Well, I played around with the GPD Win quite a bit now, so I can give you some insights.
Be aware though: People might think I'm biased, I don't think I really am though, as I like new hardware as much as anyone here
Be also aware that the GPD Win I have is a prototype, so some things might still change for the final unit. The Pyra isn't much better in some regards here.. but yes, they're both prototypes. Prototypes are made to test and tweak the hardware to improve it, so there WILL always be some issues.
Okay, here's my opinion of the Win:
- The case quality is nice. It's the same material as the GPD Win. Design is okay, but also too curvy for my opinion, but that's personal taste, as someone else mentioned before above The material loves fingerprints though, so it's not my favourite, but most devices these days are fingerprint magnets.
- The processor power is incredible for such a small device. it's neat being able to play games like Civilization 4, etc. The downside is though: It also heats up quite a bit and eats the battery. Even doing nothing but running Windows, the CPU reaches over 60°C, just with webbrowsing, you reach over 75 - 80°C... gaming increases the heat even more. It's a nice hand heater. Haven't made extensive tests of the battery, but it seems to last for a few hours only. Charging while using it is nigh impossible (it charged 4% within 3 hours), but that might be same with the Pyra (we'll find out soon!). It doesn't really help that Windows isn't exactly optimized to use as little ressources as possible. Maybe with Linux this'll get better. I haven't done extensive heating tests with the Pyra, but the Intel CPU surely gets a lot hotter than the the OMAP5 when doing simple things like webbrowsing or idling. So yes: Incredible power in exchange of heat and battery life. I can fully understand why GPD chose to add a fan though.
- Gaming controls: Mostly the same as with the GPD XD, so they're mostly okay (the DPad isn't my favourite one, but it's not bad).
- The keyboard... oh yes. The keyboard. Actually, it's worse than I expected, sadly. The feel of it is okay, I'm not a fan of clicky keys, but they work fine. However, the left-aligned keyboard causes more issues than I expected. For a simple reason: You can't really type blind. When using a keyboard, your fingers usually have some reference. On a normal keyboard it's the space and SHIFT-Keys for example. On a mobile keyboard, I think it's the palm of your hands. My brain expects a centered keyboard (as every keyboard in a mobile system I've seen yet is centered). This means: When I'm typing in the dark, I often miss the key I want to press and end up pressing the one two or three to the right of that key instead. It might work if you train a lot, but for me, it was impossible to type in the dark - and I never had that issues with the Pandora, N900, Xperia Pro or Droid4. So yes... it's nice to have it to enter your name or similar for a game, but I wouldn't want to use it for typing longer texts.
- The mouse / Joypad / XBox-Controller-switch: This seems to be an off-the-shelf-solution. When you flick the switch, Win10 registers different USB-devices. That's probably the reason they couldn't set it up to use the DPad in mouse mode... so as far as I figured out, there are three configurations: 1. Joypad-Mode: Both analog sticks, the keyboard and the buttons behave like a joypad. 2. Mouse Mode: Right analog stick: Move mouse: Left analog stick: Scroll Wheel (not working very well right now). DPad and ABXY: Disabled. Shoulderbuttons: Mouse buttons. 3. XBox-Mode: Similar to Joypad mode, but they all register as XBox-Controller. Right now, you certainly can't use the mouse together with the DPad at once.
So this is my current experience. As mentioned: Take this with a grain of salt. It's a prototype. Power usage might be different. The mouse/Joypad-Mode might be different. This is the current state. The Pyra also has a lot of issues in its current state. That's normal.
Is the GPD Win worth it? Yes. If you love playing Wndows games, you will love the GPD Win.
Is it better than the Pyra? No. It's different. It focusses on being a portable Windows gaming machine. The Pyra focusses on being more universal and being more open. It's more expensive and slower, but focusses on details like the replacable battery or the backlit keyboard which is a lot more usable for me. But it will never play Windows games as good as the Win. So which one you like and prefer depends on what you want to do with it.
