GPD WIN Mini 2024 review with video – AMD Ryzen 8840U powered handheld gaming PC

The GPD WIN Mini 2024 is here and it’s our second 8840U based handheld gaming PC to review and compare. Let’s find out in our GPD WIN Mini 2024 review how it compares with the GPD WIN 4 2024.

GPD WIN Mini 2024 review video

Unboxing the GPD WIN Mini 2024

As always we start the GPD WIN Mini 2024 review with the unboxing. First out of the box we have an envelope containing the user guide which is in English and Chinese. Next we have the GPD WIN Mini 2024 itself, we will take a closer look at it shortly.

Underneath we have a USB Type-C charge cable and a charger. We will include the correct adapter for your country.

GPD WIN Mini 2024 overview

Next in our GPD WIN Mini 2024 review we will take a close look at the handheld gaming PC. The GPD WIN Mini 2024 measures around 6.6 x 4.2 x 1.02 in (16.8 x 10.9 x 2.6 cm) and weighs 520g.

The lid flips up to reveal a 7” LTPS touchscreen display with a 1920×1080 resolution and 60Hz and 120Hz variable refresh rate. It’s also worth noting this is a native landscape panel so you should not have any issues with older games.

The lower half is where all the action is, you have your standard gaming controls including hall effect analogues and a full QWERTY keyboard that is backlit.

As the portable game console is physically small, the keyboard is never going to match a laptop size keyboard. It is usable with thumb or one finger typing. The buttons do require some pressure to press so you wouldn’t be able to type fast or for very long. But for brief messages, logging into games or websites etc, it is perfectly fine.

Along the top we have shoulder and trigger buttons, a USB 4 and USB Type-C port. You can use the USB 4 port for connecting an eGPU such as the GPD G1. Following that is a toggle switch to change between gamepad and mouse input,  there is a micro SD card slot and a USB A port for peripherals. You will notice that the OcuLink port found in last year’s model is strangely missing in the 2024 model.

GPD WIN Mini 2024 Technical Specifications

We continue the GPD WIN Mini 2024 review with an overview of the technical specifications and also find out its battery life, highest fan noise and highest temperature.

CPU	AMD Ryzen 7 8840U
CORES/THREADS	8 cores, 16 threads
MAX CLOCK SPEED	Up to 5.1GHz
GPU	AMD Radeon 780M, 12 Compute Units
GPU CLOCK SPEED	Up to 2700MHz
DISPLAY	7″ LTPS touchscreen
REFRESH RATE	60Hz/120Hz VRR supported
RESOLUTION	1920×1080, 314 PPI
RAM	32GB/64GB LPDDR5 6400 MT/s
STORAGE	512GB/2TB m.2 PCIe 4.0 NVMe SSD
WI-FI	6
BLUETOOTH	5.2
I/O	1x USB4 (40Gbps), 1x USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-C (10Gbps), 1x USB A (10Gbps), 1x Micro SD card slot, 1x 3.5mm headphone/microphone combo jack
BATTERY	44.24 Wh Lithium Polymer
DIMENSIONS	16.8 x 10.9 x 2.5 cm
WEIGHT	520g

Powering it is a 44.24Wh battery which in our tests running Cinebench on a loop got us around 1 hour 38 minutes, around 18 minutes longer than the Win 4.. You are looking at around 6-8 hours average usage.

In our fan noise and temperature tests, also tested while running Cinebench, we got a highest fan noise of 68dB. And we got a highest temperature off 59 °C.

System Benchmarks

As part of our GPD WIN Mini 2024 review we will now run some system benchmarks. We use the results to compare with the GPD WIN 4 2024 handheld gaming computer, also with 8840U processor, as well as some of the previous gen 7840U series mobile game consoles.

PCMark

PCMark is more of your day to day tasks benchmark with everything from web browsing up to image editing.

We get a score of 6,841 on the GPD WIN Mini 2024. It’s in the higher end of the results as expected, although a little lower than the GPD WIN 4 2024.

Cinebench

Cinebench performs benchmarks to find out the CPU single and multi-core performance.

We got scores of 1,717 and 11,554 respectively. The single core performance is in line with the Win 4 24 which is good to see. We do see a bit of a drop in multi-core performance though.

3DMark

And 3DMark tests the CPU and GPU working together for gaming performance.

For Time Spy we get ever so slightly lower than expected performance with 2,953. For Night Raid we see scores on the lower end of the scale. And for Fire Strike we again see slightly lower than expected scores.

Gaming benchmarks

As always we will be performing the gaming benchmarks at 1080P and 720P resolution and at 5, 10, 15, 20 and 28W TDP to get a range of results for comparison. And while we are missing an OcuLink port, we can still connect an eGPU via the USB 4 port, so we will do some brief tests with the GPD G1 2024 as well.

Forza Horizon 5

We are running Forza Horizon 5 on the Very Low graphics settings.

We see good results across the 720P benchmark tests but as we go higher TDP we do see the performance drop when compared with the Win 4 2024. And at 1080P we see fairly low average frames per second.

Shadow of the Tomb Raider

We are running Shadow of the Tomb Raider on the Lowest graphics settings.

We see lower frames per second than the Win 4 2024 at 1080P. This continues across the benchmarks but improves as we lower the TDP.

Call of Duty Modern Warfare III

We are running Call of Duty MW3 on the Minimal graphics settings with no FSR enabled. We overall see very good results on the Win Mini 2024 here.

There’s a good mix of first and second place against the WIN 4 2024 which is good to see. Though at higher TDP we do see the performance drop on the GPD WIN Mini 2024.

Street Fighter VI

Our last game is Street Fighter VI on the highest graphics settings. At 1080P 28W TDP we see lower performance compared to the GPD Win 4 2024 and even the original GPD Win Mini compact gaming PC. It is only a frame or two difference but it is what it is.

Benchmark Summary

Here are the results for the compact gaming devices running the GPD G1 2024 eGPU docking station via USB on the internal display. 

Overall I think the integrated graphics results were slightly disappointing for the GPD WIN Mini 2024. When directly compared with the Win 4 2024, which has the same 8840U processor, we see generally higher results in favour of the Win 4 24. We know from the original Mini that it did perform slower due to the heat issues and this seems to be the same for the 2024 portable gaming PCs.

Gaming Performance

We could not miss testing some gaming performance as part of our GPD WIN Mini 2024 review. We will show a few games running at their best settings to keep above 60 FPS, or failing that 30. We recommend checking out the footage in the video above.

Emulation Performance

No GPD WIN Mini 2024 review would be without some emulation tests. We do see some emulation performance increases on up to 64bit systems which allows us to drop the TDP a little lower than the 7840U portable gaming computers from last year. For newer systems we see some improvements, but not massive as they do rely on the GPU more often than not.

Final Thoughts

We sum up our GPD WIN Mini 2024 review with our final thoughts on the mobile gaming PC. The GPD WIN Mini 2024 is an interesting handheld. If you have the original GPD WIN Mini model then there is not really enough difference to warrant an upgrade. And you do also lose the OcuLink port which does make a fair difference in performance when compared to USB 4 connections.

When compared to the Win 4 2024 we do see that the Mini has generally lower performance. I would have liked to see at least more of a balance of performance to make the Mini a viable option if you were deciding between the two. We are still waiting to check out the GPD WIN MAX 2 2024 which we think will be similar or better performance than the Win 4. Keep an eye out for that review and comparison.

Despite the slightly lower than ideal performance, the GPD WIN Mini 2024 does remain a great alternative to other similar handheld gaming PCs. If you are looking for something larger than the Win 4 and something smaller than the Win MAX 2, then it is the perfect solution. It remains one of my favourite handhelds for this reason.

You can learn more and order the GPD WIN Mini 2024 here. Use the discount code WINMINI5OFF on the Checkout for a 5% discount. Please note the code expires one month of posting this review and it can not be used during other store sales or promotions.

That wraps up our GPD WIN Mini 2024 review. Let us know in the comments what you think of the GPD WIN Mini 2024, is worth upgrading to or give this generation a miss?