GPD Win Mini – the clamshell king of 2025

As 2025 concludes, the Win Mini 2025 deserves particular attention: it represents the third generation of GPD’s clamshell design and, thanks to its AMD Ryzen™ AI 9 HX 370 processor, stands as the most powerful clamshell-format handheld computer available. This year’s refresh represents not merely a cosmetic update, but a thoughtfully engineered evolution addressing the practical limitations of its predecessor.

Despite visual similarities to the 2024 model, the engineering differences run considerably deeper than initial appearances suggest:

  • Enhanced Processing Power: The new AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 APU delivers significant improvements in performance, featuring 12 cores, 24 threads, and a boost clock of 5.1 GHz.
  • Comprehensive Thermal Redesign: The cooling system has been completely overhauled to accommodate the new APU’s thermal demands (28–35W TDP).
  • Standardized Storage Format: The 2025 model adopts standard M.2 2280 SSDs (replacing the 2230 form factor), dramatically expanding available upgrade options.
  • Ergonomic Material Refinement: The rear chassis now features a matte plastic finish that is more pleasant to the touch and reduces glare and fingerprinting compared to glossy surfaces.
  • Improved Input Ergonomics: The joystick mode toggle switch has been repositioned for more convenient access.

Notably, relatively few internal components are carried over from the previous generation, underscoring the depth of this redesign rather than a typical point revision.

Technical Specifications

Specification Value
Processor Options AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX 370
CPU Cores / Threads 12 / 24 (HX 370)
Base / Max Boost Clock 2.0 GHz / 5.1 GHz
Manufacturing Process TSMC 4nm (Strix Point architecture)
Cache 36.75 MB
Memory 64GB LPDDR5x-7500 MT/s (configurable to 8000 MT/s)
AI Performance (NPU) 50 TOPS
Total Computing Power 80 TOPS (CPU + GPU + NPU)
TDP (Configurable) 28–35W

The USB4 port enables connection to external GPU docks (such as the GPD G1), effectively converting the Win Mini into a desktop machine when docked.

The Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 represents a significant architectural advancement. Unlike previous-generation processors that treated the NPU as an ancillary accelerator, Zen 5’s XDNA 2 NPU is fully integrated into the compute fabric, enabling on-device inference of quantized models like GPT OSS 20B without cloud dependencies.

The 64GB configuration, with LPDDR5x memory at 7500 MT/s (configurable to 8000 MT/s), enables practical local inference of mid-tier language models like Qwen 3 Next 80B and PrimeIntellect-3 106B with acceptable latencies.

Detailed performance test results for the GPD Win Mini 2025, including comparative analysis against the previous generation and contemporary handheld devices, are available in the comprehensive benchmarking study linked below:
Benchmarking UMPCs of the second epoch.

Conclusion

Handheld computing enthusiasts rightfully prioritize portability — it’s the defining characteristic that distinguishes these devices from traditional computers. Any form factor expansion carries inherent risk.

The Win Mini 2025’s slight increase in size is offset by substantive engineering gains. The new Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 delivers strong multi-core improvements, while the thermal redesign maintains safe temperatures and reasonable acoustics. Standard M.2 2280 storage now enables practical upgradeability with hundreds of available options. These improvements address real limitations of the previous generation—genuine friction points that affected daily usability.

New Guide: Gentoo Linux on GPD Pocket 3

We’re pleased to present the sixth article in our "Gentoo installations" series, dedicated to configuring Gentoo Linux on a modern second-generation UMPC – the GPD Pocket 3 with Intel i3-1125G4 processor.

This comprehensive guide covers all aspects of installing and configuring Gentoo on this unique portable computer: from compiling an optimized kernel to setting up automatic screen rotation with touchscreen and stylus support. Special attention is given to the specific features of Tiger Lake architecture and portrait display orientation.

Key topics covered:

  • Optimized kernel 6.15.4 configuration with full hardware support
  • X11 setup with hardware acceleration
  • Full touchscreen, digitizer, and Surface Pen support
  • Automatic screen orientation management
  • Power management and suspend/hibernate functionality
  • ACPI events and multimedia key handling

The new article is available at Gentoo on a GPD Pocket 3.

Previous publications with Gentoo installation instructions for various handheld computers are available in the Gentoo installations section.

Pinephone – a slate phone, convertible into a clamshell

The Pinephone is a smartphone developed by Pine64, intended to allow users to have full control over the device. It runs plenty of GNU/Linux distributions and provides six physical kill switches, which allow disabling hardware components.

The smartphone itself looks like an ordinary slate phone. However, there is the keyboard case accessory, which converts the device into a clamshell Linux handheld.

Despite the fact that Pine64 developers were inspired by the Psion Series 5 keyboard, the Pinephone keyboard is not as comfortable to type on as the Gemini PDA keyboard. Besides that, the device is quite bulky when the keyboard is attached.

Nevertheless, it seems to be the most affordable Linux handheld with a physical keyboard, a 5.5-inch display, and a wide range of connectivity options. Do not expect high performance, though.

Overall, the Pinephone with the keyboard case is a nice toy for a nerd.

Android keyboard layout for TK-FBP018

Introduction

In my opinion, ELECOM TK-FBP018 is one of the best portable bluetooth keyboards available on the market today. As you can see, the keyboard layout is quite different from the default US English keyboard. This note presents the Android key layout for this keyboard written by me.

Layout description

The keyboard layout is represented on the image below.

TK-FBP018-original-layout

It offers two key maps: English and Russian . The English key map is colored in black. It’s almost identical to the key map printed on the keyboard. The Russian key map is colored in green. The Caps lock toggles between the two key maps.

If you want to adapt the key map for some other language, just replace the capslock and capslock+shift mappings with desired unicode codes in the kcm-file.

How to install

Just copy the key character file Vendor_056e_Product_1018.kl to /system/usr/keylayout/ and the key layout file Vendor_056e_Product_1018.kcm to /system/usr/keychars/.

You need to have root access to do this. Also make sure that permissions to these files are 0644 and the owner is root:root.

In case of any troubles with the layout (for example, when it doesn’t seem to be loaded when you connect the keyboard), see the system log using the logcat command.

Useful links

  1. Key Layout Files from official Android documentation.
  2. Key Character Map Files from official Android documentation.
  3. Tutorial: A custom android layout for logitech tablet keyboard – a very detailed instruction for creating custom key maps for Android.

Update from 17 Jan 2015

After few weeks of usage, I decided to modify the keyboard kayout in order to make it as close to the ordinary qwerty-layout as possible. This image repesents the result:

TK-FBP018-ordinary-layout

The corresponding keyboard layout files are here: kcm, kl.