Something to sit up for: The latest surge in handheld gaming PCs has been made potential partially as a consequence of AMD’s cellular APUs, however Intel may disrupt issues. A brand new entrant out there would possibly present an early preview of the corporate’s forthcoming Meteor Lake chips, that are anticipated to deliver a couple of basic redesign of the corporate’s structure.
Chinese {hardware} firm Emdoor lately launched its entry into the rising handheld gaming PC market. The system carefully resembles latest merchandise from Lenovo, Asus, GPD, and Valve, however below the hood, it runs on a processor from Intel’s upcoming Meteor Lake collection.
Named the EM-GP080MTL, this Windows 11 moveable gaming system contains a Meteor Lake-H CPU, built-in graphics based mostly on Intel Arc 5, and an 8-inch 16:10 1,920 x 1,200 LCD display – though the corporate did not specify the refresh fee. It helps as much as 32 GB of LPDDR5X RAM and as much as 2 TB of PCIe 4 NVMe storage.
It’s unclear how this technique compares to the quite a few opponents using variations of AMD’s 7000U-based Z1 collection, such because the GPD Win 4, Asus ROG Ally, Steam Deck, and Lenovo Legion Go. However, Emdoor demonstrated its product operating God of War with out apparent efficiency points, and its menu display suggests the power to play titles like Elden Ring, indicating AAA gaming capabilities just like the AMD-based handhelds.
One notable side of the EM-GP080MTL is its TDP, which ranges between 20 and 35 watts, whereas not one of the 7000U merchandise exceed 30 watts. This may give it a bonus over the competitors, albeit at the price of battery life (the Steam Deck, as an illustration, conserves vitality by staying below 14W). However, it is nonetheless untimely to make performance-per-watt comparisons between Meteor Lake and the AMD APUs.
Moreover, the Arc graphics chip helps Intel’s XeSS upscaling know-how, which may improve picture high quality sufficiently for an 8-inch display at resolutions effectively beneath the native 1200p in supported video games, considerably enhancing efficiency. Impressions from earlier this yr relating to this characteristic have been constructive.
In phrases of type issue, the handheld follows a typical design. It contains a full set of gamepad inputs, together with two again paddles and two USB-C ports. Two extra buttons on the entrance of the system enable for OS-level menu entry to manage energy profiles and different choices. Emdoor did not point out exterior GPU assist, which another moveable PCs use for further processing energy when docked.
The firm has not supplied particulars on a launch date or worth but, however the EM-GP080MTL may probably launch in time for Meteor Lake’s December 14 debut, making it one of many first merchandise to showcase its capabilities. Intel’s upcoming CPU lineup marks probably the most important architectural change in years, that includes AI accelerators and a chiplet-based design. While the collection primarily targets notebooks, it has the potential to be well-suited for handheld gaming.
Image credit score: Notebook Italia