual displays, erstwhile the GPD Duo works, it’s large for productivity, which is borne retired with much nonsubjective benchmarks.
PCMark 10, which measures implicit strategy show for modern bureau needs utilizing tests based connected real-world applications and activities, gave a people of 7,291. That's amended than 87% of each results, beating retired a 2023 gaming laptop astatine 7,066, and not excessively acold down a 2023 gaming PC astatine 9.483.
While the GPD Duo is not a gaming laptop, it tin surely tally galore modern games astatine tenable framework rates astatine 1,920 x 1,080 (1080p) oregon 2,560 x 1,440 (1440p). The older Time Spy DirectX 12 gaming benchmark gives a graphics people of 3,528 and CPU people of 10,591, with a combined people of 3,920. That's amended than lone 9% of each results, supra a 2023 bureau laptop astatine 1,671, and beneath a 2023 fund gaming PC astatine 10,069. However, this inactive translates to tenable show successful galore games, particularly those that are a spot older. For instance, successful GTA V, you mightiness expect greater than 150 FPS astatine 1080p with Ultra settings, portion successful Battlefield V, you mightiness expect greater than 40 FPS astatine 1440p with Ultra settings.
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The slightest you request to cognize successful arsenic small clip arsenic possible.
Of course, portion you tin ever effort and tweak settings successful GPD's included Motion Assistant software to eke retired a spot much gaming performance, the DUO tin utilize an eGPU acknowledgment to its built-in Oculink port. A wide assortment of eGPU docking stations are available, including 1 from GPD themselves, the G1 2024, which retails for $700. This benignant of solution further reduces the portability of an already bulky laptop, but having the enactment to instrumentality gaming and graphical show to the adjacent level should you privation to is amended than not.
Wi-Fi and Ethernet show were fantabulous and some wrong the expected scope connected my TP-Link Deco BE22000 Wi-Fi 7 system. Over Wi-Fi, I averaged 19 sclerosis ping, 1,200 Mbps download, and 18 Mbps upload. On Ethernet, I averaged the aforesaid ping and upload, but with an adjacent amended download velocity of 2,100.
GPD promises up to 14 hours of artillery beingness from the 80Wr artillery if you crook disconnected the 2nd display, crook down the brightness connected the superior display, and bounds usage to airy activities similar web browsing oregon watching videos. More realistically, you'll get astir 5–10 hours, with usage of the 2nd show trending towards the little extremity of that estimate. Thanks to PD accelerated charging, you tin reconstruct astir fractional the battery's capableness successful astir 30 minutes if you usage the included AC adapter oregon equivalent.
Should You Buy the GPD Duo?
When the GPD Duo works, it's a fantastically productive setup acknowledgment to its high-quality dual displays. Unfortunately, this laptop is much experimentation than a valued companion. It has unstable interactions with the Windows 11 operating system, mediocre fingerprint recognition, a genuinely unspeakable trackpad, and is bulky.
If you're a method idiosyncratic who's capable to manually instal the assorted GPD-supplied updates, immoderate of which necessitate booting from a flash drive, and don't caput the occasional instability oregon different niggling issues, past you mightiness beryllium capable to get immoderate bully usage retired of what's a reasonably-priced, and powerful, touchscreen- and pen-based dual-display laptop. For the remainder of us, however, this is simply a conception we tin lone anticipation tin beryllium repackaged by immoderate different institution successful a much streamlined manner, adjacent if it's astatine a somewhat higher terms point. There's conscionable excessively overmuch imaginable present to discarded truthful galore bully ideas connected a not-quite-there powerfulness laptop.
GPD DUO
The GPD Duo is simply a almighty dual-screen laptop with unsocial features, but suffers from mediocre bundle integration and prime of prime hardware components.
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