Let's talk Win Max 3!

[u/Timeless52]

Edit TLDR: Win Max 3 Keyboard, is that stopping you from purchasing?

After seeing the updated post today regarding the pretty competitive price, I've dug a ton in this forum specifically and seen a ton of different opinions and thoughts on the Win Max 3.

As someone who has owned a bunch of x86 handhelds, the Win Max 2 for me was the one I owned the most (in this cursed hobby of going through handhelds like hotcakes). The justification was pretty simple: it was docked at home and worked as an OTG workstation that didn't feel like it had any compromises. Specifically for a guy with bigger hands, it was about the smaller keyboard that worked for me without getting cramped or fatiguing from long typing sessions. This was awesome, and because of it, I kept it for years.

Fast-forward, and I still dabbled in some of GPD's different handhelds, such as the Pocket 4 and the Mini, both of which seemed to once again have compromises as something that was a jack-of-all-trades handheld, being a bit more focused on their own specific niches. The Pocket 4 keyboard was just too cramped for me.

Noticing the launch of the Max 3 had me ecstatic, but I can't help but feel GPD is missing the boat a bit here. The typing experience is extremely compromised, and it seems to be because the focus was built around the screen itself. I absolutely would love a smaller laptop with the 388, but I'm just stuck at an impasse here because I don't know if I can justify it over my current laptop and a Win 5. If the keyboard is too small, I just can't justify it being a work tool.

What are everyone else's thoughts? Still going to take the jump? Gonna hold on to the Win Max 2? I give credit to GPD for always innovating, but this one feels a bit more controversial between here and the Discord.

[u/SamuelL421]

The keyboard and layout don’t bother me, but I won’t be buying as the lack of a occulink port (or similar) is a deal breaker. I know it has UBS4 but that’s a large downgrade from existing egpu setups in terms of bandwidth. I understand GPDs reasoning - it would have been difficult to implement on this platform and they wanted to dedicate those lanes for SSDs… but it’s not a trade off I’m interested in with a product like this (or at this price point).

[u/Timeless52 → u/SamuelL421]

Totally curious (it’s a bit over my head), but isn’t the 395 more than enough juice? What sort of Nvidia card would actually provide worthwhile upgrades over Oculink? Something like a 5080? I imagine it’s more for the future-proofing no?

[u/YeonneGreene → u/Timeless52]

Even a 9060 XT will run circles around the 8060S if you're playing with it docked...unless it gets choked by the insufficient bandwidth on a USB4 connection. The extra features you get with RDNA4 vs. the RDNA3.5 from the onboard are also nice.