GPD Win 3 brings PS3 portable to life with God of War III gameplay at 720p/30 fps

The GPD Win 3 might be an expensive piece of kit, with the crowdfunding price on Indiegogo listed at US$799, but it does come with a lot of attractive features and will likely find a multitude of fans. There is already evidence of this shown with the crowdfunding goal: HKD$18.6 million (US$2.4 million) from 2,578 backers with 34 days still left. Apart from looking sharp with its handheld console screen concealing a mini-laptop keyboard beneath it, the GPD Win 3 also boasts of having either an Intel Core i7-1165G7 or i5-1135G7 Tiger Lake processor with an Iris XE Graphics G7 iGPU and that all-important Thunderbolt 4 port.

It all sounds very appealing when talking about the GPD Win 3, but having a cool design and decent components doesn’t necessarily mean they will all work together in perfect harmony. Buyers need to see the GPD Win 3 in action, and turning it into a sort of PS3 portable is surely a good demonstration of this. Thanks to the use of a PS3 emulator, the GPD Win 3 was tested with a bout of God of War III, which was released for the PlayStation 3 in 2010. As can be seen in the video (see below), the frame rate does fluctuate quite a bit, with some parts lodged in the 20s and others hitting 60 fps. It’s not constantly 720p @30 fps, but the gameplay looks satisfactorily smooth enough throughout.

Of course there is a downside, being the battery life in this case. Battery life for the GPD Win 3 is mentioned as “2 to 3 hours” during heavy gaming, but you can be sure working as a PS3 portable greatly shortened that life expectancy. But with the PS Vita shelved and no sign of a future PlayStation portable system from Sony, this is simply yet another selling point for the GPD Win 3 with gamers who fancy another round with classics such as God of War III. The handheld console is still currently at the prototype stage with the company releasing frequent updates on the device’s development. Hopefully, there will be some work done on the button issues in the meantime.

Buy the GPD Win 2 on Amazon