GPD Pocket

[Mr_Loon]

Found a deal on GearBest (£374 with free USB-C Hub and case) so decided to splurge. Arrived in 6 days, which was a surprise - and no customs fees etc.

Did you get lucky here (i.e. was the item labeled with the correct price on the outer packaging) or did they ship it describing it as a low value item on the packaging thus exempting it from fees without actual inspection? The latter seems to be the norm based on the couple of items I've bought from China where I expected to pay customs fees.

 

[torpor]

Yeah, one thing about GearBest - they screw you completely by being dishonest with the shipping labels and customs invoice. Mine (from GearBest) also took an extra 2 weeks to get through customs just because they put a fake shipping invoice in the package and the Austrian customs didn't like that one bit - they held it until I (or GearBest) provided real details about the package. I had to send them the Payment receipt, a copy of the original web order (lucky I kept it) or else they'd just deny the package and send it back. I even had to pay customs duties on the "free case and USB hub" that GearBest included, simply because GB had stated these items cost eu0- .. when I called customs, they even looked it up on GearBests' website, saw the normal prices for the case and hub and decided to levy tax on it - all because GearBest had stated the value of the GPD Pocket was eu100,- ..

So if its not there yet and you suspect it, call your customs officials and explain it to them - possibly they're holding it because of GearBests' dishonesty.. which they (GB) will explain to you as them doing you a favour so you don't have to pay customs duties, but it backfires. GearBest have a *bad* reputation with customs officials, at least in Austria, and they *always* get flagged for dual inspection..

 

[ZXDunny]

That's exactly what they did with mine - listed it as 100 euro in value, and sent it through germany to the UK. Didn't get held up though, but I suspect that was more by luck than judgement.

 

[OppositeDay]

Looks really nice, I'd probably order one if it had LTE/telephony. (I don't really care about gaming controls.)

 

[pmprog]

So if its not there yet and you suspect it, call your customs officials and explain it to them - possibly they're holding it because of GearBests' dishonesty.. which they (GB) will explain to you as them doing you a favour so you don't have to pay customs duties, but it backfires. GearBest have a *bad* reputation with customs officials, at least in Austria, and they *always* get flagged for dual inspection..

Well, I've tried calling our HMRC for imports and exports, and it's the usual automated crap, and it always leads me to "tracking a parcel" which it responds with "You need to call your delivery agent"

 

[levi]

In my experience of paying for stuff with unpaid dues on it, it was held in my local post sorting office (the same place you go when they can't deliver something) and when I went there they wanted money to cover the unpaid dues and a handling fee for their trouble, which cost me almost as much as the original thing was worth, which was a pain (but that was for a $60 gizmo from kickstarter - no idea how or if it scales).

They should have put a card through your door, but you know how reliable they are at doing that these days.

 

[pmprog]

Well, GearBest gave me a Yodel tracking reference, but Yodel claim they've not even received the parcel yet. GearBest have said they're looking into it. I guess I'll just have to wait a bit longer.

 

[levi]

Ah okay, ignore that about the post office then; they won't know. I thought I recalled you saying it was coming via yodel, but on looking back I couldn't find you saying that on this page or the last. At least someone's looking into it.

 

[pmprog]

Got an email the other day saying they've reshipped me a new unit by DHL, had to pay some customs of £25, but it's landed at my house today. Looking forward to checking it out when getting home

 

[ZXDunny]

I got a bill through from DHL for a similar amount about two days ago - which considering the hefty discount from GearBest was not a problem. Enjoy your unit, it's really worth the cost.

 

[pmprog]

I'd prefer it if I could drop down to win7, or I might try and install a "pro" version of win 10 (if I have a licence) to try and get rid of some of the win10 cruft.

That said, it is a very nice device, heavier than I was expecting, some of the keys feel like they are in the wrong place, but will get used to all that.
[doublepost=1508786929,1508785165][/doublepost]What's the "film" thing that's in the case? Is it a screen protector?

 

[elwing]

@pmprob shutup10 does take care of lots of windows 10 issues...
https://www.oo-software.com/fr/shutup10

 

[pmprog]

Thanks, will take a look.

WiFi seems shockingly slow copying a 1gb file. Don't know how to get win 10 to update, but will check tomorrow, or track down driver installs or what not

 

[ZXDunny]

This fixed slow downloads for me :

YMMV, natch.

 

[rygD]

Got an email the other day saying they've reshipped me a new unit by DHL, had to pay some customs of £25, but it's landed at my house today. Looking forward to checking it out when getting home

So you got two? That would be awesome!

 

[pmprog]

So you got two? That would be awesome!

It would be, but no... The first one didn't/hasn't turned up. The Yodel tracking still says they've not had it. Maybe one day it'll find it's way to me, but I doubt it. I suspect it's more likely that customs somewhere has returned it back to GearBest, or a person in the courier chain has decided (s)he wanted a surprise present.

I'm still installing all my software, but it does feel pretty good. Still hitting a few wrong keys at the minute though. Not tried much to check performance, but VS2013 loaded up pretty quickly after it installed.

It is also making me wonder what I should do with my Pyra pre-order. The only benefit the Pyra would give me over what the Pocket provides would be the cell modem and GPS, which the GPD doesn't have (though it can be tethered to my phone). I would like very much to get Android off my phone too. So in a way, a Pyra Phone would probably be a better option for me now, but there's no guarentee if and when that'll happen.

 

[ZXDunny]

Yeah, the Pocket was an astonishingly nice little beast when I got it, and it's even better now that I'm used to it - particularly the keyboard. The Win10 Creator's update runs just fine and actually fixes a few issues I was having with charging, and it's filling that niche in my life that the Pyra would have occupied had it been available.

 

[vcoleiro1]

The only issue I have with keeping the Pyra as a 4G data source for web browsing is what happens when countries start moving to 5G . I'd hate to keep using 4G once 5G is out. Maybe ED will update the Pyra to 5G at that time. But then it would be painful to upgrade the Pyra just for 5G. Well I suppose the alternative is then to buy a new phone which isn't great either. Would have been nice if the 4G in the Pyra was modular and swappable. Does anyone know if it is?

 

[levi]

I still use a 3G only phone. I don't browse the web on it much these days, which I guess means I'm not doing anything with it that couldn't be done on 2G if the coverage was as good as 3G is here. I haven't heard they're turning that off any time soon, and I guess the only reason 2G isn't as good as 3G is that by the time they were expanding the coverage to cover all the nooks and crannies here 2G was starting to become old hat, so they went 3G only.

On the Pyra, I believe everything to do with the 4G is on the peripheral/main board. Maybe he'll have a new revision of that with USB-C (and a new case) or with a better cooling solution down the line, which you could get for free with a 5G upgrade.

 

[pmprog]

I'm not sure about my WiFi drivers. Copying files over my network was awful and kept kicking me out with network errors; even just browsing a remote share kept causing Explorer to lock up; however, downloaded quite a few files from the internet without any problem whatsoever. Is Windows 10 Explorer just broken?

The only issue I have with keeping the Pyra as a 4G data source for web browsing is what happens when countries start moving to 5G

What about when 6G comes in then? or 7G? Seriously though, I have a Wileyfox Swift, which is a 4G phone. On my wife's phone (which is also a Swift) I will frequently see "3G" and "4G" symbols on her data connection. I never get anything other than H. Maybe this is a sim card issue? As I'm still on "Orange", despite Orange not being in existance here in the UK. Perhaps EE decided because of my setup they won't give me the new toys.

Would have been nice if the 4G in the Pyra was modular and swappable. Does anyone know if it is?

Well, as the Pyra consists of two boards, I'd say yes it's swappable, it's just not on it's own. I can't remember which board it's on, but I imagine whichever it is, you'll be able to buy a replacement board