The GPD XP Plus is a new version of the portable console under Android from the Chinese manufacturer GamePad Digital and arrives with improvements in performance, connectivity, storage and battery charging.
The enormous versatility of the use of smartphones has caused the fall from grace of several product categories, such as cameras. Also portable consoles. Sony left the market and Nintendo itself had to reinvent itself with the Switch to compensate for the drop in sales of the Nintendo 3D. The announcement of the Steam Deck by Valve was a shock and thus machines like the GPD XP came onto the market.
GPD XP Plus, more performance on the same concept
Digital GamePad bet by the same design as the previous version. Saving the distances, it has a clear “inspiration” in the Nintendo Switch and its controls removable. On the GPD XP Plus the controller on the left side is fixed and contains an analog stick, a D-Pad and three buttons for traditional Android navigation controls, while the one on the right side, attaches magnetically and can be swapped depending on the type of game.
The screen will be the same size, with a panel 6.81-inch IPS multi-touch, native resolution of 2400 x 1080 pixels and Corning Gorilla Glass 5 protection. The biggest news comes from the inside, with a MediaTek Dimensity 1200 SoC that should improve quite a bit on the (mediocre) performance of the previous Helio G95. In terms of memory, it mounts the same 6 Gbytes of LPDDR4x, but with a frequency increased to 4266 MHz. The same goes for storage, 128 Gbytes of capacity, but now it is a UFS 3.1 that can be expanded up to 2 Tbytes.
Another change comes from the wireless interface WiFi 6a great improvement over Wi-Fi 5. Also new is the ability of the USB Type-C port to support the Display Port 1.2 interface and the fast battery charge of 7,000 that it now supports 65 watts.
With Android 11 pre-installed, we will soon know availability and price, unofficially $399. It shouldn’t be much higher considering its approach to Google’s platform and that there are gaming smartphones with better hardware. Of course, the strong point of this GPD XP Plus will continue to be its drivers. The same manufacturer has other handheld machines like the GPD Win, more powerful and capable of running games beyond Android.
